The Guardian editorial on dress code
By Folake Ebun-Sowemimo
T HE Guardian editorial entitled: "Dress code in Nigerian universities" published on Wednesday July 14, 2004 applauding the decision of the Senate of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) to introduce female dress code in UNILAG and in fact to get all the female students in the university to start dressing like human beings is most salutary. That editorial bespeaks the motto of The Guardian taken from the immortal words of Uthman Dan Fodio that "conscience is an open wound; only truth can heal it". To tell the truth, there is nobody with a good conscience and shame who is not disturbed by the indecent dressing of today's woman.
Some say that the devil has finally come down to live in Nigeria among fashionable Nigerian women. What a shame! In my article entitled: "Sexy 'fashions' and dignity of women" which was published in The Guardian recently I pointed out that these indecent ladies are not just exercising their right to freedom of choice in fashion but that they were deliberately putting on sexy clothes to attract men. I gave example with the practice in the banking sector where the female bankers are encouraged by the top banking executives to wear transparent clothes that expose some sensitive parts of their bodies to woo their prospective male customers.
Since then some members of the public have been taken some positive steps in abhorrence of indecent dressing in public. I heard the case of a passenger in a danfo bus who openly rebuked a young girl inside the bus for dressing in mini skirt. The surprising thing was that the other passengers inside the bus later joined the passenger in scolding the girl. I heard that when the scolding became too much for the poor girl she decided to come down from the bus in order to board another danfo bus.
Recently the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Okogie directed that any indecently dressed lady found in any Catholic Church in Lagos should be sent packing. Ditto for badly dressed men. Therefore all those men who wear ear rings or try to plait their hair like women must know that henceforth there will be no place for them in the Catholic Church in Lagos. Cardinal Okogie must have copied the Vatican in this dress code thing. Women who intend to worship at St. Peter Basilica, Vatican City know that they must dress properly otherwise the ushers by the huge gate will send them back.
But The Guardian editorial did well to highlight the provocative dressing of female students in our university campuses especially the University of Lagos (UNILAG). Who would have taught that UNILAG which used to be a beehive of immodest dressing would have a dress code Right now I must tell you that any decent person can afford to go to UNILAG and be able to look around. The female students especially the new intakes are complying with the UNILAG dress code like mad. There is this story of a young female UNILAG student who went to see one of the lecturers on campus to discuss things relating to her performance in an exam.
Before setting out to see her lecturer this young student dressed in an extremely provocative dress ostensibly to attract the lecturer to her. But to her disappointment on sighting her bad dressing, the lecturer, a no-nonsense man, quickly asked her to walk out of his office. Feeling humiliated the girl went to complain to a female lecturer on ground of gender discrimination but that lecturer also rebuked her for her bad dressing.
Finally, the girl returned to the office of the male lecturer this time with a decent dress that completely covered her from head to toe. Not only that, knowing that the lecturer is a Catholic, she decided to wear a Rosary bead around her neck probably to impress the lecturer this time. I don't know whether she made the sign of the cross before entering the lecturer's office.
The lesson from the above reaction is that many people are getting fed up with immodest dressing. There is a new wave of hedonism and nudity sweeping across the world today. The lamentable thing as The Guardian editorial rightly remarked is that even married women with grown up children like me are not left out in this new wave. Nowadays it is not uncommon to see many married women squatting like old toads on the back of Okada with their short skirts exposing their lap or tight trousers exposing their buttock. Where lies the dignity of these women
For those of them driving their own cars, the policemen on the expressways enjoy stopping them and looking inside their cars of course not in search of any vehicle particulars but in search for something else. Even pregnant women have lost the sense of dignity in their dressing. Some of them wear tight trousers upon a short dress that exposes their fat stomach. Tell me, why should a pregnant woman be going about showcasing her protruding stomach But the one that really annoys me is that some of these women bring out their money to buy these indecent dresses for their daughters.
There was this secondary student who was queried by her teacher why she was wearing a short skirt. She immediately told the teacher that it was her mother that bought the skirt for her. I don't know whether the school eventually suspended the student or not. But I guess that if the school had suspended the girl her mother would have gone to the school to make trouble with the teacher. So, this age is also the age of adult delinquency. Mothers who are supposed to know what is good for their children and who are supposed to be giving good example to their children are the ones misbehaving today. Some of them even rush for food at parties.
The defence of these women generally is that culture is dynamic. That the world has changed from what it used to be in the olden days. I agree with them only to the extent that culture is dynamic. But at the same time the dynamism of culture does not detract from the need for women to dress decently. I am not against women make-ups or women fashion. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact a woman must try to dress with elegance to bring out her beauty.
Older married women are even advised to continue to "paint" and "re-paint" their faces with perfumes and creams to look attractive so as to save their husbands from temptation. But putting a make-up or a nice dress to look beautiful is different from putting provocative or sexy attire to attract men. There is no world religion or culture worth its salt that permits provocative or sexy attire. Besides, there are permanent values that we find in every religion or culture. One of them is the decent clothing of the human body.
I heard that some of the female undergraduates of UNILAG are protesting against the UNILAG dress code saying that it is contrary to the freedom of expression as stipulated in the constitution of Nigeria. Those girls can't be serious. I have not read the constitution of Nigeria but I guess that if there is anything that contravenes the constitution it is indecent dressing. In fact contrary to the argument of these protesters, men could even argue that badly dressed women are violating their right to freely look around.
Human beings, we are told are social animals who live in a society. Nobody lives in the world alone. Which means that the action of one person could have either positive or negative effect on the other. The way one person dresses could be pleasing or insulting to the other person. Also there is what we call body language. So, a young girl's dressing might on the surface appear harmless but she is communicating to the people around her, telling them both what they want to hear and what they don't want to hear.
Once again, let me thank The Guardian for that beautiful editorial. I hope that other universities, churches, government institutions, private and public institutions and women NGOs fond of making noise about women marginalisation will copy the good example of UNILAG and the Catholic Church in Lagos in this arduous task of restoring the dignity of women through decent dressing.
Ebun-Somemimo is a director, Project for Human Development (PHD) in Lagos.
