Welcome to Hell, Circa 1815

So, having read about this on several blogs recently, I felt I had to spread the word (to all of 2 people who read my blog. But hey, even if those 2 people tell 2 people who tell 2 people...you get the idea). But something has to be done...it's one (horrible) thing to have men hold us down...but a woman aiding and abetting in the suppression of other women? Won't stand for it, just won't.

For anyone who's confused: The Principal of Dayanand Girl's College in Kanpur, India, says this: "Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college. This is the only way to stop crime against women."

Might I offer my congratulations to her on the as yet unheard of and unseen levels of idiocy that she has achieved. I would have thought it impossible for anyone to be as obviously blinded by ignorance as she is; but of course she is a living, breathing example of how intelligence can suffer the consequences of too much inbreeding.

And let's just ignore that crime against women occurs in many ways, shapes and forms - all equally insidious and all meant to break a woman's spirit...but then, she should know about breaking spirit; she's undoubtedly one of those people who would say "You got what you deserved" if a molested woman came to her for help.

There's an e-mail address for people to send feedback: contact@dayanandgirlspgcollege.org

Drop the dear lady a few lines and let her know what you think of her edict. I did:

Dear Principal Meeta Jamal,

How can you call yourself a woman and still openly state that the only way to stop crime against women is to suspend the girls who choose to wear jeans to college? Are you honestly telling us - us women who comprise at least half the world's population; who number at least 3 billion; ALL of us who've faced eve-teasing, catcalls, harrassment, lechery and abuse - that we ASKED FOR IT BECAUSE WE WERE WEARING JEANS? I recommend you take a long, hard look at the newspapers. Most of the rape victims in India are actually villagers in saris. Perhaps you feel they would have been "more raped" , if possible, in different attire?

Perhaps you might want to concede to oversimplification of a huge problem, madam. The problem isn't girls who choose to wear jeans or shorts skirts or halter tops - it's the perverted men who have women (!) like you giving them an excuse. Because that's exactly what you've done: given them an opportunity to say "But she was asking for it because of the way she was dressed…even other women admit it." It will undoubtedly boggle my mind until the day I die (and most likely on that day I will be clad in a pair of low-slung jeans) how you got to be principal of a woman's college when that very statement you uttered places you, mentally, nowhere above my uneducated kaamwali-bai who thrashes her daughter for wanting to wear a sleeveless top. You've quite effectively spat on your own gender by making them feel ashamed of something that is no fault of theirs…and here I'm not talking about dressing provocatively or even "going around" with boys (no doubt you also feel that a woman who dates is just a cheap harlot asking to be raped). I'm talking about men's attitudes and disrepect towards women and the suppression of our gender being nurtured for millennia by people too ignorant, too uneducated or too scared to know better. The Women's Lib movement was supposed to take care of that. Congratulations on single-handedly setting it back a few centuries.

I've included my name and very sweetly decided to forego a few choice epithets.

Honestly, she should resign. And have a sex-change operation. She's a disgrace.