You Shouldn't Dress Like That

My friend Rachel keeps
me informed of all things
happening in France.
She just emailed me
the front page, breaking
news headline from France.

Les Parisiennes ont (enfin) légalement 

le droit de porter des pantalons.

Parisiennes, women that is,
finally have the right

to wear pants.

France has  entered the 21st century.

Since an 1799 ordinance it has been
interdit aux femmes de porter des pantalons
---illegal for women to wear pants.

Marie-Rose Astié de Valsayre, 

one of the first feminists of the 19 century

who pursued medical and pharmaceutical

studies, rallied against this law.  Marie-Rose

also fenced and lets face it,

a sword and skirt are dangerous allies.

Perhaps France should write a law

prohibiting speedos-- for men, in public pools. 

Unfortunately, the French have done the reverse.  

It is illegal for men to wear any swimwear 

but a speedo in public pools.

None of those knee length swim trunks that North

American males prefer, these are seen as unhygienic

in France.

While France is finally addressing

this ridiculous and prejudicial pant limiting law,

many women in many countries

are rising up against their subjugation.

In India, as anthropologist Martine van Woerkens

writes in her book We are not flowers!  We are sparks of fire."

Indian feminists  have raged for two centuries
 against selection of births, arranged

marriages, working girls, dowry killings and
the tragic plight of widows who have no voice. 

In  Egypt, Rebecca Chiao was standing
on a busy street in Cairo when a man unzipped
his pants and exposed himself to
her while touching himself.  He walked toward
her, touching himself the whole time.
The crowd either ignored Rebecca or
looked at her with disgust, like it was she

Rebecca Chiao

who invited this man's harassment.  Even
her male friends told her she should dress
differently, stand differently, should not
be on the street and that the harasser was
powerless to resist.

Rebecca co-founded  Harass Map Egypt.
She uses social media to support her effort
to address harassment.   500 volunteers
go into their own communities to address
harassment, to create safe zones for
the victims.  For Rebecca and her team
of volunteers it is no longer okay to
accept harassment as the norm.    

And in Haiti, nearly three years
after the earthquake of 2010,
displaced women with their children
continue to fear the rape and sexual violence
thrust upon them in their tent cities.

Before 2005, rapes in Haiti were treated as

nothing more than crimes of passion.

Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, 

founders of three of Haiti's most important advocacy organizations 

working on behalf of women and girls changed this view.

All three Haitian women died in the earthquake of 2010.

Whether it is a law that gives 

women the right to wear pants

or a movement rising up and against all 

forms of oppression, I wonder

might it be possible that... for once the world might see in the 

average Haitian, not the face of an ‘other’ 

that must be feared, but a human being within which the spirit moves, 

whether by the hand of a Christian, or African god,

 a spirit deserving of daily, holy bread?"  Myriam Chancy

Might it be possible that the world might see 

in women, not the face of a property to be owned

but a temple to be honoured.

“Where love is, there is transformation. 

Without love, revolution has no meaning, 

for then revolution is merely destruction, decay, 

a greater and greater ever-mounting misery. 

Where there is love, there is revolution, 

because love is transformation from moment to moment.” 

 Krishnamurti, The First & Last Freedoms