Modesty blaze over sleeveless blouses in parliament

The conclusion of the budget debate was historic not only because a biometric system of identification was used for the first time during the vote. It also saw the imposition of a rule that showing women’s shoulders is not modest.

A trilingual notice freshly placed on the door to the Public Officer’s Box in Parliament stipulated the dress code for female public officers as being saree and a blouse with long-sleeves.

And so, a number of female public officers who came to discharge their duties during the budget debate were barred from entering the Box and thus prevented from performing their official functions on the grounds that they were not properly dressed.

No doubt there is an ongoing debate whether the concept of Parliamentary Supremacy is applicable to Sri Lanka. But, female public servants, and the num- bers are growing, would not in their wildest dreams have imagined that the legislature had also vested in itself the supreme role of playing fashion designer to public servants? Does “Good Governance” include governing the female body, and is a woman’s shoulder ‘indecent exposure’ asked an irate official turned away from the Officials Box.

Sri Lankan women have often been victims of the collective, selective memory loss that the country suffers from in respect of the history of its prudish dress codes as well as other social behaviours.

One need only look at Kandyan customary laws on marriage and divorce to appreciate the liberal thinking of Sri Lanka’s native population with regard to social norms, compared with the general law on these same subjects which is a product of colonial legislation.

The even more frustrating aspect of Parliament’s latest rule is that it also highlights the regressive thinking of its female MPs. What makes our women representatives in Parliament so? Sadly, apart from a few who may genuinely have political acumen and selfless ambitions to serve the public, many are there by default.

In fact, it was a female MP who can be traced as the proponent of the fateful notice that now adorns the door to the Public Officers’ Box in Parliament. Last year she sent a message through the Sergeant-at-Arms to a female public officer in the Box that the latter should not be wearing a sleeveless saree blouse. (Incidentally, this public officer had been attending Parliament in the same manner of attire without encountering any objection from anybody for many years and certainly many more years than the said MP had been an MP.) So, it can only be assumed that, rather than fighting for women’s rights or any other noble cause, this female MP had either herself or with the support of like-minded, narrow-minded fellow MPs succeeded in imposing the new rule on female clothing within the Public Officers’ Box.

Is Parliament going to “tailor” the rule that ensures compliance with a formal dress code by going as far as imposing a custom-made style of saree blouse to be worn.

It was a dress code for mothers bringing their children to schools that was quickly shot down. Now, women public officers can only have a sliver of hope that at least there is a liberal-minded Prime Minister and a Speaker, for some degree of sanity to prevail upon the House and they would expeditiously act to overturn the ridiculous rule that shoulders are too sexy. The question is: Are they man enough to shoulder that burden?