All you write is quite honest and right on. I know a lot of "westerners" who were in total shock the first time they saw women in sarees. That showed a lot and I remember the comments too "OMG they cover their face but show everything else" lol. I also know of Europeans in our family getting arrested years ago (I was a kid-and all of it was entertaining as heck to me) in a CA beach because they took their top off and CA is pretty crazy but total nudity in public beaches was not allowed and they did not know...go figure!Originally posted by: TrollikaDevi
Here in Kerala ,there was this movement called Achippudava samaram in the late 19th century. It was basically a resistance movement against the dress code when allowed only savarna women to cover their breasts. A group of women from the Ezhava caste decided to wear that plain white mundu with the golden border ( like what Priety Zinta wears in The Last Lear) the way Nair women wore them. There's another version which says a woman was stopped and abused in a market place for covering her breasts and that resulted in the movement. Anyway they fought for their right to cover up.
Kareena looked really pretty in those clothes from Ashoka :D. There must have been DIY bras back then. Or some kind of padding. Again ,it wasn't a question of how revealing the clothes were. There was gender based segregation so women didn't usually appear in 'public ' much and even when they did they used stoles and chador like things . Class and caste matter there though, only upper class women could afford to be that territorial. Yes Invasions must have made it more rigid.
Most women who say Western clothes are inappropriate walk around showing their bellies all the way down to the trail, in their sarees. The saree can be pretty vulgar if you don't know how to wear it to suit your body type.
Generalizing is something only people who have never been anywhere do. Cause NOT all western clothes are revealing either and in some cultures it used to be severely frowned upon if women wore pants or revealed much, in fact girdles were worn so that nothing giggled when women walked....(elements of torture).
Of course that was all before "globalization" and world mentality change, now only the most extreme groups like the Amish, really cover anything up, the rest is left up to the individuals.
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