INDIA - A little insight into women’s body rights in India

We have chosen an article from the emBODYindia’s tumblr page, which was published 23rd September 2014. EmBODYindia is a movement lead by a group of Harvard students that has dedicated itself to changing the way women’s bodies are viewed in India. It deals with the general problem of the way women`s bodies are looked at in India, and discusses it with the help of an issue surrounding Indian actress Deepika Padukone. Padukone dealt with being judged by the Times of India, whose article we looked at too when doing our research. The article starts out by describing the way men look at women in India when they are in public. They are sexualized no matter how they behave or how revealing they dress. It then goes on to criticise the way the Indian media, especially the Times of India, handled the issue. Deepika had expressed her feelings saying she felt violated about the way she had been portrayed in a video published a year ago. The video showed her attending a premiere, wearing a low-cut dress that showed a little bit of cleavage. TheTimes of India addressed the topic in their article “Dear Deepika, our point of view”. This article suggests that they did this in a very shaming manner, for example asking sarcastically whether they needed permission to publish further public pictures of her, printing a picture of her with her cleavage encircled and arrowed thus asking for sales and attention for their paper. The way the article is written worsens the portrayal of women’s bodies in the Indian media and emBODYindia asks how women’s bodies can be respected on a larger scale if it isn’t the case in the Indian media. Finally, the organization discusses the wrong idea of ownership of a woman’s body. It says that in India “[g]irls, like property, are still chattel on the marriage market. On the streets, women are leered at like wares on display”. The article calls for Indian women, men and institutions to fight for women’s respect and equality.

What we have to say about this:

The main issues of this article are women’s body rights and how women are constantly being sexualized against their will, just based on their appearance in the media and everyday life. We want to explain why this is so visible in India by looking at their culture and social standards. We also want to look at our mentality towards this topic in Basel and compare the two with each other.
As far as India is concerned, we believe that this isn’t a religious, but more of a social/cultural issue, originating from the patriarchal system. This means that the father is usually viewed as the head of the family. As a result of this, sons are seen as more valuable than daughters since they are considered capable of earning money, carrying on the family line. They stay with their original family and take care of their parents when they grow old. Girls on the other hand aren’t considered of earning money and leave their family once they get married. Even if these facts might not be totally accurate as of today, these ideas might still influence the mentality towards women. The Indian constitution provides the women with the same rights as the men, but this mentality might influence the way that women are treated.
Here in Basel or Europe in general, there are similar ideas about women, although they aren’t quite as apparent today. The idea that men are “breadwinners” is a common one here, women are traditionally considered housewives. This system is an old one, but nowadays it’s a pretty lose one. The difference here is that we generally consider women as equal to men, especially in the business world. An example is the Swiss Federal Council (Bundesrat), which has equally as many women as men.
So is there a ”dress code” for women in India? We found out that in Hinduism, apart from signs for being married like the bindi or bangles (which have become fashionable among all women, married or not), there are no dress codes. The traditional sari shows the midriff, which was mentioned as being sexualized in the article. So again the sexualization of women’s bodies based on what they wear is also a cultural issue. We assume this might be because of western standards influencing Indian mentality, but we can’t be sure. The important thing to us is that women and men are not looked at in the same way. This becomes very apparent in the way women are judged by what they wear or how they behave. If a woman shows some cleavage, she is “asking” for attention. The sad thing is that when we think about that issue here in Basel, we find it quite similar. Women are objectified based on what they wear and men usually aren’t. The cause of this is religion. In the Bible women are told to dress modestly and although Christianity isn’t important as a religion to most people here, it is as a mentality. In conclusion, we think that gender inequality should be globally recognized and fought against, by both women and men. We might have to start with a campaign like emBODYindia, (which we support thoroughly) but we can and will make a difference by just recognizing, addressing and trying to change the issue. (M.P./ M.A./ S.H.)