Women Not to Blame for Dress

Note: This is a perspective that I submitted to The Hilltop, Howard University's student newspaper. I just submitted it today, so it has yet to be published.

In his column "Unphiltered," Phil Lucas wrote his response to comments that were made on Allhiphop.com. There, Brothers were anticipating with glee the number of “freaks and hoes” that would be at our school’s homecoming celebrations. Initially offended by these comments, Brother Lucas still felt the need to caution Sisters to dress appropriately. Also, he warned the entire Howard community to be selective with their sexual endeavors in order to preserve individuals’ reputations. Offenders should be expelled (Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either.) because this would deter folks from tarnishing Howard’s reputation as a premiere HBCU.

I do not submit this perspective in order to demonize Brother Lucas. In fact, his view is the mainstream, dominant one that many folks may agree with. I wish to only offer an alternative perspective and to demonstrate the extent to which his comments were damaging to our community.

With that said, indulge me if you will.

The ideological framework Brother Lucas is operating within is the same of rapists who believe that if a girl was being provocative or wearing certain types of clothes, then she “was asking for it.” A female’s choice of dress is no indicator of her sexual happenings, expectations, or allowances.

If a woman walks outside her house butt naked, no man has the right to touch her or to yell obscenities. However, we all know that if a woman walks outside in sweat pants and a winter coat she runs the risk of sexual assault.

In fact, just being a woman is enough to get you sexually assaulted in this sexist society.

Nonetheless, we understand that wearing less clothes or dressing provocatively increases the risk of sexual assault. Not that long ago, drinking out of a white water fountain in the South could have gotten you lynched. Also, let us not forget that sitting under a “white” tree in Jena, Louisiana can have major repercussions in America’s injustice system.

And one need not drink from a white water fountain or sit under a “white” tree because just being black is enough to get you discriminated against in this white-supremacist society.

The truth is that we all learn to police our actions living within a white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Much in the same way that a woman knows not to walk outside wearing nothing because she could possibly be raped, blacks knew we could get lynched if we chose to drink from the white water fountain. With this understanding, it is clear that women who dress provocatively are not the problem; the problem is the system of oppression that allows injustice to occur based upon something as frivolous as their choice of dress.

It is absurd to criticize women for dressing provocatively (Who would criticize Rosa Parks for remaining seated on the bus?). Now, this is not to say that all Howard females who choose to dress provocatively have some type of radical feminist mission. But the point still stands that no one who transgresses against oppression – whether consciously or subconsciously - should be reprimanded.

At best, we can say that women who dress provocatively are not taking the necessary precautions to avoid harm. But it does not follow, by any stretch of the imagination, that brothers on Allhiphop.com are justified by calling them “freaks and hoes” and that females’ dress should be checked in order to maintain the reputation of Howard University.

If our reputation depends on whether or not female students choose to dress provocatively, it is a reputation not worth having. Our worth as an institution must transcend the whims of a sexist, patriarchal order if we are to be worth anything at all.

Brother Lucas’s column was so disappointing to me because it fits so well within the paradigm of patriarchy and sexist oppression that feminist movement has been fighting against since its inception. As black men, we have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with our sisters. Instead of asking black women to alter their dress, we should be focusing our efforts on educating men on the negative impact of their sexist language, behaviors, and attitudes.