Girl, If You Are Using A Bra, First Think About It.

All the Men imagine, a tigtly strapped cloth around your chest 24 x 7. How does it feel? Now imagine, this being an everyday routine, ever since you grow up to be 13 or 14 years old. Imagine living and sleeping in a Bra. That’s not any imagination as far as the women are concerned. It’s our truth.

While we debate the taboo on menstrual blood and the prohibition of entry of women into Sabrimala temple, or while we debate whether Nikah-Halala is or is not a part of Islam, we should also think about more everyday routine through which patriarchy has come to rule our lives.

History shows that gender inequality is not God-gifted. It has been borne and shaped to suit the patriarchal interests by first and foremost controlling the body of the women. From defining what the right ‘type’ of body is, to what to wear, to what is pure and impure about it, a control over women’s body is the first thing that has to go, for women to be liberated and celebrated.

Amongst other things, the most mundane sounding, but the deepest form of control over a woman’s body is to force upon her a Bra, right when she is very young and only beginning to feel her body growing.

I remember one of my house mistress at boarding school screaming at every girl who did not wear a Bra. She also had specific suggestions on the type and company of Bra that we could go for. At the same time, paradoxically, it is also at the boarding school, when I first learnt that one could and should take off the Bra when sleeping. The idea in itself felt revolutionary at the time.

The saga of Bras are not peculiar to boarding schools, as from one’s home to one’s board room, right through the busy streets, and through the packed metro coaches, not wearing a bra when around other people is simply unthinkable. Wearing a Bra when I am alone may be possible for women living alone, but the moment there is another individual around, the society expects the boobs to be hidden or highlighted (depending on how one sees them) with Bras.

There are many variants of approaching the Bra argument. Some may argue that it is for the benefit of women. Well, no scientific study has conclusively proven till date that Bras are good for the health of women. Infact they have been linked by studies to the possibility of cancer. For e.g. Soma & Syd Singer’s ‘Bra & Breast Cancer’ study while interviewing 4,000 women in age group of 30-79 found that half had breast cancer. Additionally, 3 out of 4 women who wore their bras to sleep had contracted breast cancer.

Then others may say, that Bras are for women’s safety. Protecting them from men’s lecherous eyes! This argument like every other issue on women, wants women to confirm to patriarchal systems because it is ‘for their own benefit’ without seeing the fault with and trying to break down the very institutions, practices and customs that continue the hegemony of men over women.

What’s wrong with the Bra? The fact that they have come to be an instrument of compulsion for women to hide what they are born with. If like lipsticks or heels, which one may argue are also tools of male control over women, women are given a choice to say yes or no to Bras, then more than half the battle would be won. But it is this lack of debate, freedom of expression and the taboo with the topic that is deeply problematic.

In the 1960s, the word and act of ‘Bra burning’ came to be associated with the fight for equal rights of women in the United States of America. At the Miss America contest, there were trashcans, in which women threw all things that were seen as oppressive – bras, girdlers, tweezers, heels etc. In 1968, in Atlantic city, New Jersey, women joined from six different cities to protest against the beauty pageant itself which they thought were degrading to all women. However, for women to want to look beautiful is one thing, but for them to be left with no choice than wearing a Bra, starting at a young age, by conditioning them deeply is problematic. One may say that wanting to look beautiful, of a certain type is also conditioning. That would be right as almost every aspect of our lives is conditioned in one way or the other. So while some of us may choose to go the entire length to criticize every seemingly instrument of obsession, some like me, will want to focus on the battles that affect the most of us and in the deepest manner (determination being subjective itself).

As Germaine Greer, an Australian writer and feminist said :

"Bras are a ludicrous invention. But if you make Bra-lessness a rule, you are just subjecting yourself to yet another repression.”

Choice and freedom, then, are buzzwords on which the edifice of the women’s movement should be further built in India. For those who wonder, but aren’t there other more important issues concerning women rights that we should be talking about? Yes, Women Reservation Bill and girl education for instance, but perhaps its best to start what seems difficult to achieve in my generation. That very fact makes it an important topic that we need to atleast start talking about. The fact that the Bra industry is a billion dollar industry also means that the economics of it will have a huge role to play in shaping up this debate. Therefore, awareness on the usage of bra is the first thing we can do to contribute our bit on it. Telling our young girls what they need to know about Bras rather than making a taboo of topic to talk about will help a great deal too.

Only when we know how far we have to go that we start taking our current despicable state seriously and start walking in the right earnest.

- Avani