It's a Dress, not a YES!

Recently I was reading an article on Linkedin about the sexual harassment at workplace in India. It was just a collection of the figures of reported sexual harassment cases over a period of 5 years with elaboration of some highlighted cases such as Tarun Tejpal and R. k Pachauri ones. Just another usual article. But, when I scrolled down further to read the comments  (Yes, I do read them), I was shocked to see what people have actually said! Majority of them blamed the girl for it. Reason?

• The girl wants it! And how do you know about it? Of Course, her clothes!So tight, so short, so much revealing! (As if you won't find guys wearing their school fitting shirts and trousers in office), 
• Oh, she do make up to attract us! (I never knew looking good was a crime!)

There were few who came out in support , but they got trolled and that too badly (Like, ok Bro! send your wife/sister in bikni to office and then lets see if you stand by your opinion). Now who goes to office in Bikni? 

That lead me to think - are women's clothes really responsible for her being target at workplace or for that matter any where else? If that be the reason, Muslim ladies wearing burqa should never face such situation? or ladies in villages who do 'parda' or 'ghooghat' must be most secure! Is that so? Not really. Molestation and sexual harrasment are not linked to the clothes but to the mentality. 

At workplace , sexual harassment may be due to two reasons:

• EGO Satisfaction - Often limited successful people (Boss), think that they can get whatever they desire just because they are rich & successful. They want every beautiful face in their office as their arm candy and when that does not happen, they resort to other means!
  
• Power Politics - Sometimes, male ego is not able to digest that there is a female who is either equal to or more intelligent/smarter than them. Wherever ladies start getting attention for their work, their male counterparts feel a sense of insecurity. Because of this insecurity or jealous feeling, starts another level of war. And anything is valid in love and war! 
  

When we blame a girl's clothes for her getting molested, we are actually showing a 'escaping and blaming' mentality. We are just looking at the soft target to blame for our evil thoughts! When you actually blame a girl, you are punishing her for somebody else's wrong deeds! 

When we give such kind of explanations, we are actually creating a sense of fear, not only in the mind of girls, but also their parents. How will they send their daughter's to work then? Will it not percolate deep down to affect other girl's education? 

Just once, put yourself in her position of how it feels to be a victim and yet be blamed for it! How it feels when every eye in the office looks at you with suspicion! As if , they have judged you the guilty even without listening to your side of story. Just because, she chose to wear what she likes! So next time, you read a news/article/discussion about it, please don't blame the girl. She is anyways in a shock, please don't add to her pain and agony. That's the least you can do to help her! 

Mentality needs to be changed and not clothes! A girl wearing an Indian attire is equally harassed as any other girl in jeans or skirt! It has absolutely no relation to clothes she chose to wear! Punish the guilty, not the victim!  

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