Girls Forced To Remove Bra At Chennai NEET Exam Centre: Why Do We Treat Women Harshly?

An exam centre in Chennai banned National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET-UG) aspirants from wearing bras while attending the exam on Sunday. A regional journalist who preferred to remain anonymous put out a tweet of the same, which sparked outrage.

Apparently the journalist had noticed the girl sitting in a corner outside the centre, clinging onto a book. When the journalist asked if she was alright, the girl revealed that she was feeling embarrassed as she was allegedly asked to remove her bra while writing the exam.

NEET Aspirants Forced To Remove Bra

The journalist had offered her a dupatta, but the girl politely refused, saying that her brother was on his way to pick her up. The journalist faced severe backlash and ended up deleting her tweet. She later clarified that, from her observation, more than half of the girl students were not wearing bras.

The journalist tweeted that those who are asking her obscene questions should ask the exam board if girls are allowed to wear bras or not.

On Sunday, about 1.5 lakh students appeared for the NEET exam in Tamil Nadu. The state education minister, Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi, addressed the incident and stated that Chief Minister MK Stalin has strongly condemned such acts.

Despite the higher authorities' condemnation, similar incidents have been happening both now and in the past. Nearly 100 students in Kerala’s Kollam district were asked to take off their bras before attending the NEET exam in 2022. They were asked to remove their innerwear as the metal detector beeped at the metal hooks in the bra. The NEET dress code requires students to avoid wearing any metallic objects or accessories to the exam, according to their anti-cheating measures. Following this incident, the parents of a 17-year-old girl filed a complaint with the police.

While the dress code talks about accessories with metals, such as belts, there is no mention of innerwear, such as bras. Despite last year’s incident creating massive public outrage, the same incident has been repeated! Isn’t it common knowledge that a typical bra will obviously have an underwire and metal hooks? Students who would have already been anxious about the exam would have been baffled by authorities asking them to take off their bras. Imagine the embarrassment and humiliation these girls would have gone through.

How would they have been able to focus on their exams after such a traumatic incident? These incidents are repeatedly trivialised and forgotten over time until another similar incident happens. How long is this patriarchal society going to take women for granted? Does this mean that girls who take up a challenging exam to pursue a career would be subjected to such harassment? Isn't it atrocious to ask girls to choose between their ambitions and innerwear?

If the authorities are concerned about preventing cheating, shouldn’t they be deploying more invigilators, CCTV cameras, etc. to ensure that the exam is undertaken in a fair and just manner? How is it fair to force girls to remove their innerwear in a public place just because they want to take a challenging exam? When is serious action against these atrocities going to be taken so that they don’t happen again? Is this patriarchy's way to suppress girls who dare to dream big?

Suggested Reading: Girls Asked To Remove Bra For NEET Exam: Is Our Dignity So Disposable?

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