I came across this viral video the other day. Yeah, I’m a little slow in noticing viral trends. So in the video, a middle-aged woman was being filmed, and it seemed like she was being harassed by a pack of three girls who were urging her to repeat some statement she made earlier. It turns out the woman had ridiculed one of those girls earlier in front of an entire restaurant for wearing a short dress.
My first reaction? Really?
Why would anyone have a problem with what anyone is wearing?
My second thought was of disbelief. I hadn’t expected such cavalier foolhardiness from women. I have always considered females to be the more rational and emotionally intelligent counterparts of the masculine gender. Men are inherently and genetically impulsive. Males were after all the quintessential hunters who had to think on their feet when an animal attacked. Women, on the other hand, have enjoyed a calmer and well-thought approach to problems. It seems the tides have turned in the 21st century.
The woman in question was of the opinion that wearing a short skirt means you are intentionally inviting someone to rape you.
First of all, if there is a man who wants to rape a woman because she is wearing a bikini the problem is not the bikini but the mindset of that man. Secondly, it doesn’t matter what a woman or anyone else for that matter is wearing. A psychotic person will rape, kill, maim someone regardless of what he or she is wearing. And that is because his intentions are evil, not because the jeans were a little too tight or the shirt a little too revealing. On the other hand, even if a girl is naked in front of a man who is honorable and knows what’s good for him, will not force himself on her.
Finally, I don’t understand this correlation of a girl wearing short clothes to getting raped. I mean yes girls wearing short clothes have gotten raped but so have girls who do wear full bodied clothes.
Infact what about the two-year-old girl and the sixty-year-old woman who was raped and killed brutally? What were they wearing that incited this hateful act against them? According to the woman in the video the people who do that are psychic. I agree totally. But she’s forgetting one thing. The entire breed of rapists is psychotic (psychic means something different). A person who thinks he or she can prove himself or herself to be superior to others by exercising his power over another human being is not only psychotic; he’s also weak in the mind. You don’t have to be Einstein to figure this one out.
I can’t, however, understand the habit of blaming the victim for a crime which has been committed against him/her. There are people many people -or living headaches- who think they are responsible for maintaining order in this world and go around advising everybody how they should live their life not limiting themselves to girls’ clothing. You can find these wannabe saviors and verbal bullies in every corner of the world. These hypocrites think that what has been followed for generations in our country must be true. Well though I am a man of tradition, I don’t see any logic in telling someone how to live their life.
Yes, we live in a democracy and have freedom of speech and expression. But a person’s freedom ends where their words or actions start hurting someone physically or mentally. You have the freedom to live your life in any way you want, but you don’t have any right to interfere in anybody else’s lifestyle unless it impinges your rights. In our society when people can’t find happiness in their own life, they start lecturing other people on their life not knowing that the constant barrage of hatred and malice won’t fine-comb their own life.
For those who think women or even men wearing western clothes are going against our culture and tradition, I’d like to advise “Learn our culture better.” In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, when Bhishma questions Lord Krishna about the nature of time, the great deity says that everyone in this world has to change with time. Those who don’t change with time, time itself brings change to them as it does to every atom of this universe inevitably.
In response to my own question that I have posed to my readers, if a girl wants she can wear a skirt, pants or a bikini. With that, I think she should also wear a t-shirt that says ‘Mind Your Own Business’ so that the self-proclaimed teachers of the society know what they are supposed to do. You know it’s easy to get confused when you are a bully.
Suburban Wordsmith 