On Thu, 2008-03-27 at 16:13 +0000, va wrote: > > dressing. Foreign tourist women who come to India rapidly learn how > to dress > > for India. There appears to be no mass movement in India to accept > women who > > show more skin than is conventional. > > Conventional ? Ever seen the pre-18th century carvings / > architecture ?
shiv responded to this in his own inimitable way, but i'd like to note that victorian prudery if "imposed" on india was done so quite a while ago. today in europe there are lots of debates about e.g. muslims wanting women-only opening hours at gyms and/or swimming pools; this is portrayed as a "look at those awful muslims" issue and i point out how a) women-only opening hours are normal in many non-muslim parts of the world (including india) and that barely a century ago attitudes in the west would require "swimwear" (if you could call a bathing machine [1] "clothing") rather more modest than the burqini [2]. the point is that whatever reason indians react badly to skin today (all is contextual - naked nagas [3] are ok, even on the streets of delhi), it's today's attitude that matters. and i hardly think the attitude is getting worse. if anything, people are getting more used to seeing more bare skin. it's just that abuses are talked about more often. -rishab 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathing_machine 2. http://www.ahiida.com/index.php?a=results&subcat=59 - frankly, these look pretty hot. 3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1134405.stm
