01 May,2011 09:00 AM IST | | Paromita Vohra
In The Engineer Song, by American folk singer Peggy Seeger, a girl who wants to be an engineer is thwarted at every step by her mother, her teachers and her boyfriend, who feel her duty "is to be a lady, dainty as a Dresden statue, gentle as a Jersey cow/ Smooth as silk, gives cream and milk." The girl both listens and doesn't listen. One of her early rebellions is to "wear her corduroys," clothes that will make her seem less dainty and more ready to do some hard work.
Illustrations/ Jishu dev malakar
What women wear to work seems to be a matter of deep anxiety for everyone. Lately the Maharashtra Nursing Federation has been involved in a protest about uniforms. Nurses, as every boy knows, wear fitted A-line skirts, snug button down shirts and those perky little caps (though it is changing now to scrubs in most parts of the world).
Indian nurses, even the lachrymose and ample Meena Kumari in Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi, dressed thus. Then in 1996, they appealed for a change to darker-coloured salwar kameez. "Discussion at various levels" continued for eight years before a government order allowed a change of uniform. From 2005, nurse's wore salwar kameez and then the government changed its mind this February and wanted the skirt, belt and cap back. One functionary was quoted as saying it looked more feminine and attractive -- as if that's the primary requirement from a nurse.
The origins of this iconic uniform are interesting. The outfit was based on the uniforms of the only kinds of women who did nursing work before the 19th century -- nuns and housemaids. Hence the apron and stiff cap. These service professions are always seen as appropriate for women because apparently they require "essentially feminine" traits -- nurturing everyone and serving tirelessly while wearing a tight dress and earning peanuts.
Interestingly, it is not practicality that nurses cited as the advantage of wearing a salwar kameez but that it was in keeping with Indian culture. It's as if they want to clarify that they might be making a demand, but they haven't forgotten their womanly duty of upholding Indian culture. Or maybe it's a strategy and they know feminine modesty will always have more traction than practical need.
On the opposite end are all the young girls who work in the media who are certainly not seen in salwar kameez, but, in a uniform of fitted, somewhat sexy, rather girlish Western clothes. Like nursing, the media too seems to now have become a suitable profession for women -- rarely as directors and producers or CEOs for that matter, frequently as servicing people, EPs or perennial, loyal assistants.
Women badminton players who also serve, albeit very differently, are having to uphold their feminine duty in other ways.
The Badminton World Federation wants them to change their uniform from shorts to short skirts in order to attract more viewers to the game. Are they saying that there are enough audiences for men's badminton? Or that men in skirts wouldn't attract viewers? Wanna bet? It can't just be about skin, since shorts are already revealing. But the skirt is both feminine and more precariously revealing, I suppose.
What is this obsession with making sure women come across first and foremost as women in a particular way in the workplace about? In The Engineer Song, the woman finally gets to be an engineer. But, she sings, while she may be a first-class engineer, she's "a second class citizen, my wages tell me that." What truth do the wages of nurses, sportswomen and media girls tell us, that their clothes dress up?
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at www.parodevi.com.
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.
