Undressing the issue

Under Article 152 of Sudanese law, anyone 'who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing' will be subjected to 40 lashes. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, a journalist for the UN mission in Sudan has waived her UN immunity and says that she is ready for more than 40 lashes in an attempt to change the law in Sudan. You can read the article here. What was she wearing to cause such consternation? A loose top, green slack pants and an headscarf.

Whilst the regulation in Sudan is because of particular law, this is not the only way that women's bodies are regulated. Last year in Umlazi South Africa a young women was stripped of her clothes and made to walk naked through her home town for wearing pants. Her home was first ransacked and then set alight, because she was in violation of a community-imposed ban on women wearing pants in T-junction (the area of Umlazi where she lived).

Why the aversion to pants?

The clothing techniques of everyday fashion have sought to enhance women's otherness - stiletto heels make it difficult to walk and hence entail a particular way of walking. Wearing a long skirt has similar implications for running and moving quickly. To regulate the wearing of particular clothes is to regulate the way in which women can move and live in their bodies. Feminine (or feminized) styles of dress come to be associated with a coded moral language which allows the clothing to inform the wearer what they can and can't do. Clothing that is heavy and elaborate means that women cannot perform physically arduous tasks because they are unable to move freely.

Clothing then becomes part of the control and restriction of women. If women wear clothes than ensure that they continue to take tiny steps and walk slowly, they will remain 'stereotypically feminine'. This allows men to remain in a position of social superiority because of the value placed on performing the 'heavy lifting' type tasks. So to break free of skirts and to break into the masculine domain of pants is to break free of feminine movement. It is to break into the domain of men.

Another possible reason that these women are being chastised, abused and degraded has to do with the way that women become sexualised bodies through their clothing use clothing reveals or conceals skin. The display of skin has been historically gendered. To reveal some skin is to entice the thought of sex and sexuality, but to reveal too much is to become obscene, grotesque, or in some countries it is seen as violating public morality.

In many countries, disguising their sex appeal in order not to distract, or entice men, is women's responsibility. Particular 'traditional' ways of dressing encourage women to cover up, so that men are not tempted. This allows for arguments in support of women abuse when women are not covered - ie 'she was dressed that way, what did she expect?'. In Soweto, South Africa, in 2008 Nwabisa Ngcukana was abused, beated, and sexually assaulted for wearing a mini-skirt inside a taxi rank in the area. The men who assaulted her cited her clothing as the reason for the attack, and chastised her for insulting tradition.

What this says to women is that they are responsible for men's inability to control their behaviour. It says to women that they must wear particular clothes in order to be free of violence. It says to women that they are responsible for their own rape, or abuse againt them, or their arrest, or their imprisonment.

In Sudan, the law acts against women to prevent them from moving and dressing freely. In South Africa, the law exists for women to wear what they want. Yet, in both instances women are subject to the same scrutiny and violence. I am worried that if women in a country with legal protections for them cannot dress how they would like to, that the battle is far from over for women in Sudan and elsewhere.


I wish this journalist and all the women who are fighting against similar restrictions luck and support.