This, according to Babu Kuzhimattom, writer and secretary at Kerala State Bookmark, is what happened on that day his car slid, when the driver got distracted by a woman in leggings. The driver saw a 45-year-old woman revealing her body curves through a tight fitting pair of leggings. He lost control of the wheel, the car slid. And how can he be blamed, Babu asked in that controversial Facebook post he made that day, for he, a much older guy was sexually aroused by the sight. That’s the way man is created, he wrote, and that’s why old people tell you that a woman should always exercise constraint (adakkavum othukkavum in Malayalam).
That post is not there anymore. He has removed it, after a tirade of comments came for and against it. But it is not because he changed his stance, he says. “I still stand by what I said. I am not a woman hater, and I didn’t do it to shame her. It just came out of a consciousness of our tradition and of an idea of modesty,” Babu says. The skin-tight garment on the legs that women wore does not serve this purpose, at least not all of them, he feels. When social commentator Sindhu Joy went and posted a picture of her in leggings, Babu ‘liked’ it. “Leggings can be worn vulgarly or otherwise. Her picture had no problem.”
Sindhu Joy is upset that someone could post such vulgarities on the social media, a platform that could be used for your creativity. “That too by a man leading a cultural organisation like Bookmark. Firstly, it is one person’s freedom to decide what to wear or not. At a time when we talk so much about women’s progress, are we going backward with such attitudes? Secondly, it is not a woman’s dressing that causes attacks on her. Then why is a three-year-old raped, what body part of hers was too big or provocative?” But the truth is Babu was not aroused, he says. “I make my point by presenting myself as a character of fiction. But to my words linka chalanam that people called bad, they responded in such filthy language.”
Babu says he removed the post only because he felt others were misusing it for their political advantage. “Trying to win over the so called new generation, they protest against it.” But all of the new-gen does not think alike. There is for instance Lakshmi Bai, a 25-year-old research person of sociological criticism, who once wrote an article against leggings. She still stands by what she wrote, and agrees with the sentiments of Babu Kuzhimattom. “Women take these things as an attack on their freedom but they do not understand what goes through the mind of a man. I have had guy friends tell me they have trouble seeing women in these clothing even in churches. Many girls are not aware about the body changes that men go through when they see all this.”
But such men will remain perverts whether they see a woman in leggings or not, says Sobha Ashwin, who runs a handloom boutique called Weavers Village. “It is not us (women) who should change our choices. It is they (men) that should change. It is not a woman’s dressing that creates rapists, it is more the upbringing of these men. They should be taught as children to respect women. The next generation at least, let’s hope will be brought up to respect women.” Her friend Merin who is into event management asks why else do babies get molested? “Leggings are just a comfortable wear, that’s why you wear it.”
