There is nothing like indecent dressing in traditional African understanding. That a woman’s laps, cleavages, and breast lines are showing up doesn’t mean indecency.
The context of indecent dressing in Africa today is a borrowed concept of religious beliefs which originated from Islam and Christianity. As a Christian, I will base my analysis on that of Christianity. Michael Odenigbo sometime ago wrote something about this same issue of indecent dressing and decent dressing where he stated categorically that dressing is a product of culture and civilization.
Using Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, as an example, he further explained that some young Christian girls are emulating her dressing style with the understanding that it portrays decency. But the truth is that her dressing is nothing but a product of culture and civilization of the age she lived in.
In Africa, most especially here in Igboland, during the ancient days, women wore JIGIDA all around their waist to cover their private parts. Some didn’t even wear anything to cover their breast, and today, so many African tribes such as Kambari, Koma, Jibu, and Himba tribe etc. still go half naked because of their level of civilization and culture.
This is to tell you that the concept of indecent dressing is religiously sponsored. It’s a situation whereby religion forces people to dress in the culture and civilization of the originators, which is termly called “Cultural imperialism.”
Listen to me carefully, we need to reorient our mentalities, but it’s funny to me seeing educated young Nigerians who still have this neo colonized understanding. That she’s wearing bum shorts and crop_tops doesn’t make her indecent.
The question is, would you rather prefer her wearing JIGIDA? Which is not also bad because some people wore it back then. The concept of “people will address you the way you dress” is a concept created to seize the fashion freedom of the poor. They want to dictate for the poor the way to dress and what to dress on for easy identification.
Go and address Mark Zuckerberg the way he dresses, not minding he is someone that likes to look casual and common. There are many men out there who love women that dress hot and sexy, and whenever these men are ready to get married, your opinion here on social media about anybody won’t matter to them.
And for you as a woman, don’t allow the opinions of mentally enslaved people to stop you from dressing hot and sexy if it really appears good on you. Let’s stop all this nonsense.
Ogbonna David Obinna
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