Let's begin with the Bahawalpur Victoria Hospital which is affiliated with Quaid-a-Azam Medical College. It is one of the largest health facilities in South Punjab where the newly appointed superintendent introduced a dress code last month. He said that this step was being taken to ‘reform society and preach Islam’.
It’s amusing that a medical superintendent wants to reform a society by introducing dress codes and tries to act like a preacher enforcing one's beliefs on others instead of doing his part by performing his actual job which is to serve patients, facilitate doctors and solve the numerous administrative problems that we all know exist in government hospitals.
Another important thing to be noticed was that the dress code (which disallowed jeans, makeup, high heels and hairstyles like ponytails) was completely women centric. This is because reforming societies, according to Dr Warraich and most people in our society, means restricting women without their consent but ignoring men’s responsibility. We as a society thrive on policing and shaming women and letting men off the hook in the name of superiority.
With wide protest and criticism the dress code has now been withdrawn, but the same kind of policy remains enforced in many other educational institutions across the country including topped ranked ones like NUST, UET as well as Bahria and IoBM where students have shared experiences of being policed by administration, professors and even by security officials on gate. The elaborate dress codes that make it to social media every now and then, encourage western clothing for boys whereas traditional dresses with headscarves are chosen for women.
Most universities use the words 'dignity', 'decency' and 'cultural values' as well as 'good morale' in their tag lines while enforcing codes. This makes one think: what exactly is decency? What may be decent for one person may not be for another and most importantly, who decides what is decent and what is not?
And 'decency' is also the word used by the Federal Directorate of Education that introduced a dress code this time for teachers, banning jeans and tights. The amount of time and resources that educational institutions waste on making futile dress codes and employing extreme measures to ensure a particular length for shirts can be used to solve on campus problems including gender discrimination, harassment and student right violations like fee hikes and substandard teaching. These issues merit urgent attention, but solving them is not a priority.
Most universities use the words 'dignity', 'decency' and 'cultural values' as well as 'good morale' in their tag lines while enforcing codes. This makes one think: what exactly is decency? What may be decent for one person may not be for another and most importantly, who decides what is decent and what is not?
Not just that, the fact that certain outfits are stereotyped makes the situation even worse, which can be clearly seen from Professor Pervez Hoodhboy’s statement a few days ago where he points out that female students, especially burqa clad ones, are less inquisitive. His remarks received mixed reviews from netizens, many pointing out that Hoodbhoy meant that hijab is obligatory but burqa is not because the latter erases the wearer’s identity.
This context is correct for those being forced to wear the burqa but what about those who wear it by choice? Notions like burqas wearing students are less competitive ,are hurtful and disrespectful to such students who are extremely competitive and wear it on their own accord, even though those doing it by choice are less in number.
That being said, it is a fact that many women are pressured to cover up/dress in a certain way by families just like institutions force students to follow certain dress codes, and thus both in their own way deprive the wearer of their individual identity, autonomy and empowerment. As PhD scholar and writer Maria Malik rightly says
“Headscarf on. Is NOT empowerment.
Headscarf off. Is NOT empowerment.
Empowerment is when the person has the choice to make that decision WITHOUT your influence, interference and opinion."
And it is only truly a persons own choice when they take any decision solely based on their thoughts and ideas without the interference of culture, religion or any kind of discrimination. It is about time we learned to follow the mantra of live and let live, ending this wardrobe policing once and for all and letting clothes be what they are, just clothes.