News Item: "A Dress Code For Girl Students"

[Guest guest]

Here's another interesting news snippet from the Bihar News, a north

Indian newspaper. I post it mainly because of a recent conversation I

had with a woman member of this group about the incongruity between

the DM's pronouncement that every human woman is to be revered as a

form of the Goddess -- and the actual, everyday hassles and

annoyances (and worse, of course) endured by women in India and

around the world. Perhaps it is the very "everyday" character of this

article that makes it so disheartening:

 

Telegraph News Service

Source: The Bihar News

 

PATNA, India - The Rabri Devi government has imposed a rigid dress

code in schools and colleges in the wake of a spate of eve-teasing

and a recent daring attempt to molest a girl in a school in Patna.

The code has been imposed even in the most high-profile women's

institutions "to save our girls from the ogling men". Patna Women's

College has banned sleeveless salwar kameez, jeans and mini skirts.

 

However, this has irked girl students, who criticise "punishment to

the women college students" when gangsters and "street waifs teasing

us should be behind bars".

 

College principals have also sought extra vigilance at the

institutions.

 

"It is the state government's responsibility to stop anti-social

elements from entering women's colleges. Why should we be barred from

making a fashion statement and exercising our freedom by wearing

clothes of our choice?" said Anisha Joshi a student of Patna Women's

College.

 

"It is a tragedy that a breakdown of law and order is being linked to

how women are dressing. Implicitly, we are being blamed for the

police failure to control hooligans," said Joshi.

 

The Bihar government's attempt to impose the dress-code is a knee-

jerk reaction to the molestation attempt at a government girls'

school in Patna on February 22.

 

Around 11 am, four men had allegedly entered the school compound and

molested a 15-year-old student of Class VIII. When the girl

protested, she was beaten black and blue, following which she fainted.

 

In a belated crackdown on the eve-teasers, the police arrested one

Sanjeev Kumar. The school principal, had later complained that there

was no security for the girls as the police turned a blind eye. The

victim admitted to the police that these four men used to stalk her

but she did not tell her parents out of fear.

 

Bihar minister for secondary and higher education Ramlakhan Raman

later visited the school and announced that the state government was

in favour of making a dress code mandatory for women's schools and

colleges. The minister also urged greater police vigilance around the

institutions.

 

In the wake of molestation, the police in Patna rounded up some

miscreants from near the college yesterday. However, college

authorities feel this will not prevent recurrence of chaos.

 

College authorities and the state government are under the impression

that fashionable dresses create a security risk.

 

Magadh Mahila College principal Asha Singh said her college

administration did not believe in encouraging the students into "an

undue craze for fashionable dresses for they might risk their own

security".

 

But the students do not share this anxiety. "While gangsters ooze

bravado, why should we discard our favourite dresses. Are jeans more

provocative than salwar kameez?" asks Nira Jha of third-year English

honours of a girls' college in Patna. "To say that is to apply a

rustic perception of dress sense," she added.

 

Source: http://biharnews2k1.hypermart.net/20020303_dress_code.htm