This is definitely an interesting question for this weeks entry, because discussions about inappropriate behaviour often shift attention toward what the victim was wearing instead of focusing on the person responsible for the behaviour, when something bas happens, people sometimes ask what was the person wearing?
What a person wears can definitely communicate many things. It can reflect someone's culture, religion, personality, profession etc. Different societies also have different ideas about what is considered appropriate, what is considered morally acceptable in Saudi Arabia and the USA are two different things. There is nothing wrong with discussing those differences or encouraging people to dress according to certain values but there is a big difference between saying that a particular type of clothing is considered inappropriate and claiming that someone's clothing is responsible for another person's bad behaviour.
If a person sees someone dressed in a particular way and develops inappropriate thoughts, those thoughts still belong to the person having them. Seeing something does not remove our ability to control how we respond to it. Control is the key word here, we encounter things every day that may attract our attention, challenge our beliefs, or make us uncomfortable, but we are still responsible for the choices we make afterward.
This becomes even more obvious when we consider children. If clothing is supposedly what causes harmful intentions, then how do we explain situations where children become victims? This is a good question, children can be harmed regardless of what they are wearing. Boys can also become victims. In those situations, it becomes very difficult to seriously argue that the victim's clothing was the source of the problem. The issue is the behaviour and mindset of the person who chose to cause harm.
That does not mean clothing has no importance. Societies can have their own standards regarding how people should dress, and those standards can be discussed respectfully. However, there is an important distinction between encouraging modesty and using clothing as an excuse for someone's misconduct. We can encourage people to dress according to their values while also teaching everyone that another person's clothing never gives them permission to disrespect, harass, exploit, or harm that person.
Sometimes, I think society focuses heavily on clothing because it is the easiest thing to see and therefore the easiest thing to blame. It is much easier to say, “If they had dressed differently, this would not have happened,” than to ask the more uncomfortable question of why someone felt entitled to behave badly in the first place.
