What not to wear

Since the issue of women choosing to wear the veil in their professions (as in the case of the schoolteacher in Britain) has been bouncing around BBC lately, I've become attracted to the issue, because recently I also faced similar clothing challenges.

Of course, both situations are completely different -- I'm not shunning my stillettos or V-neck tops for religious reasons -- but underneath both contexts is the concern of how a woman should appropriately dress herself in foreign professional settings: Do I want to stand out in my typical clothes? Should I wear something more conservative?

In the case of the Muslim school teached in Britain, I have a few points of contention.

Personally, I don't agree with the argument that the veil makes these women more comfortable, which arguably allows a certain freedom from male (and female) evaluation of their physical appearance. No one should feel ashamed or nervous about how other people view their body. These women have obviously succumbed to the (societal, male) pressure of striving to look arbitrarily, and implausibly, beautiful. To accommodate these unrealistic demands, they’ve totally rejected having any physical attributes at all.

To me, this is a sad example of relinquishing ownership of one's body. If want to escape the weighty judgments of others, they should develop confidence in their appearance, regardless of current beauty standards. They would then regard whatever judgments, looks, comments came their way with the appropriate value – nothing whatsoever.

Opting to have no physical presence, and preferring to exist solely as abstract, disembodied voices and thoughts, deprives woman of their whole identity.

In any case, these are excerpts from a Slate article "It is rude to wear a full-face veil at work"

".........Defenders say the veil is a symbol of religious faith and that it allows women to be "free" in a different sense—free from cosmetics, from fashion, and from unwanted male attention. Debate about the veil inevitably leads to discussions of female emancipation, of religious freedom, and of the assimilation, or lack thereof, of Muslim communities in the West....

.....If Western tourists can wear sarongs in Balinese temples to show respect for the locals, so, too, can religious Islamic women show respect for the children they teach and for the customers they serve by leaving their head scarves on but removing their full-face veils.....

.......a Muslim woman who wants to cover her face has no absolute right to work in a school or an office where face-to-face conversations are part of the job. It isn't religious discrimination or anti-Muslim bias to tell her that she must be polite to the natives, respect the local customs, try to speak some of the local patois—and uncover her face."

Appropriate Dress Codes in multi-cultural environments are messy, uncomforable issues. Especially when the disputed environment pertains to your job.

An issue that, as the only Western woman employee in an office of 16,000 here in Bangalore, has more than exposed me to.

I got involved with the Dress Code here at IndiaITServices company when one day, when an email was randomly sent out to all women informing them that from now on a new dress code would be strictly enforced-

Monday through Thursday: Formal wear- Western

n Pleated trousers (no dressy pants)

n Formal skirts- well cut with matching panty hose

n ¾ or full sleeved Shirt : Plain or Striped

n Optional : Blazer / Jacket / Stole / Scarf

n Closed, platform heeled shoes (preferable)

n Or matching socks with shoes

Friday Optional: Jeans, cargos, khakis. Well cut matching Shirt / T-Shirt with collars

No- No all days: Short & figure hugging blouses, Sleeve less or half/ semi half sleeves, Fancy embroidered blouses, T-Shirts with loud quotes and with out collars, Capri pants, wrap-around skirts / ruffled skirts / gathered skirts

(Note: what is so wrong with Capri pants and dressy pants, or even “3/4 sleeved shirts that aren’t plain or striped”? I’ll never understand.)

And then there was a separate page for “Ethnic Wear”.......

Monday through Friday : Indo western / Indian

• Neatly stitched Salwar kameez, with or without matching dupatta

• Short kurta, matching parallel with a stole preferably for a formal wear

• ½ or ¾ or full sleeves – Monday to Friday

• Dupatta worn in order to meet the purpose!

• Sandals / closed shoes preferable and go less on “Slippers” for formal wear

• Saree - preferably non transparent fabric, draped in a professional manner

No-No on all Days: Sleeveless blouses, sleeve less / tight / figure hugging Kurtas.

(Note: This explains why, despite the heat on the non-AC 3 hours commute, so many sweat, sweat, sweat then faint due to their many billowing layers of fabric. Just impractical.)

I found this email to be the most patronizing, ridiculous and ambiguous instructions any corporation could demand of its employees.

Since many women rebelled against this patriarchal dictum, phone calls were promptly organized to voice our opinion to the Dress Code Nazis. (Surprisingly, or not – depending on your familiarity with Indian culture, this dress code was, in fact, decreed by the “Women’s Inclusivity Network” – the very same people who are supposed to be committed to defending our rights to be treated as equal professionals to men.)

Moreover, it was in this phone call that we discovered the real reason for the new dress stipulations: apparently, a few “racy” and immoral women wearing sleeveless shirts while eating lunch in the food court overloaded a few men’s emotions. It was a sight at which some very proper “religious” men could just not handle. Those women were tempting them, those strumpets!

They argued they could not control the sexual thoughts caused by their bare shoulders: It is the women’s responsibility in her dress to ensure that these “impure” thoughts never manifest in their perfect, holy, and clean minds.

The only solution was to immediately change their shirts and dress entirely. Thus, these men complained to the Women’s initiative, and the new and improved patriarchal dress code was born.

I was disgusted.

But, the question here, and for these burka-clad woman is the same -- Who has the authority to dictate what a woman should wear in a professional, multi-cultural environment?

The Physical Effect

The sedentary cubicle life, delicious Indian buttery curries, and general poor health standards of my environment are catching up with me.

Today, on the rowing machine at the gym (a machine which brutally measures and calculates every once of effort you put in and can get out), I had my moment of epiphany. Based on the comparison of the current time it takes to finish 500 meters versus back in the day... I can determine that I can no longer be qualified as “athletic.”

To make matters worse, I was coughing up a lung today. I will attribute this, and all other respiratory problems (burning throat, wheezing/sneezing), to the atrocious air quality on my daily commute.

It doesn’t feel good.

The athletic thing is fixable. (Probably.) The fact that I inhale a few gallons worth of noxious fumes complemented with gritty pavement dust, is not. Neither is the fact that the national cuisine is entirely based on large quantities of oil/sugar/butter.

The story from a couple weeks ago regarding the “pollution in the face” occurred as I was crossing the street to catch the bus. I was caught in the middle of the road, between two lanes of traffic, dodging dump trucks and motorcycles. Then a bus came tearing around the bend.

The thing to remember here, is that when the little old ladies who sweep the road with a homemade broom of twigs come by to gather the dust/debris off the main road, they sweep it into the curb and along the median.

So, a bus is coming directly at me, kicking up pavement particles and spewing grey-brown clouds of exhaust in its wake. I know I can’t jump in front of it and leap to the other side to avoid its grossness because A) generally not safe B) the driver may very well speed up.

In the following seconds the bus swung by me, teetering on 2.7 of its wheels, and within those few seconds, the rickety bus hurled 1. the dirt piles the ladies swept up 2. steamy black fumes 3. sharp pebbles from the pavement 4. a mixture of discarded chewed up food bits from the nearby snack stand, all over me. The hot, sticky concoction of the road traveled up around my legs, through my white skirt, in my hair, and of course, in my mouth/nose/ears/eyes.

It was a long bus ride.

In other news, I finally figured out that monkeys can indeed crawl in between the monkey bars on my balconies. (there are steel rods crisscrossing the entire outdoor areas from floor to ceiling). Only the young ones can fit through, which makes me believe it may be some kind of simian hazing...