On men & mini-skirts
On Tuesday, Varaidzo blogged about the sexual harassment she witnessed on her way to work on one morning, when she saw a woman in a mini-skirt being tormented by a heckling mob.
We shared this in our email newsletter this week, and received a number of comments from readers about the post – some more sympathetic than others.
We welcome your comments on the original blog, or on the responses below.
I miss home so much but sometimes being away from all that madness is a good break. I was that girl a few years ago, I remember feeling so terrified as they shook the kombi back and forth thnking they would overturn it. I a full figured, beautiful african woman. I respect myself and those around me. What I wear should be a choice I am allowed to make and live with. If I am comfortable in it why not? The man I date absolutely adores that I dress that way. I am based in Cape Town now and those are some of the little priviledges that I wish I could have back home. The freedom to dress as I please without being named a whore, the freedom to go to a party or a bar for a few drinks with the girls without the men around thinking that I want to be picked up or that I am a prostitute. I am an educated, independant and empowered woman who hopes that one day those men will gain those qualities too. I wish I could attend the march against rape, but they have my support in sisterhood.
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This should stop i remember in the day women had a march in mini skirts and its time we did that again. Actually lets face it if Zimbabwe had a beach like Moz, Durban and Cape Town- will these men be disgusted? Why is it that the men who go to the beach do not ‘attack’ sun bathers are they more civalised than these landlocked’animals. No women do not desrve to be treated like this, afterall most of these women come from homes where their parents( including fathers), husbands and male figures allow them to go out. We need to publise and arrest men who dehumanise women’s bodies and esteem the DV Act surely has a clause, it is like being arrested when mob attacks a victim its time we start seesing arrests.
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I am very much disgruntled by such unruly behaviour. That is barbaric. I feel the long arm of the law should deal with ths hooligans. These are potential rapists. I am a man myself but it realy hurts me. Imagine if that was yo own sista. How would you feel. ZRP should wake up and do something with these rowdy people.
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This is the new world we’re living in . I was not at the scene but I can assure you that most of those men who were hackling the woman are not ‘very ‘educated-they miss the softening influences of morden civilisation. Thats exactly the kind of women we want in our streets-women who know that they are women. We are not from the Arab world so its not a crime to dress the way you like as long as you feel good about it.
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Yes males respond to visual stimuli and we are meant to either court if you like and leave if you don’t. I you like and you know you have NO chance of getting lucky, dont hurl abuse at her or even worse, abuse her physically. I reckon deep down thse chaps like what they see!
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Its ok for women 2 dress comfortably especially in these high temperatures .However there is a line to be drawn ,some dressing leave a lot to be desired,obviously vultures will pounce on such women.I’m also a man,a woman who dresses scantily will obviously attract the opposite sex.Women should dress scantily in their homes not outdoors.
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This hypocritical attitude by men makes me very cross because it is simply not true to tradition. I am old enough to remember what people wore as traditional clothes. I saw them with my own eyes.
In Mashonaland I saw women with narrow flaps of animal skin in the front and at the back that were tied to a string around the waist. Except for the inner part of the thighs there was no covering of the legs from waist to ankle. Admittedly, the flaps of animal skin reached to the knees, but the larger portions of the thighs and buttocks were completely open to view. Women wore nothing on top except a string or two of beads.
In Manicaland, near the Umvumvumvu Bridge, I remember seeing a young woman in about 1961 striding up the main highway as though she owned the universe. She was magnificent! All she was wearing was a miniskirt of knotted inner bark from a tree. I believe that was probably traditional dress for her area, although I don’t know for certain.
I think this persecution of women over clothing styles is fueled by men’s emotional fear of women’s female power. It has no logical reason behind it apart from the desire to control women and prevent us from realising what enormous power we have. Without women there is no life!. This desire is not confined to black males, but is expressed differently in other cultures e.g. lower rates of pay for the same work.
However, having said that, I think it is sensible to protect oneself by wearing less revealing clothes. Keep the miniskirts and tight trousers for home consumption. It’s not really so difficult. In Arab countries they wear their beautiful clothes under their burkas.
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Zimbabwean men need to WAKE UP and move with the times. This lady was not trying to sell herself to the highest bidder, but wearing what she felt comfotable in and what she wanted to. I’m sure many of the men that were insulting this lady were in fact ogling/admiring her. What about the ‘big bellied’ men wearing baggy, hanging trousers, vests and sandals – now that is disgusting to women, but they never pass comments or insults. Wake up Zimbabwean Men!!
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I think there are things we simply have to treasure. Mahomed Ali once told his daughters that, u never find gold or rubies strawn on the surface, u have to dig deep underground to find the gold. A preacher once said, yo man must find something on you that he is proud of saying, it it only me who has ever seen this. Ladies, lets just be dignified and cover what has to be covered.
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I failed to get the gist of Varaidzo’s narrative on the dress issue.I think sometimes women take their freedom & rights too far or for granted. Women are their worst enemy, as much as we understand their quest for liberty and empowerment,what does nakedness or semi-nakedness got to do with the upliftment of women? We all understand that women have been marginalised but i think it’s stupid really to show us your buttocks and underwear in the same vein. Going the Britney Spears route is a disgrace.Let’s have demarcations on making our voices heard and misinterpretation of western modernity.Imagine men marching with their corks exposed to protest against male ircumcision,fine,we could have got the world’s attention but what about our image as a people.I will definitely support any woman fighting against partriachy but they don’t have to show me their buttocks for me to take them seriously,only the dignity with which they do it will do the trick.
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My sister Varaidzo has a point but in putting it accross had a bias and an element on her tone of demeaning men as barbaric yet it was a sample of few cultural conserved group. To this end, her article become offending to us men. The similar event also happened when i was travelling from Harare to Mutare, I had a stop over in Marondera and I saw a group of women with very few young boys shouting and calling all sorts of names to a lady who was in a min-skirt. I then out of curiosity asked some of the ladies who were doing that why they were doing what they were doing to a lady like them? They said it was all wrong for her to wear such a mini-skirt and was an embarrassment to women hood. Against this backdrop, Sister Varaidzo your tone stigmatised men as unreasonable people and as such your article can not go unchallenged. You took a paralysis of analysis of that event. The fact that she was rescued by a man shows that not all men would love to see ladies harrassed or embrassed because of their choices and taste. Again not all men are enticed by body exposure of ladies.
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I find it so repulsively shameful how the men of this nation behave and perceive women who are liberal enough to exercise their democratic right. Do we have to stage a protest like the one the South African women staged a few years back, clad in mini-skirts so as to shame the men into respecting us?
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Its unfortunate that such events still happen even when woman are aware that some areas are just a no no zone when some what half dressed. I dont blame the blunt crowd. Some woman just offend public decency. Wearing fabrics that they know surely heads will turn. However we cant change society (men) over this behaviour. Because even when you dress nicely and one passer by decides to comment and you dont answer hell can break loose. My advice go to lower density areas when you feel that short skirt is what you are feeling today.leave the other folks to the longs.
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Thanks for the enlightening expose about the way men/women treat women in everyday life. It however, provoked a wild thought about sexual harassment, a term usually used by men and women to highlight harassment of women by men. When and how are men harassed by females? If a man comments about the way a woman is dressed or her body structure it is taken as sexual harassment. But men are daily harassed sexually by women intentionally exhibiting their beautiful bodies in public places. Women boast that if they want something from a man they simply have to show off as much of their legs as possible. Ask taxi drivers, driving licence inspectors, police officers and they can tell you lots of stories of how women use their structure to get bargains. Have you ever seen a prostitute wearing a nun’s attire to solicit? They harass men by putting on mini skirts, scant clothing, etc. So when a woman appears in public scantily clothed, men are obviously harassed and they should be protected against sexual harassment. I am not saying that women should not be allowed to wear whatever they want. But they must in the process know that some men become provoked. No man is sexually provoked when he sees a mother nursing a baby. But when a woman exposes her breasts, then some men are sexually harassed. During the 16 days of gender activism, both sexes should be made aware about what sexual harassment entails, lest we keep bashing innocent people.
Thursday, November 24th 2011 at 12:10 pm
I liked the diversity of comments, from radicals to liberals and conservatives, but the bottom line is that Kubatana.net opened up space for us to express our opinions. It is a right of a person to express one’s self some from enlightment pespective and other from lack of depth which give them myopic focus on issues of gender and development.
Paulo Freire in his pedagogy of the oppressed warned the oppressed that in their struggle to attain fully humanism they must be carefull of switching poles after attaining their liberation. That means becoming also the new oppressors a common blunter for many revolutionary people. Frantz Fanon pointed out that the goal of the oppressed is to be like the oppressor. That means that the war waged by the oppressed is a war of envying the oppressor, and this is where we have a vicious cirle.
When women are fighting for emancipation from partriarchal grip of oppression, it must be noted that this fight is aimed to attain full humanism and the very reason why such enlighted men join in the struggle. Our fight is focussed on removing the oppression system that hinders people from becoming who they want to be in an equal basis of gender.
But gender and development should not be abused to strip people from their identity as a people. Africans are a people also with their own identity they have to fully be conscious of that perspective. Modernisation or civiliasation is not about borrowed culture, habits and tradition, but its all about elevating one’s culture, habits, tradition and language (evolution of these pillars of life) for development towards full attainment of humanism.
In short i say men and women are the same before God and both are children of God. Empowerment and capacity building must be cross cutting for both. Adocacy and lobbying must be focused on the correct mind-set and transformation towards achieving full humanity by both women and men which should be inclusive of all spheres of life.
Friday, November 25th 2011 at 2:49 pm
Panganai’s comment is quite insightful and he touches on the various dynamics at play in the whole gendered discourse etc.
What our women folk deliberately fail to realise is that militancy has a platform where it is suitable so is advocacy and simple diplomacy.No one is really against women wearing what they want but whatever it is they do put on should not in the same process erode their dignity.
Women are not an island surrounded by a sea of black stupid males,they are their own worst enemy.How many times do we hear women themselves saying ‘that’s disgusting’?Countless times if we are to be factual.
That women sometimes dress outrageously is not an opinion but a fact and if you are to be honest to yourselves sometimes its’s sickening.
We can look at the world and say but they are doing it,but we are not the world.We are who we are first before we are them.Acculturation and a lack of identity has condemned women to apemanship through their lopsided perspectives on the Macdonaldisation of the world in the guise of globalisation.
Let’s look at South Africa as a case study since some are using it as the typical utopian society for women.How has this blinded assimilation of western conceptions of beauty and womanhood destroyed the very heart of their society.
Ameriacans keep their culture,we want to assume their all in the name of freedom but unfortunately we also lose our humanity.
There is a tacit awareness among all of us of what is right and what is wrong.Let that be the yardstick we use in our daily engagements.
Miniskirt marches will never bring the much needed female empowerment at best it can only bring tolerance which is not enough in itself.
Saturday, November 26th 2011 at 10:27 pm
The world we live in is about repredentations,it’s about images and imaginations and more often than not its the images we create,the (re)presentations we make of ourselves which determines whether we will be remembered as people who did something for the better of humankind and it is the same which can also condemn us to the dustbins of history.
As a media oriented person I found myself rereading most of the comments on Varaidzo’s narrative and am sure most will agree with me that it stirred a honest’s nest.
One thing is however becoming explicitly overt,most of our female bloggers are ideologically bankrupt which itself explains why their contribitions are replete with misguided emotionalism where “feeling good” is the best condition for womenkind regardless of generational ramifications,the domino effect.
In my narratives on the socio-political and economic dynamics in Zim I have argued that any programme of action should transcend the limitations of partisanship,imagine if we were to take nakedness/semi-nakedness as the ultimate in measuring our contributions to making this world more palatable for women,would the next generation look at our tombstones with admiration or contempt?
We want to correct historical misconceptions about women and playing into the hands of patriach won’t help.I remember in my study of history Napoleon Bonarparte saying wome should only be educated to the extent that they will be able to take stock of the cutlery.As women are we socialising ourselves into fitting into such ideological straitjackets or do we strive to show our best?
Judging from the myriad of responses on this platform I think we are a long way off course,someone better go up there and switch on the lights on the lighthouse lest our women commit mass suicide.
Tuesday, November 29th 2011 at 4:54 pm
Varaidzo’s article about mini-skirt has opened up a space for enlightment to our community as Africans and the line of development we should take and being conscious of (ubuntu). Modernisation or civilisation is becoming blinding concept to the so called educated copy cats of other cultures, behaviour, habits,etiquete or even language. Yes for me right now am using english language not that i take it as a privilege but for the purpose of communicating to diversified people who can not understand my beautiful shona language. For they say no language no development and no identity. Becoming a foreigner in your own land. Without much digression, as Africans we should learn to adapt rather adopt. From the above commments especially from our beautiful sisters it clearly shows that there are some ideological gaps that need to be filled to shape and mould an educated and diginified African person who will think and act like an African in her endeavour for development
Tuesday, November 29th 2011 at 5:17 pm
Let us speak about things that are practical. Only a fool swims in a crocodile infested and expects to throw the human the Human Rights Charter at them when they attack. A person should have the sense to judge when it is appropriate to wear something. Remember this is Harare and the one of a few places where they wear very short mini skirts is the Avenues in the evening and when selling certain services. Don’t try to justify your lack of sensitivity to local morals by saying Zimbabwean men are uncivillised. Ziva mapfekero epanzvimbo. How can you say you are comfortable when everyone is orgling you?
Wednesday, November 30th 2011 at 3:44 pm
BIBLE PRINCIPLES OF DRESS FOR CHRISTIANS
July 1, 1986 Issue
by George Vergara
And I want to quote Isaiah 47:1-3 in order to further understand what God sees as nakedness and immodesty. “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen.” This God describing the downfall of Babylon with the figure of a woman. Notice that at the point God describes her as having the leg bare and the thigh uncovered God says she is “naked” and her “shame” shall be seen. This is why short dresses, shorts, “peek-a-boo” slits in skirts, etc., are sinful–and this is why I as a man do not wear shorts, skimpy tops, unbutton the top buttons of my shirt or go bare-chested in public as some of our people do–this is nakedness and it is shameful. I hope that in this immoral age we live in our people do not become so accustomed to the nakedness around them that they lose their own sense of modesty.
In conclusion, we serve God in body as well as in spirit (I Cor 6:20); this would include our dress. The Bible does not contain a formal dress code, but gives principles of dress that let us make judgments and “test what is best” (Phil 1:9,10). We want to please God, not ourselves (II Cor 5:15), so we want to clothe our bodies in a way that pleases God. The four principles of dress are:
(1) maintain the male-female distinction; (2) consider the effect our clothing has on our influence; (3) make sure our clothing does not “offend” anyone, and; (4) be sure our clothing is modest in God’s sight. I believe these principles can be used for any article of clothing whether you are a man or woman or whether you are young or old.
May God bless you in your desire to better serve Him in the Lord Jesus Christ.–OPA.
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