The Problem Is In The Eye Of The Beholder: 7 Ridiculous Times When Women Were Told To Cover Up

I can't believe this is 2019 and we're STILL talking about this: stop telling women what the f*ck to wear. If the skirt's too short, she's NOT asking for it; if the jeans are too tight, she's NOT asking for it; if the top is too deep, she's NOT asking for it. The problem is NOT with the clothes women wear (whoever thought that ridiculous thought); the problem is in the eyes of the beholder.

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While there's the obvious problem with trying to control women by constantly objecting to what we wear, there's also the missing guarantee that once we do cover up (hah!) the slandering will stop. The following image titled 'the lottery of indecency' brilliantly illustrates all that's wrong with the eye of the beholder. That's where the indecency and shame lie.

The lottery of indecency - En anglais, merci @bitofkit pour la traduction ! pic.twitter.com/y1fYq5rGh5

¡ª La sauvage jaune (@LaSauvageJaune) August 22, 2016

It shames me to list out the ridiculous number of times women were told to cover up, but sadly these instances exist:

1. A Thomas Cook Airline passenger wearing a crop top was told to either 'cover up' or risk getting thrown off the flight.

Emily O¡¯Connor, 21, called it the "most sexist, misogynistic, embarrassing experience" of her life, pointing out that a man two rows behind her was wearing short and a vest and didn't face half of what she did.

Flying from Bham to Tenerife, Thomas Cook told me that they were going to remove me from the flight if I didn¡¯t ¡°cover up¡± as I was ¡°causing offence¡± and was ¡°inappropriate¡±. They had 4 flight staff around me to get my luggage to take me off the plane. pic.twitter.com/r28nvSYaoY

¡ª Emily O'Connor (@emroseoconnor) March 12, 2019

I informed the staff that there is no ¡°appropriate wear¡± policy stipulated online. I stood up on the flight and asked if anyone was offended, no-one said a word.
Would really appreciate if you could vote and share on the below!

¡ª Emily O'Connor (@emroseoconnor) March 12, 2019

To top it off they allowed a man hurl abuse at me whilst the Flight manager and 4 air staff stood and said nothing.

¡ª Emily O'Connor (@emroseoconnor) March 12, 2019

asked the plane (as they were all listening now anyway) if I was offending anyone, no-one said a word. The manager then went to get my bag to remove me from the flight. A man then shouted ¡°Shut up you pathetic woman. Put a f*cking jacket on¡±- the staff said nothing to him

¡ª Emily O'Connor (@emroseoconnor) March 12, 2019

O¡¯Connor made it through airport security at Birmingham airport just fine before being told by Thomas Cook staff that her sleeveless crop top and high-waist pants made for inappropriate attire. After she somehow made her way to her seat she was cornered by four Thomas Cook staff members who had their hands on her luggage and were ready to kick her out.

One half-assed apology later what did emerge was, like most airlines Thomas Cook too has an 'appropriate attire policy,' which they claim 'applies equally to men and women of all ages without discrimination.'

Sadly, the way the staff behaved barely reflected one word of that statement.

2. The irony! New mum breast-feeding child next to bare-breasted statues at museum asked to cover up.

Of course we had to mention breast-feeding mums on this list. The world is made up of two kinds of people: idiots who think a mother breastfeeding in public is obscene, and those who find absolutely nothing wrong with it. The latter is also the truth. Sadly, in a world infected with bigots an act as natural as a mother feeding her child in public continues to remain an issue.

A Twitter user by the name @vaguechera was faced with this ridiculous situation after a staff member at London¡¯s Victoria and Albert Museum told her to 'cover up' while she was feeding her baby. There's a double dose of irony here: the incident took place in a museum packed with bare-breasted statues, in the middle of World Breastfeeding Week.

Flashed a nanosecond of nipple while #breastfeeding and was asked to cover up in @V_and_A courtyard. Am perplexed.... pic.twitter.com/T6VIRQbgrC

¡ª Dr Vaguechera (@vaguechera) August 5, 2017

And this mum had had it when she launched this storm on Twitter:

On the upside, I had a lovely day at @v_and_a exploring depictions of breasts thru the ages and making lovely mammaries. I mean memories. pic.twitter.com/mMiL27WQZ8

¡ª Dr Vaguechera (@vaguechera) August 5, 2017

'I will throw you out of this museum with your naked breasts!' 'But I'm made of marble!' 'Oh sorry you're fine then' @V_and_A pic.twitter.com/HL0py3vJ7I

¡ª Dr Vaguechera (@vaguechera) August 5, 2017

'Excuse me madam, would you mind covering your breasts with this mask while you feed?' pic.twitter.com/yvRrcpbc3c

¡ª Dr Vaguechera (@vaguechera) August 5, 2017

Perhaps the only good thing to have come out of it was when the museum's director Tristram Hunt made this public acknowledgement:

.@vaguechera V sorry. Our policy is clear: women may breastfeed wherever they like, wherever they feel comfortable & shld not be disturbed.

¡ª Tristram Hunt (@TristramHuntVA) August 5, 2017

3. Breastfeeding mum who was asked to cover up, obliges. Covers her face in epic clapback.

Some guy asked this mother to cover up while #breastfeeding & so she did ?#YouGoGirl pic.twitter.com/SyxZHlFiFj

¡ª Indiatimes (@indiatimes) August 9, 2018

Sorry, we're not done with breast-feeding mums being shamed publicly yet. Melanie Dudley, a mother of three from Austin, Texas, was feeding her four-month-old baby at a restaurant in Mexico¡¯s Cabo San Lucas when she was asked by a totally random dude walking on the street to cover up. Thanks, random stranger for your horrible double standards.

"I was on vacation in Cabo San Lucas with my entire family and a man asked me to cover myself,¡± she told Yahoo Lifestyle. ¡°I¡¯m usually discreet but we were seated in the back of the restaurant.¡±

Without skipping a beat, Melanie obliged. She covered her face with a towel and her witty comeback is the stuff for Internet archives.

4. When traffic police in Beijing warned commuters not to wear miniskirts to avoid sexual harassment.

Reuters/Aly Song

Who okayed the memo saying women get sexually harassed because of the clothes they wear? Somewhere along the way, while some of us were fighting the good fight for basic rights, others looking to pass the blame decided clothes would be the most obvious choice. And there were enough half-wits willing to bite.

How else does one explain cities looking to solve their traffic/pedestrian traffic problems by blaming short skirts. Apparently traffic police in the Chinese capital of Beijing warned women that they should stop avoid wearing short skirts to avoid getting sexually harassed. According to guidelines issued by the traffic department of the Beijing Public Security Bureau back in 2013, women were told to sit on low seats and cover to themselves with bags/newspapers to avoid getting photographed by creepers.

Apparently, the heaviest penalty for sexual harassment at the time was 15 days in detention, police officer Xing Wei told Reuters. But what fine is appropriate enough for mindsets drunk on denial?

5. This woman was denied entry in a hospital because she was wearing shorts.

The Star/ANN via Asiaone

At a hospital called Sungai Bulohn, in the Malaysian city of Petaling Jaya, a woman named Nisha Daddygal was denied entry because she was wearing shorts. Apparently, this hospital thought it was okay to give 'morality' more importance than a person's well-being. The incident took place in 2015, with the hospital's director Dr Khalid Ibrahim saying the incident "shouldn't have happened."

But it did. Nisha recounted the incident in a Facebook post saying she was stopped by security guards and it was only when her father borrowed a towel and gave it to her, that she covered up and was let in. But the unfairness of it all is the most frustrating. The hospital issued an apology: "We apologise for the incident. We do not bar anyone from entering the hospital because of what they are wearing. However, we encourage the public to dress decently when visiting patients," he said when contacted yesterday," Dr Khalid Ibrahim said.

"If they can impose such a ruling in a hospital, then they can impose it anywhere, even by the roadside," said Annan the girl's father. "I don't mind if the dress code was for offices or for official functions, but this is different. They should not do this," he added.

6. This Ottawa woman was left 'humiliated' after the gym she was using told her her breasts were too large for a tank top.

Jenna Vecchio

Jenna Vecchio told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann, "I was approached during my workout on the floor and she informed me they had three complaints about my tank top and the way my chest appeared in it."

Vecchio was at the Movati Athletic gym with her husband and working out on an elliptical machine when a female staffer walked up to her and told her to change her clothes.And what did Vecchio do?

"They expected me to return to the gym covered up in a T-shirt," says Vecchio, "I said 'absolutely not, I will not be returning to your gym covered up in a T-shirt. Other members were wearing a tank top, I should be allowed to wear a tank top too!'"

7. According to one ex-Facebook employee, the social networking site apparently told female staffers not to wear 'distracting' clothes.

Reuters

Antonio Garcia Martinez made these allegations in his book titled "Chaos Monkeys," and was eventually fired by Facebook, reports The Telegraph. "Our male HR authority, with occasional backup from his female counterpart, launched into a speech about avoiding clothing that 'distracted' coworkers. I'd later learn that managers did in fact occasionally pull aside female employees and read them the riot act," Martinez explained.

To top this, many ex-employees have claimed that allegations of sexism are not taken seriously.