Women’s groups have staged a series of protests in Kerala after a professor spoke about the need to cover up breasts properly. Addressing a gathering of families, Jauhar Munavvir T of Farook Training College in Kerala’s Kozhikode said that girls were not wearing their hijab properly and were deliberately flashing their just like ‘slices of watermelons.’
He had reportedly said, “”I teach in a college where 80% of the students are girls and the majority of them are Muslims. They tie muftha in such a way that their chest is not covered. A woman’s bosom is one of the body parts that attract a man. Hence, it should be covered. But our girls purposefully expose the shape of their chest. It’s like how we slice a small part of a melon to see if its ripe?”
His speech went viral on social media platforms in no time. However, there weren’t many takers to the professor’s advice. Instead, women began to post bare-breasted photos on social media platforms.
Many women activists and have posted photos of bare breasts on social media platforms. “I am upset with hypersexualisation of breasts by people. Whether it be professors in college or social media users seeing a model breastfeed and pose for a magazine. So I and my husband posted pictures of me nude,” 25-year-old Arathy SA was quoted by NDTV.
Another notable protester among them was Kerala model Rehna Fathima, who chose to post her bare-breasted photo while holding a watermelon. Her photo was shared by a women rights activist Diya San, who later appeared to have deleted the photo.
“Men’s body is celebrated everywhere. At the same time, there is a common perception that the female body is obscene. Should not this viewpoint change? This struggle is going on as a step forward. The body also has politics. It is up to them to determine their body. That means how to wear clothes and how to behave in their own interests. Needless to say, a step is needed to dismantle the general notion that the female body is obscene and not publicly displayed. What I mean is such a dismissal,” Rehna was quoted as saying.