The Last Time Women Were Told How to Dress, Here’s What We Said...

Long before the Polytechnic College Principal, a Tamil magazine had shamed women for wearing leggings!

You know how the principal of Polytechnic Government College in Bandra recently lost her head and most semblance of basic gynaecological knowledge when she said girls suffer from PCOD “when they dress like men”? Unfortunately, this ain’t the first time members of the famed moral police in India have attempted to shame women for what they wear. Over a year ago, one Tamil magazine had quite bizarrely put up photographs of women’s bottoms in leggings – crying about how ‘objectionable’ they looked. At the time, The Quint had decided to list out (tongue firmly in cheek) what we thought men shouldn’t wear too – because, hello, objectionable! We believe this is still very relevant, unfortunately, and therefore, we’re reposting this from our archives...

So, the famed Indian moral police has done it again. Yup, they’ve waved their invisible batons – and brought them down hard on offending women’s bottoms. Bottoms wound up in tight leggings, to be precise. Yup, leggings. The bane of all womanly costume, the horrifying eyesore for all men on roads (according to a noted 59-year-old Malayalam writer) and the general cause of havoc.

Case in point? A Tamil magazine by the name of Kumadam Reporter recently brought out a cover story on the ‘trend’ of women wearing leggings. And it didn’t stop there. No sir. It also displayed carefully photoshopped images of women’s bottoms hugged tightly in an array of colourful leggings – pictures that were probably taken without these women’s knowledge. These bottoms were then left to the mercy of ‘culture-crying’ hawks and vultures.

But here’s the deal – if we’re really going down that road, what of all the ‘objectionable’ stuff that fashionably challenged men wear that we don’t talk about? Let’s, shall we?

The Quint is proud to take up the charge of exposing all the things that we (men and women included) don’t like to see on the roads.

It’s not a pleasant task, ladies and gentlemen. But someone’s got to set the record straight, no?

1. The Jean Poppers

Do you remember those Wild West jeans that Akki used to wear back in the shameful 90s which he then threw away? Well, not everybody did. There still exist today a bunch of Akki clones – who even Akki would disown, now that he’s got the cool wife and lost the sad hair. These men are devoted to Akki and are trying desperately for years now to bring back the crotch-popper. Sigh.

2. The Men of Cleavage

Then, there’s the other kind of star devotees. This group is devoted not to Akshay or any testosterone-fuelled man – but to Mandakini and Sunny Leone. And they take their devotion seriously. Which means they wear clothes just like their idols, with bellybuttons showing. Unfortunately, they also have ample amounts of hair leading up to the non-seductive navel and just as generous the dose of flesh. Yech.

3. The Ball Scratchers

Seriously? Like, should we even need to tell you that’s the grossest thing you could do in public? Men scratching their balls like a dog in heat should be beaten with a stick! Do it in private, we don’t give a damn – but must you subject the eyes of poor, innocent tax-paying citizens to the horrible sight of you reaching inside your pants and scratching away? All with that closed-eyed look of grim satisfaction?

4. The Paan Spitters

Dear municipality overlords, would you look at that? The number of men generously rolling around tobacco (or paan) in their mouths and then spitting out black and green stuff for the world to see, is honestly just the limit! There are walls all over India that have attained the colours of the rainbow thanks to this disgusting habit. I mean, jaaye to jaaye kahaan?

5. The Public Urinators

We seriously cannot look at another line of men standing on the side of a road, doing their business and peeking occasionally over their shoulders. Those feeble excuses of ‘not being able to control it’ are born of lazy mothers and fathers who once lined them up on the side of a jhaari, on long road trips. Could the public pee-ers of the world please stop thinking it’s okay? It is not. It is disgusting and ill-mannered. Yes, yes, there’s a shortage of public restrooms out there in the wilderness – but it’s the same for women! For crying out loud, have some shame.