In Bengal, Female MPs Got Called Out For Wearing Western Wear In The Parliament. What Is Our Problem?
I have grown up reading really deep things like ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’, and have consciously tried to abide by them because honestly, they make a lot of sense. But little did I know that nobody really follows that. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. We judge books, cars, and even humans by what they are in, on the outside.
A woman wearing a saree? Backward, we think. Mini skirt? Slotted into the category of a slut. Fashionable clothes? Ill equipped to be a politician. Wait, what? That doesn’t make any sense, you think. But we say this after the backlash and trolling Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan, the winning members from two of the most prestigious constituencies in Bengal faced for… get this…wearing a western set of clothes.
And its us again
1st day at Parliament @nusratchirps pic.twitter.com/ohBalZTJCV— Mimi chakraborty (@mimichakraborty) May 27, 2019
The two female actors both won by an impressive margin in the elections have been at the receiving end of numerous hate comments for how they dress, the internet was entirely too quick to conclude that these well-dressed women are unsuitable to hold a position in the government.
First of all, what? And secondly, what the f*** does what they wear have to do with their ability to do their job? .
The controversy took an ugly turn when the two MPs posed for a picture in front of the parliament, in a smart, formal look which was clearly western. By which we mean, they weren’t wearing sarees. Of course, this gave netizens a chance to stereotype them. All because we’ve only seen politicians in cotton sarees and this departure from the expected will obviously come in the way of them thinking.
What a woman wears has absolutely nothing to do with what she does. An MP or not, the two are entitled to wearing what they deem fit, for it is a personal choice. Someone could be dressed in cotton and silk sarees and still be terrible at driving change in a nation, the same way, someone could be dressed in a skirt and create a revolution.What is saddening is that it’s 2019 and we are still stuck in what seems like an endless rut.
While the netizens may have been uncomplimentary and uncouth, the worse of the lot was Ram Gopal Varma. The man pulled out a TikTok video of the two actresses in their more glamorous avatar to say some entirely idiotic things.
Wow Wow Wow!!! New MPs from Bengal.. Mimi Chakraborty & Nusrat Jahaan_India is really really progressing ..it’s a welcome relief to see MP’s who are so easy on the eye 🙏🙏🙏 pic.twitter.com/F4B0EZxkZJ
— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) May 26, 2019
Maybe, just maybe, we need to grow up and come out of the shallowness of our mindsets to see people for what they are. And give women or men going about their jobs equal respect, no matter what they put on their back.
