No moral policing please

When women and men all over the world fighting for gender equality are pleading with everyone to stop judging a woman based on her appearance, it's very unfortunate that many people hide behind the guise of being  protective and fail to recognise that fashion is a form of self expression for both men and women.

In a bizarre development that shows the hypocrisy and indoctrination regarding gender inequality prevalent in our society, a popular Facebook page with over 170,000 followers called Chennai Ponnunga Da posted eight photos suggesting proper ways for a girl to dress.

The first photo states that the post is a suggestion for girls and requests everyone to follow it. Throughout the next seven photos various combinations of Kurtis and leggings are suggested. The reasons given for promotion of only Kurtis and leggings are girls are feeling uncomfortable due to the wind.

Further, the post asks girls not to wear "short open Kurti with legging" as it "exposes girls' structure in a bad manner". "The society has a candid way of blaming and advising girls, no matter what the problem is. Some people think that they have the right to control the way a woman can walk, talk and dress up! Nothing is vulgar until you call it to be. It's not about clothes of women, but it's about the thoughts and actions of the people who see them. What are clothes to do with an infant? Don't they get raped? Purity and decency are in thoughts and heart but not in the clothes you wear", says Priyadarshini Vedaraman.

Further the post states that it would be better if girls follow these codes. Even though many hailed this post, there was a heavy backlash with people even stating that the page maybe run by men. Many commented that if the admin is a woman, this can be considered as an example of the "Stockholm Syndrome."  
"It's highly misleading. When someone asks girls to dress better in order to not get molested, harassed, abused or cat called. It just gives an idea, that "it was partly the woman's fault". We needn't propagate such false notions. We are giving more reasons to irresponsible people to escape, rather than holding them accountable", adds Akshaya Rajanikant regarding the post.

"I don't know if it is really created by men or women in first place but it was quite sickening to witness that people around us still think they have a say on what anyone should wear for the matter. It was pure stupid and made me even more hopeless when I got to see more number of men supporting it. Where did we go wrong, that too especially with our education", asks Santhosh Kumar, regarding the number of men supporting the post.

With the post getting liked more than 2,000 times and being shared nearly 400 times, the existence and deep rootedness of sexism is only proved again and again.