Leave “DVDs” Alone!

We are November 19th 2013, Mrs Marie Thérèse Abena Ondoa, « Ministre de la Promotion de la Femme et de la Famille » is giving a press conference surrounded by four other « Ministres ». The reason? Women’s, especially younger ones, dress code. This is not a joke, you read it right; five high personalities of this country decided to gather the press to discuss the length of women’s skirts. I’m not sure what is more upsetting: people’s time wasted for this, the idea that what we, as women, wear is up for any kind of policing or that rape, STIs (sexually transmissible infections) and teenage pregnancies are the sole results of how tight our jeans are.

I have thought about this and tried to find an angle under which this kind of government intervention is necessary and failed to arrive at any kind of conclusion supporting that assertion. Instead of telling women how to dress, how about teaching young boys that they must be respectful of women and not whistle, grab or slightly touch when one of them walks by. How about abandoning this absurd abstinence-only policy when it comes to young people and explain to them that what saves lives is the use of a condom. Or, teach our children that pregnancy is not a “women’s problem” but an event that concerns the two people who created that baby. We have real, “family-related” issues in this country and talking about the decency of women’s clothing is an absolute waste of time. The righteous patrol can sit this one out because I refuse to link this to religion and/or morality principles as one has nothing to do with the other. I get offended by lots of thing but you don’t see me convening the press to complain. Can Mrs Marie Thérèse Abena Ondoa police the make-up of our TV hosts? No? I was just asking since we’re talking about concerns that do not matter in the grand realm of things.

Women, African women have come way too far to find themselves in a position where they are victimized by how they choose to present themselves publicly. You don’t like it? Then refuse them entrance into your office or house but you cannot Madame la Ministre, be the decider of what is indecent and what is not. Rape is not the result of short dresses and STIs don’t come from a see-through skirt, science says so.

Resolve society’s real issues instead of focusing on distractions. Because yes, those are distractions. We don’t have roads but people want to talk about why a woman is wearing a “taille basse”. As I’m typing this I’m scared AES-SONEL will play one of its tricks again and cut off power and 5 people worry about strings. Women get raped and dismembered but what matters are DVDs (Dos et Ventre Dehors); remaniement ministeriel quand tu nous tiens….

Here is a list of things we could focus on instead. I’m very much aware that some of those things are not your responsibility Madame la Ministre but you were able to convince four of your colleagues about this mountain of nothing, I’m sure you can convince the others of the following:

1. Code de la famille – Can we have one?
2. Stopping forced marriages between younger women and older men
3. Putting in place a proper system for rape reporting
4. More equitable divorce decisions for women
5. Better roads
6. Actual free public schools
7. Continuous access to water
8. TV hosts make-up? No again? I tried….

Our bodies are not up for debate and what we chose to do with it is exactly that, what we chose with it. The idea that we can discuss this on an open forum lets me know that we still have a long way to go as our bodies are still really not our own …

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