My Dress, My Choice!

In Nairobi the capital of Kenya a woman was striped naked at a bus stop in broad daylight by a group of men. The woman according to the men was dressed in a tempting manner calling her a ”Jezebel” then proceeding to ripping her clothes off and kicking her body. This scene was video taped and uploaded to the internet, it instantly went viral.

I am trying this new thing where I think from different perspectives to understand perplexing situations such as this one in an objective manner. On one hand you go ”hey now its the 21st century women can do whatever they want” ”feminism!!” but on the other hand the men could be thinking ”hey you are an african girl today you’ll remember your roots” ”then you’ll blame us for rape”. Hell NO the later makes no sense. What does it mean to be an African girl? To have no rights? Surely it does not mean to cover all up. 

If showing some parts of the body is a temptation then Africa is one of the most tempting societies. Power is one of the first things that came to my mind with this Kenyan incidence. Male power, mob power, power over this woman who thinks she has rights. Its a very brutal situation to imagine but any oppression one is victim of is because of a desire for power to control. Male desire to control women is as old as the history of humanity. But you would have thought that using violence against women to control them and their choices in this crude and public show of shame is a thing of yesteryears.

Ok lets say we take the reasons of the men as the truth, that they decided to make themselves the moral police. How does making her more naked than they saw her advance their case? If her temptation is a problem why not look away like a good man should? I have read several articles and it astonishes me when I see over and over again the publics’ consciousness is ”but what was she wearing?”

Social media has been emphazing the importance on teaching men not to rape besides the traditional teaching girls how to avoid being raped.

If clothes and how we dress are really the basis of rape and violence against women, one twitter user proved it wrong. @Steenfox tweeted: ”What were you wearing when you were assaulted? Let me know if its ok to RT your response. Thank you in advance for sharing.<3” (Tweet)

So many respondents to that tweet where fully dressed in either sweats, school uniform or jeans and shirt when they were attacked and raped. So blaming it on the basis of how a woman dresses is proved invalid.

Most people understand the concept what you see is not really what is, I might be covered head to toe with negative intentions. Africa is known for her rich culture West, South, East and North Africa are all unique but most African countries are developing countries. Many African societies are still very tied with their roots, a blessing and a curse. It has made some of them opposed to change and limited in their perspectives.

Well either ways they stripped her and the Kenyan community fought back, taking to the streets in protest. My Dress My Choice took to the streets with signs dressed as they pleased.

Nov 17th 2014 My dress my choice protest, Nairobi

During the protest Aljazzera reported a small mob of men came out to protest against the My dress My Choice movement.  Then a new stripping episode occurs were another woman was stripped and beaten at Mihango Bus Stage in Kayole, Nairobi (Source).

It may sound like a shallow issue about clothes but this is way more. It is about violence against women, about a human being having a right taken away from them, the freedom to choice, to choose wether I want to wear this or not even God gave us free will. I am not saying go around naked and we all know the saying when in Rome do as the Romans, but theres a fine line between trying to be morally correct and sexually harassing someone to teach them a lesson. The real lesson we can learn from this incident is that don’t be afraid to be who you are but as life is, thread everything with precaution.