I saw a picture of a textbook called “Psychological health of college students” in China. There was a page talking about how women should love ourselves, and we should not wear clothes that overexpose their bodies in case of seduction. And this is not listed in just this one book. Most official sites all listed similar rules in Chinese colleges. A headline also caught my eyes this morning, saying, “A girl was called to the office because she wore short skirts in class (in college).” Both the picture and this news indicate a stereotype of restrictions on how women should wear clothes.
One interesting thing is that this situation only happens in school or when accidents happen. Most people don’t care what girls/women wear on the street. However, people will make judgments and say awful words to you if you wear too little in school or are victims of a rape case. The perpetrator would indeed be sanctioned, but people seem to neglect the importance of teaching men not to hut women. Someone asked what you would do if there were no men on earth for 24 hours. Many comments mentioned that they would like to wear anything they want in confidence.
People have been constraint by almost everything about women. Clothing, body shape, hairstyle, etc. are all being discussed. They would say a woman is a slut if we wear too little. They would also say a woman is too stubborn and not sexy if we wear too much. If someone has a very short haircut, they would say she’s a man. Every time a case shows up, victims will be judged and blamed, especially in rape cases. “If you wear a bit more, you won’t get raped.” I know that feminists have been fighting for rights for hundreds of years. But things have changed little. I didn’t mean that women and men now have the same rights is not a significant improvement. Deep down, everyone’s heart, however, still exists prejudice about women. Not only do men do, but women do also, too. We all like to be in good body shape. We all like to be beautiful, sexy, and attractive. We love dressing up ourselves. There is no shame to be who we want to be. Textbooks should give students the correct information and attitude on how we should love ourselves. Do not wear too little is not the way how we should have self-esteem and self-love. Be proud of what we do is. And I hope one-day people can change their stereotypes about women.
This is something that I have seen and read about in so many areas that honestly upsets me. Women can never be comfortable with what they wear or the decisions they make because either way they will be judged by either men or someone else who feels obligated to voice their irrelevant opinion on our body. You bought up a good point of when a girl gets raped or goes through any sexual assault, the automatic questions come out of what was the girl wearing, was she being flirty, or why was she out that time. There is no excuse in situations like that and this stereotype about women and how they should be needs to be changed. Thank you for talking about this and if we continue to voice our opinions on the wrongful stereotypes about how women should be perceived, it will inform many people to do so as well and look at it in a different perspective. The perspective that women can make their own decisions about their body and that doesn’t give anyone the right to have a say or judge her.
I think you bring up a really good point about the topic pertaining to confidence in women and the effect that male attention has on this confidence. I agree that women should be able to wear what they feel comfortable in without having to worry about they way in which they will be perceived by others. I think it’s really sad that a woman has to be nervous to walk home alone in the dark due to the threat of male predators. The fact that we should need to “get someone to walk us home” reveals the ugly truth in our culture that women must question their every decision in order to please what society views as acceptable.
I think this is a great post. I defiantly agree with all the point you make and I really like that you included the personal comments from people. I think the comments really make your points more personal to others reading and shows that this has unfortunately become a normal aspect of many women’s lives. I will say that men get faced with a number of judgements as well, but I would say with women it is much more extreme.
I very much agree with you that freedom of dressing is a right that everyone should have. In the face of those kind of cases, what really should be restricted is not the freedom of girls to dress, but the boys should be more educated to respect women. Restricting girls’ freedom of dressing is never a fundamental solution to the problem. Let more boys understand the equality of men and women, and respect for women is to solve the problem from the root.