Women in revealing dresses: liberation, or titillation?

Questioner: There is a question in my mind that keeps bothering me quite a lot — this concept of ‘wearing short dresses’ and ‘not being seen in short dresses in the public’.

Usually, people say that one can wear short dresses at home, but it is not okay to wear them in public. Some of the world leaders even allege that one of the reasons that a woman gets raped is because she was wearing short clothes.

What is your understanding of this?

Acharya Prashant: There are two sides involved here.

One, the woman who is walking about wearing whatever clothes she is. And she has her own story to tell. And then there are those who are jeering, ogling, mocking, and sometimes attacking.

I would want to have a sincere discussion with both of them.

Firstly, with the side that is so articulate in saying that women should mind their clothes and dressings. I want to ask them, “What kind of person are you, man or woman, if anything is able to disturb or provoke you so easily?”

Your allegation is that when you watch a woman dressed skimpily, then that becomes a disturbance, a distraction, even a provocation. How will you insulate yourself? And how much you will insulate yourself from the world? And what are the limits…