The War of Shorts

I must start working on my luggage, deciding what stays here and what goes with me back to Costa Rica. It's also a good moment to review my stuff and decide what goes for good. Naturally all my office clothes come with me, as well as my flats and my sandals, and my crocs. I'm not sure about my pumps; though as those probably need replacement.

My shorts stay. It may sound stupid, but yes, my shorts must stay. Thinking about this, the other day I shaved my legs and put on my dressing pair of shorts. Not that I have so many pairs - just three. All of them black. I use my sport shorts for jogging these days, or for staying at home. If I’m going out for a little stroll or to run errands I change into my black, string Bermudas. For going out I was wearing my Polish jeans, but then after thinking about the fate of my clothes and having shaved my legs, I grabbed my dressing shorts and paired them with a white cotton, flowy blouse and my eternal black flats.

The day had started with a plan to go to the movies, which quickly morphed into different plans, since I still had a few things to complete from the second List of 13. Of course, this decision was also influenced by the fact that there's nothing worthy in the movies. So, checking the List, I decided to go on and visit two antique bookstores, and deal with the rest of the unfinished stuff in the way. I set my eyes on two particular bookstores, one of which is located in a part of town known by its Jewish history, while the other is located on a busy, fashionable tourist ridden street. And I went to both locations wearing shorts, flats and a flowy blouse.

In Europe people don't think twice about wearing shorts when the weather is hot. With the summer, but sometimes even with the first steadier rays of light, the first warm spring shimmer, men and women alike grab their shorts and start the steady building of a leg "city-tan". In Europe such a thing is possible, but that's not the case everywhere. You don't need to cross big religious and cultural borders, or think about women wrapped in Burqas, laws and religious prescriptions, prison sentences or public flogging, or ex communion, to find harsh restrictions against certain types of clothing. One of the most effective ones I know in this matter is the condoned, unpunished, well known and yet tolerated public harassment. Not one European person would think that there's a type of clothing that takes away your human condition, your status as person, or that would automatically cancel your rights, particularly your right to be respected and have your dignity respected. Tons of people go sunbathing on public parks wearing nothing but a G-string and a hat, and not one person feels entitled to treat them as meat.

However there are other places in the world, capital cities, large metropolis, or democratic, capitalist nations, Christians in its majority, where your clothes make you or break you. Colors and style define the sexual tendency of men, regardless of their actual sexual tendency, and anything - intended or not - in the clothing of women that suggests body shapes, skin or sensuality is quite enough to give green light to anyone - absolutely anyone - wishing to harass her. She put on the clothes, so it's her fault. This behavior is thus further enforced by the myth that women - no matter how much they deny it - love this type of harassment, that this is an actual compliment, and that all women are such attention whores that they dress everyday with one single objective in mind: collect as many “compliments" from strangers as possible.

Then, there's virtually no type of clothing that could fend off the harassment, only options to reduce it or manage to get the less aggressive kind of harassment possible. After years of chalk-white legs - and you know I'm not white! - my legs have started to get a soft, while bread crust color, my very own "city-tan", but my shorts have to remain here, my tan will quickly fade away and I’ll be forced once again to wear the imposed Burqa of my democratic, free, capitalist, Catholic country - the alleged happiest country in the world - where the gender equality exists in law, in paper, in the parliament, but where in the streets women are still possessions, where their clothing isn't a free instrument of personal expression, but a ram brand, an excuse to further deny their rights and their humanity.

What can be done to free clothes, to give back humanity to the Latin women, to all women and stop this daily, terrorizing type of harassment? I reach out to men as well for answers.