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.
1 comment:
Now I get what this "don't" in the back of the travelguide was about. Even though it might not be as hot in Costa Rica during summer than it can be here, or even worse Hungary, I couldn't imagine to abdicate shorts.
However, I realized that I forgot mine at the caravan, and also my really short red skirt and our landlords are on holiday - which means : pool for me! Gotta go get them! I wished we had that situation during our stay, how could would that be!? Haha next time you'll stop by I make sure they're gone and the weather is fine!
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