Recently, I had a discussion of sorts with
Laicite over the issue of how women should dress. Looking through the back-and-fro she and I had, I think it is worthwhile and necessary for me to elaborate on my thoughts on the issue and perhaps arrange them in a more coherent form.
I must firstly state that I, in principle, support the right and freedom of women to wear whatever (even nothing) they want. However, I believe that such a right or freedom is one which should be exercised with discretion.
But before I move on to elaborate on what I mean with the above, I want to point out that it seems to me that when it comes to this issue of how women should dress, people, like in other issues, tend perhaps to adopt a us-versus-them or black-versus-white approach to understanding it. By this, I refer to how people are typecasted into being either "liberals" who will have women go around in skimpy attire, if not no clothing at all, or hardcore "conservatives" who will have women totally covered up, if not implement a roll-back of all the rights and freedoms currently enjoyed by women. The voice of the moderate seems to be absent from this debate. Hopefully, this blog post of mine will contribute towards filling this gap.