Crossing boundaries: bras, lingerie and rape myths in postcolonial urban middle-class India

Abstract

With the processes of modernization, urbanization and the entry of women in the formal labour market in Indian metropolitan spaces, this article examines how the modern middle-class woman’s sartorial choices become enmeshed in popular rape myths (false beliefs) that serve to blame her for the wearing of western clothing. The article articulates the ways in which middle-class women’s social realities are shaped by historical, colonial and nationalist ideologies of modernization, constructed and mediated through moral codes of dressing. By drawing upon original and contemporary empirical narratives from the urban spaces of Delhi and Mumbai, we emphasise how everyday sartorial choices, in relation to particularly the bra and lingerie, can reveal the nuanced ways in which Urban Indian Professional Women (UIPW) seek to understand, negotiate, and resist patriarchal power. Our findings shed light on conflicting and contradictory spatial experiences, where some women internalize and negotiate moral codes of dressing, out of fear, and others who transgress are subject to sanctions. Given the paucity of scholarly literature in this area, the article makes an important theoretical and empirical contribution with its focus on postcoloniality and everyday discursive material spaces of gendered and sexualized dress practices. It argues for the consciousness raising of everyday urban geographies of dress that reveal complicated structures of power that are often deemed hidden.

Keywords:

• India
• lingerie
• postcoloniality
• public
• rape myths
• urban

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the wonderful women in Delhi and Mumbai who participated in this study. Our sincere thanks go the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, and to Gender, Place and Culture for providing an excellent platform for our work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lipi Begum

Lipi Begum is Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer of Fashion Management, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London, UK. She is co-editor of the book Styling South Asian Youth Cultures: Fashion Media and Society (2018) and her work focuses on South Asia, gender, power, management and consumer cultures. She has worked as a United Nations consultant for the ready-made garment sector in Bangladesh and has developed inclusive fashion education globally. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and currently Open Space editor for the International Journal of Fashion Studies (Intellect UK).

Ravinder Barn

Ravinder Barn is Professor of Social Policy in the School of Law at Royal Holloway University of London. She has a national and international reputation for her work on child welfare, gender, migration, marginality, and social justice. She has published 8 books and over 100 journal articles or book chapters. Over the last 20 years or so, her research into gender and violence has also been widely published and disseminated. Her work on rape and criminal justice, and victim blaming has focused on India and the UK, in the context of theories of patriarchy, power, intersectionality and postcolonialsm. Ravinder’s research is empirically and theoretically grounded and key findings are disseminated to a wide variety of potential beneficiaries ranging from academic researchers, central and local government, international organizations including the Council of Europe and the European Union, and third sector organizations.