It's not my Jeans. It's Your Mentality degrading Womanhood!

According to a Kerala professor, women wearing jeans bear transgender or autistic children, as it degrades their womanhood. During a counselling session, he said, “A woman who dresses up like a man. What will be the character of the child this woman gives birth to? The name of these children is ‘transgender’ or ‘napumsakam’. Hijra. Already, more than 6 lakh transgender people have been born in Kerala.”

As per a report in The News Minute, the professor who conducts “health awareness” classes, has invited the wrath of Kerala government for his trans-phobic and derogatory remarks.

His statement not only exposes his narrow-mindedness, but also his complete lack of understanding of genders.

A transgender is a person does not identify with their birth gender. To place them in the category of Hijras is offensive to both communities, as it shows a poor understanding of their emotions and identity. Also, this is not the first-time conservative educated minds have made appalling claims and tried to pass them off as “scientific”. Just last year a Bombay college principal reasoned that wearing men’s clothes (read jeans) caused PCOD in women. When we have college professors making such offensive and unscientific statements, one does wonder if it is better to opt for home schooling for our children? What is more bothersome is that women are the singular targets of these unscientific theories.

It's not my jeans. It’s your mentality

Jeans is one of the most comfortable piece of clothing, loved across all genders and ages around the world. It's low maintenance, fit all sizes and wearable in every season. But according to some fine minds of our country, any western garment, which has separate entries for two legs is a men’s clothing. (Pants, shorts, bermudas and jeans). The ideal demure Indian girls should refrain from donning anything men do.

Hence women who try to step into men’s pants need to be scared off, since they are at a risk of considering themselves as an equal to men.

So, while researchers have managed to dislodge their eyes from their sockets from induced eye rolling, now we are told that we run a risk of bearing “transgender” or “autistic” children. However, women folk are at a larger health risk from these unscientific statements and dictates, than wearing denim. Our arteries stand a fat chance of popping from hypertension after hearing all this rubbish.

Why is it hard to accept our clothing choices?

Be it denims or short skirts, why is it still hard for a section of our society if females choose to wear non-traditional clothing? Their sexist ideas find our legs in pants rebellious. It's not just an attack on male supremacy, it is an attack on their inflexible mentality, which would rather snap than bend.

This snap leads them to make unscientific claims, which are nothing but a way of policing. Patriarchy lets men get away with rape. But instead of teaching them to mind their behaviour, cultural outfits go ahead to ban jeans for girls, labeling it a provocative garment.

But these claims can never force us to give up our jeans. They are too comfortable and precious for us, and thanks to these backward comments, they are also a symbol of rebellion now. Women who wear jeans are not at risk of any disease, but they are a risk to the sanity of inflexible conservative beliefs. They will have to silently sit and watch us ride bikes, eat Chow Mein, step out of home to work, as we proudly saddle our lives in our favourite blue denims.

Picture Credit: India today

Also Read : Equating Safety with Clothing: The wrong and right of things

Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section.  The views expressed are the author’s own