Indecent dressing

THREE years ago, Nigeria suffered considerable embarrassment on the international stage when clothes, or the lack of them, became a major discussion point in her ivory towers. The towers themselves were crumbling, libraries contained moth-eaten and outdated volumes and professors were leaving but the increasing number of exposed students' stomachs was the priority of some campus administrations. The institution of dress codes on many of Nigeria's campuses coincided with a slip in their position on international University league tables as many of the few remaining dons left their books to measure hemlines. A year or two later, dress was only one of several personal intrusions in Nigeria's institutions of higher learning -one Nigerian university had formally listed a negative pregnancy test as a graduation requirement.

The sheer ridiculousness of the dress code fiasco in Nigerian institutions of higher learning has been relegated into comparable insignificance by a related debate occurring at the highest level of Nigeria's government. High rates of maternal mortality, illiteracy and malnutrition are no matter. Public insecurity and crime, exam malpractice and unemployment continue to rise but the issue that Nigeria's Senate Committee on Women and Youth Affairs is most pressed by is the clothing worn, or not worn, by women who are trying to go about their daily business.

Apparently, the wanton and deliberate exposure of a woman's body, by herself, constitutes "sexual intimidation". In enforcing future laws to prevent this 'societal vice', it is not clear how this type of exposure will be distinguished from the failure of poor parents to procure school uniforms that reach below the knee for rapidly growing school girls, or how legislation to 'preserve cultural norms and values' will exclude dancers that precede the appearance of an Ijele masquerade during traditional festivities. Perhaps this will be the focus of Nigerian lawmakers in the weeks or months to come, as they fiddle in close proximity to other flames.

Many of the clothes worn by the exposed are not designed in Nigeria, are not made in Nigeria, neither are they even initially worn in Nigeria. They are procured as second-hand cast-offs from countries where the citizenry has learned to largely accept, or to ignore, the way a woman chooses to adorn herself and instead to concern itself with her quality of life, service and productivity. In the USA, many women walk around more underdressed than the most brazen Nigerian woman would dare. However, even though the law only requires that a few square inches of their bodies be covered, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Drew Faust are never scantily clad. And although they all have considerable public influence, are they concerned with the attire of their compatriots? The law does not dictate how any of these women dress but their social networks, careers, opportunities and personal preferences do. It is in Nigeria that 'indecent dressing' is now a national and legislative concern, possibly because the aforementioned informal regulators have broken down or perhaps reflective of an inexplicable intolerance that might be extended to other parts of her social sphere.

I do understand that some people will find a scantily clad woman attractive and others would view the same with disgust. I am even willing to accept that a woman who chooses to dress provocatively might in fact do so to provoke. I however have difficulty comprehending those individuals that feel intimidated by partial nudity. How might more women's clothing boost the confidence and productivity of such people?

Should the state subsidise clothing for women who cannot afford it in order to increase productivity? How is it that a bountiful harvest was reaped annually in the years that girls of my great-grandmothers generation went about their errands in nothing but jigida and, for the fact, remained virgins until they married? Some might argue that sexual assault, prostitution, teenage pregnancy, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases might be connected to under-clothed women. If indeed this is true, why then are none of the inferred consequences of scanty dressing currently under discussion in the Senate instead of clothes. When our busy lawmakers have finished with dress codes, should they then create a law allowing for the arrest of people who do not lock their doors in order to cut down on thefts?

Diminutive clothing does not necessarily correlate with sexual proclivity, societal dysfunction or crime, nor will more clothing prevent these things. After all, politicians and businessmen wearing 'complete Agbadas' sewn with 12 or more yards of material are apt to be just as promiscuous, as shirtless labourers, if not more. Even though a heated discussion on what women wear is in progress, somehow the 'sexual intimidation' of women by men who are scantily clad by necessity or design does not appear to have made it onto the agenda.

Last week, I had the privilege of attending a business meeting in Italy. As I had previously been informed, Italy is a beautiful country, with friendly and welcoming people, splendid and aged architecture and remarkable cuisine. I however could not completely enjoy my visit because of a well-known scarcely spoken problem that does not feature on the pages of Italian guidebooks or the agenda of the National Assembly. It was winter in Southern Italy but not very cold by Europe's standards. Many Italian women were wearing short skirts and tights with high heels. When they took off their tiny fur-lined jackets, they revealed stylish off-the-shoulder, skin-tight sweaters. Clothing that might be described as suggestive in some circles but not enough to attract the leers that were directed at Nigerian women in long trousers or skirts, thick boots, bulky hooded coats and woolly scarves. Provocatively dressed Italian women were simply daughters, mothers, wives, girlfriends and sisters to be admired or ignored.

More conservatively dressed Nigerian women were leered at because they were suspected to be prostitutes. Sexual innuendo was linked to their citizenship, not clothing or manner of dress and has roots in the disturbingly large number of young, beautiful and hardworking women who work the streets in a foreign country, serving clients who speak a strange language away from their friends and families in a country that requires their productivity. Leaders of their far-away country, instead of creating jobs and opportunities for these victims of socio-economic neglect, or at least their successors, are devoting national resources to a meaningless exercise, while the rest of the struggling country must watch and applaud.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the European fairytale that describes a proud but unwise emperor, who is distracted and duped by a pair of weavers. He pays his unscrupulous clothes-makers handsomely to produce a fabric richer than any other for a suit of clothes. The emperor is told that only those fit for their jobs can see the fabric and ends up walking through his court and country in nothing but his birthday suit to the nation's applause. The debacle is only terminated when a child whispers 'but the emperor has no clothes!' If Nigeria's legislators continue to pursue this line of discourse, someone must point out their nakedness.