WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?

Illustration: ZainUl Abedin

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."

    - Audre Lorde

The world has made it so that existing as a woman has become an act of political warfare. I happen to be the only Bangladeshi woman, and in fact, the only South Asian in my cohort, studying at this institution, despite the city, the university, and the programme being famously diverse. Since getting a masters degree for women is quite common now in our part of the world, I was surprised to find myself in this position. Maybe it happens to be so because nobody from our part of the world sees the merit in getting a Masters in Education. Whatever the reason may be, somehow I ended up being the one brown woman in the classroom, walking, speaking, breathing, carefully balancing between being too visible and not visible enough. Existing. And when you exist, in a situation like this, what you choose to wear and not wear then becomes determining factors of your existence.

The kinds of classrooms I am placed in are also deeply introspective. Questions like who are we and what shapes our identities emerge and remerge. So, what it means to be a brown woman in Canada is something I am forced to explore. I usually wear woollen tights or jeans, a t-shirt or a top, wrap a scarf loosely around my head. For one who is of the "subaltern", I happen to speak quite often and quite loud. As though, if I don't speak here, there is a risk of me drowning in the noise. And if I drown, we all do. I feel like a ship carrying an entire continent as cargo. And to lighten my burden I become in many ways a bearer of the colonial legacy. Colonialism has left its imprints on our psyche like a long-term, incurable disease. We wear it on our skins, on our tongues, on our fingers as we type words in languages that are colonial. Sitting in classrooms, surrounded by white people, one is forced to look around and ask, how much of colonialism do I carry? How much of it can I fight? And how do I fight it, if, at all, I do? Everything; the skin, the language, the clothes, all of it is a political statement. The very act of existing becomes warfare.

But I know little of the colonial legacy. Second generation Bangladeshis have barely managed to retain a grasp on the post-1971 history with it being so deeply immersed in partisan politics. Going back and learning colonial history seems like such a chore. But if I did, if I managed to look at the woman who existed before the colonial legacy, what would I see? But that is an irrelevant thought to entertain. We have moved on. There are conflicts that are more urgent and more topical to deal with. Until you come across a moment that splits you and shows you an image in a mirror that is suddenly foggy.

Such as in a classroom, while discussing the participation of women in the academia, particularly in science and technology, when someone points out how in attending an out-of-town conference, women will usually pack two pairs of clothing i.e. a suit for the conference and a dress for the after party. Women who participate in the workforce, are in powerful roles, almost always embody male characteristics. The suit exudes power. It is the garb of a man. Donning a suit transfers some of that power, in an unequal environment, onto the woman. And suddenly you are hit with the realisation of how detached you feel from these scenarios, how unable you are to relate. Because, in the country where you come from, most women strut into conference rooms in saris, confident but not always loud. Strong, but not always hard. Soft, wrapped in nine yards, and decidedly feminine. Most of us definitely do not dress like men to be taken seriously in an academic and/or professional setting. So, in a strange way then, does the oriental woman's garment become transgressive in a patriarchal society? By wearing a garment that is so decidedly feminine while walking into traditionally male-dominated environments, does the woman not inherently make a statement about who she is, about power, about ownership? She does not need the garb of man to transfer power to her. The power of the "oriental" woman is within.

I don't wear a sari as often as I would like to, mainly because I am lazy. I do, however, wear another piece of garb that makes me decidedly woman. It enables me to walk into a room, with two yards of fabric wrapped around my head, marking me as decidedly feminine, in spaces traditionally dominated by men. Is the hijab, then, not also transgressive in a patriarchal society? 

Much has been said this International Women's Day (as is on every other women's day) about what makes a woman, what makes a strong woman, what is empowering and what is disempowering. As usual, much has been done and said to decide for the woman by everyone other than her. I wonder if we are once again letting our colonial legacy decide for us, who we are. Once again, I realise how difficult it is as a woman to simply exist and not be political. As a woman, you challenge the status quo with everything that you put or remove from your body. Whether you are wrapping yourself with more fabric or less, you make a political statement. And so little things like what you are wearing, moves beyond indulgence (or acts of faith), and becomes an act of political warfare. A piece of "oriental" clothing then becomes a weapon with which you attack the patriarchy and colonialism at the same time. The personal is political. And we make a difference, simply by existing.

The writer is the founder of Leaping Boundaries and a graduate student at McGill University.