IN OUR SOCIETY’S EFFORT TO MAINTAIN AND PRESERVE AN UNWRITTEN CODE OF “DECENCY,” IN AFRICA, ARE WE ALSO SILENCING WOMEN AND THE UNIQUE WAYS THEY EXPRESS THEIR INDIVIDUALISM THRU ATTIRE?
by Oroma Elewa | September 14th, 2011 | 6 Comments
I had an interesting meeting with two young ladies from Uganda this past weekend. During this meeting, we read passages from the little bee, a book by Chris Cleave. One thing led to the other and our opinions of the book moved into a conversation of attire in Africa.
The conversation materialized into a discussion of our personal experiences on how people responded to our garment/style/fashion choices in while Nigeria, Uganda and Mali and Tanzania.
“Once on a visit to Uganda,” one of the girls said, “a man tucked and grabbed my skirt to indicate that it was too short. Suggesting I go and change it immediately. I was walking with my aunt, who encouraged me not to respond for fear that the man would raise an alarm and others would jump in to harass me. I was told that they could, in fact, beat me and beat whoever comes in to fight for me.”
Shocked, she confessed and could not believe that people can lay their hands on you simply out of disapproval of what you are wearing.
The idea that she couldn’t react, the idea that she was wrong simply for her fashion style choices begs the question of whether we glamorize the idea of a new Africa where we can bring in and live cosmopolitan lifestyles.
Could the idea that Africa may still be ‘backward’, refusing to accept the individualism of others, be one of the reason many Africans cannot imagine themselves living and working in Africa, despite the economic struggles, racism, displacement and alienation they experience living in the US or UK?
I for one have had to deal with the law once in Abuja for wearing a tank top with denim pants on set, on a shoot for Pop’Africana. My offense? I was showing too much of my arms. Once in Dar es Salaam, I was asked to leave a beach resort because the staff assumed I was a prostitute
I was forgiving of their ignorance because I knew many people associated prostitutes with wearing designer/western clothes, assuming of course it was purchased by sugar daddies.
Yet, I have to ask: Is this an act to protect women or does society want to control what women wear under the rubric of decency?
In our society’s effort to maintain and preserve this unwritten code of “decency,” which is backed by cultural, moral or religious beliefs, are we also silencing women and the unique ways they express their individualism through attire?
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6 Responses to “IN OUR SOCIETY’S EFFORT TO MAINTAIN AND PRESERVE AN UNWRITTEN CODE OF “DECENCY,” IN AFRICA, ARE WE ALSO SILENCING WOMEN AND THE UNIQUE WAYS THEY EXPRESS THEIR INDIVIDUALISM THRU ATTIRE?”
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September 16th, 2011 @ 11:46 am
My first instinct was WTF before I realised this kind of censorship is universal, its the triggers (possibly the reaction) that are differant. Shorts and a tank top in the western context simply mean “warm weather” but in the african context you are wearing your underwear in public.
My friend is a muslim and her modest dress (covered arms, legs, chest, no headscarf) draws a lot of hostility and harrassment from friends and strangers in the uk where she lives, especially in the summer months when she sticks out like a sore thumb among the bevy of bare limbs.
I think regardless of the bias (“decency” or overtly sexual) women remain under pressure to bring their appearance in line with society’s patriarchal views.
As a designer I tend to get away with more as people expect me to be “crazy”. Maybe you should get a tank that says “Im not half naked, Im just doing my job”
September 18th, 2011 @ 6:56 am
This is quite interesting. I’ll confess that I’m in two minds about it. I live in Cape Town and sometimes I see girls and think, “okay she’s waay too naked” and my instinct wants me to rush at them with a blanket (I never do, of course). But I’m originally from Uganda and I have faced harassment from idle men in the streets because my “shorts were too short”. I was offended and outraged because these same men buy our local tabloids to ogle half-naked girls!
Am I as double-standard-ed as they are??
September 26th, 2011 @ 6:08 am
I think this is an issue that Africans need to talk more about.
1. In ALL patriarchal cultures, women’s bodies are not their own. Therefore society thinks they have the right to police them
2. African women are seen as the “keepers of culture”, and our collective struggles with modernity and colonialism have been writ large across our bodies.
I have lived in two African countries and these facts have been made clear to me in various ways. How come it is always the street riffraff who think they have the right to dictate women’s attire?
September 27th, 2011 @ 6:05 pm
Have had innumerable experiences in Nigeria, in which I was asked to go put on a shawl or wear longer pants. Or not wear something altogether. Mind you, non of these outfits were vulgar in any way. I think Vuga nailed it on the head. Our bodies are not our own, and men, in patriachal societies feel quite comfortable, in fact i think they find it necessary to comment. Actually I take that back, women in Nigeria have been the biggest culprints….one fond memory…and i quote from a girl on the streeet…”aunty..aunty.your pants are too tight”..LOL.
October 3rd, 2011 @ 5:52 pm
Thats interesting to learn that this is still going on in certain African nations. Besides blaming patriarchy maybe resistance to change is part of the problem. I know that a long time ago if you were different,strange or not liked you might have been sold into slavery. We know that Africa was probably robbed of it’s visionaries and innovators this way. Perhaps this is a modern day equivalent.
October 28th, 2011 @ 10:30 pm
This is such an interesting discussion and topic at large. It is one that unfortunately not going away any time soon. As a stylist and an enthusiast of the expression of self through our clothes and the way we wear them it saddens me to no end that women are not allowed to just be style wise. Frustrates me that religion/culture etc are all used as reasons/excuses in the suppression as it were of self expression.
I am a christian and my faith is the most important thing under the sun to me. I also love being of Ghanaian heritage and African at large but I do not like how it is dictated to me what I can or cannot wear. It is a shame because Africa as a continent is vast, filled with color-inspiration-texture-etc but yet we are reminded time and time again how we ought to all look a specific way. The amount of creative innovation that is being lost as a result of this is heartbreaking for me as a creative.
The question I ask while in Ghana/Tanzania/Gambia etc is — “Why can’t I be African, Christian and still be more importantly ‘me’?”
I have come to a conclusion that where there are patriarchal cultures, there is a tangible stifling of any possible signs of individuality/any thinking for self.