The statement was Deshpande’s defence of her move to change the current unisex uniform (girls and boys both wear black pants and white shirts) into a gender-based one.
A day after the principal of a college in Mumbai suggested that ‘dressing like a man causes polycystic ovarian syndrome — or PCOS’, #DressLikeAnIndianWoman began trending on Twitter.
Swati Deshpande, the principal of Government Polytechnic College in Bandra, a suburb in Mumbai, said, “I have heard theories on why girls suffer from PCOS at an early age. When they dress like men, they start thinking or behaving like them. There is a gender role reversal in their head. Due to this, the natural urge to reproduce diminishes right from a young age and therefore they suffer from problems like PCOS [sic].”
The statement was Deshpande’s defence of her move to change the current unisex uniform (girls and boys both wear black pants and white shirts) into a gender-based one.
According to science and statistics, PCOS is a hormonal issue and according to a 2015 report, 18 per cent of Indian women suffer from it.
If Deshpande has her way, female students will soon wear salwar kameezes to college. Already, the college canteen has issued a notice in Marathi, segregating spaces for men and women. This, according to Deshpande, will reduce the risk of harassment.
This is not the first such incident: Last August, Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma asked female tourists to dress appropriately “for their own safety”. Sharma had earlier made a statement that going out at night may be acceptable elsewhere, but it wasn’t part of the Indian culture.
In 2014, Asha Mirje, a member of a government panel for women, said women too were “responsible to an extent” for rape and that their “clothing and behaviour” played a part. She later issued an apology, but said that she stood by her statements as they were her own.
The hashtag #DressLikeAnIndianWoman, interestingly, is a derivative of the #DressLikeAWoman, which was created last week, after US President Donald Trump reportedly said that he likes his female staffers to “dress like women”. Several people were offended and took to social media to voice their outrage. Among the various pictures posted and statements made, one that stood out was that of a policewomen (left) who posted a picture of herself in uniform saying, “I’ll dress like a woman once you act like a President.”
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