Two Suave (Female) Parliamentarians And The Hoopla Around their Clothes!

New parliamentarians Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan were trolled because they wore Western clothes and posed enthusiastically in front of Parliament. Judge-y much?

It was a bright, sunny and definitely proud day for Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan, the newly elected MPs from Bengal who made their way to the Parliament House. They looked suave and classy in their Western clothes and truly represented the new generation of leaders.

But as they posted photographs displaying their identity cards as MPs on the premises of Parliament, they were handed down mindless pieces of advice and trolled mercilessly for their choice of attire.

And so, once again, the old-fashioned sexist attitude of our society comes to the fore. Well, if clothes can ensure exemplary behaviour and integrity from our leaders, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have tailor-made costumes for the entire lot of people’s representatives.

This isn’t of course the first time that women have been targeted for the clothes they wear. Priyanka Chopra was similarly shamed when she chose to wear a dress when she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Berlin.

It is uncanny how a set of clothes worn by a woman gives everyone the right to overlook her mammoth achievements and reduce her to nothing more than her attire. In a day and age when woman empowerment should be at its peak, do we still care about such regressive and redundant opinions?

Have we still to step out of an era when women have no freedom of choice, not even in the clothes they wear? Considering that they form more than 60% of the electoral populace! Well, do we need lessons on freedom in the largest democracy?

More than once, the fight for gender equality has been questioned by millennials citing it as unnecessary and blown out of proportion. Well, if a woman exercising her freedom to choose her attire can raise so many eyebrows, I think we have more than one reason to believe that gender equality is still a myth.

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Does the credibility of an individual depend on their dressing sense? Why do we have stereotypical, fixed ideas and specially when it comes to women? Why is a woman’s ability judged by the way she looks? Why do we have pre-conceived ideas/notions of how women should behave and can look no further than them.

The day to question an MP is when they fail to perform their duty or steer clear of serving their people. That is the day to question your representative, irrespective of their gender. Until then, let your quick judgement on women rest in peace!

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