What #MyDressMyChoice campaign has taught me

This article has been written many times. Each time I read it, it left me very agitated. I watched those videos. I stopped when males spread her legs and reached between them, her screams so frantic.

I thought her voice would break. It haunts me. It left me on edge for days. I want to arm myself. You see, Kenyans have largely thought fashion irrelevant; that thing happening over there with those people. That it has little impact.

Except, fashion just told us exactly who we are. It has told us what women wear is so powerful it enrages males, causing them to strip us naked and sexually molest us and consider it justified because we are apparently too tempting.

It has become an indictment on males who by doing this thing admitted to having no self-awareness, sexual power and underscored their own impotence. I refer you to @AKenyanGirl’s timeline just weeks before these attacks, depicting a simmering energy about to erupt.

A WOMAN'S CHOICE

Fashion has illustrated how impossible the decision on what a woman wears each time she leaves the house is never really her own when she has to think of pleasing random males whose idea on what is decent shifts according to the conversation du jour at impromptu barazas.

This is because if you watched those videos you’d realise these women were, in fact, not dressed indecently and that the definition of indecent depends on who chooses to be offended, when, where and why.

Fashion has illustrated a woman is traffic-stopping because her body is a battleground for and against morality however illegal the means of exercising said morals are.

Fashion has in a fortnight underscored the growing number of unemployed, frustrated able-bodied men. All these in a country where women are told if they do not want to be raped they should dress appropriately.

Women are taught from a young age to take pride in their physical appearance, to impress, be attractive. The past century has steadily shifted, allowing women to reclaim their bodies making declarations as to who they are, increasingly for themselves.

A large part is expressed through fashion. I can bet my bottom dollar these culprits have mothers, aunts and maybe even grandmothers who wore miniskirts in the 1960s and 1970s.

It is unfortunate a woman’s public power is so heavily vested in her appearance that attacking it and her is guaranteed to devastate.

Compound that with our greatest fear, physical harm visited upon us by men in the full knowledge our physical strength is no match for theirs. Gavin De Becker says in The Gift Of Fear that while “A man’s greatest fear is that a woman will reject him, a woman’s greatest fear is that a man will kill her.”

Stripping a woman is not a crime of fashion. A woman’s body, draped in whatever trend, has been owned by others — the church has claimed it, the government, fathers, sons, husbands and lovers. But a woman must never have to fear for her life and safety whichever choice she makes.

And to be fair, people generally have a clear understanding of what decent is. Any woman is quite conscious of this. Only a fool would think otherwise.

The other part of the fashion equation though is where the heartache lies — and that is with the observer.

Whatever choice the observer makes says more about you than it will about her because you will act on it in thought or deed.

#MyDressMyChoice goes beyond a group of men thinking themselves arbiters of the Kenyan woman’s wardrobe. To strip a woman naked is to strip her of who she is and her sense of self.

Not all are rotten

What #MyDressMyChoice tells me about Kenyan fashion is this:

• There are more than enough men willing to protect women. A breakdown in society has been exaggerated. I say we are not too far gone. Men are expressing outrage, standing and marching side by side with women, tweeting to protect women they may not even know; men who will come after anyone who so much as harms a hair on a woman’s head.
• Fashion is a choice. Free will is a delicious concept, but it does not exist as freely as we will. There will always be others who your free will offends. The thing is not to let them mute you.
• We have double standards. The second quarter of 2014 featured one particularly prominent behind. Linda Okello caused such a fuss yet if memory serves, she was celebrated for her beautifully rounded bottom and along with what was agreed to be an unfair transfer, trended on social media and earned herself #PoliceUniform.
• It is far more powerful when female politicians do not instigate a movement. #MyDressMyChoice needed wananchi, an incensed colony that feels most unsafe. It is illustrative of a reclaiming of a woman’s voice, an ability to stand up for herself and using her wardrobe and body to draw attention to issues that count. This is the very embodiment of a fashion statement.
• Fashion is not the cause, it is the trigger. The nature of the violent attacks speaks to a deep-seated resentment and misplaced impotence. Making someone feel powerless is never going to be a measure of how powerful you are.
• When fashion and technology meet the impact is massive.

Fashion, an avenue for self-expression, revelation, love, esteem, confidence, art, beauty, freedom, personal growth and wealth is also an avenue to sexualise, own, objectify and gauge values of a society from the self-righteous and sanctimonious to the laissez faire.

Underneath our clothes lies a failure to understand that deeply mysterious, enchanting feminine allure. We all come from a woman, one who clothed and held us. And to the men who don’t think this is cause for alarm; when they are done with me, they’re coming for you.