[Assam] Dress Code - Blame the Victim

[Ram Sarangapani]

Here is a letter from the Sentinel. Yesterday, there were a few others on
the same subject, ie. the Delhi Police dress code for NE students.

While most of would agree that the Delhi Police is basically off on a
tangent and possibly showing its ignorance and rather discriminatory
attitude toward NE students, I am quite surprised how many are willing
(including the author below) to blame the victim here (instead of the
perpetrator) for such crimes. Is the victim contributing to the crime?
**
*"Those tight and revealing clothes were then worn only by those who would
invite the lusty crowd........."*

I really wonder, how something like this would fly in the US in a
rape/molestation case? Would the perpetrator get a pass because a certain
'societal dress code' wasn't followed? Would the victim be blamed first for
not conforming.

It is totally a different matter where a society may have certain
expectations of decency and dress codes. IMHO, we must be careful in making
a cause and effect relationship between how a person is dressed and crimes
committed.
 If we did, how different would that make us from the Delhi Police?

There are umpteen research out there to show sex crimes are in no way
related to how scantily a person is dressed.
Maybe the burquas would do the trick (ie. keeping the "lusty crowd" at bay
:):)


--Ram

*____________________*
**
*Decent Dress Sense
*Apropos the letter entitled ''Of Dress Code'' (The Sentinel, July 18, 2007)
by Salil Gewali, I personally join in the chorus to condemn the
discriminating attitude of the Delhi Police authorities against students
from the Northeast. The Northeast has been much neglected and
underestimated, for which I hold the governments, both at the Centre and in
the States, responsible.
However, what Salil Gewali has said through his letter is totally correct as
far as the 'modern' immodest dressing style is concerned, which is fast
corrupting our society. Why have the kinds of dresses that were considered
very indecent and sexually appealing, now become so normal, and why are we
allowing our children to wear them? Could we ever imagine our children in
those body-hugging outfits a decade ago? Those tight and revealing clothes
were then worn only by those who would invite the lusty crowd.
Has not the present indecent fashion trend been sexually desensitizing us?
Just a kissing scene was so appealing some years back, while a semi-clad
sultry siren doing an item number now fails to excite the audience. Why so?
Is it not because we have abused the sex-feeling too much and, therefore,
lost its appeal? Is it not a perverse trend?
Samir Bora,
Shillong-4
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.assamnet.org/pipermail/assam-assamnet.org/attachments/20070720/7234b9b9/attachment.htm>