It is amazing how people take their time to discuss what women should or should not do. The conversation shifts from what people- who are born and remain equal before the law- should not do, to what women in particular, should not do. Most of these discussions are centred on morality, or what they call culture, and one other thing they have in common is that it is obviously something that men, as a collective, think bothers them. Take an example of the 1977 Rwandan penal code which determined bigger penalties for women who committed adultery than men. Women got up to one year while men faced a sentence of up to six months. Why? Because adultery suddenly becomes scandalous when committed by women. Another 2016 law stipulated that a woman would have to wait 300 days from the death of her husband to remarry, because she could be pregnant. Men didn’t have to go through the same. Or one of the new laws determining circumstantial leave, where husbands who lose their wife leaving a baby of less than three months get an extra one month of leave on top of only seven days that women in a similar case get. Why? Because the people who decided this probably thought to themselves that oh, poor men! They cannot handle such a young baby on their own. But since women are natural nurturers, they can handle it. They will be on maternity leave anyway, so that should be enough. Well, one would think we learned from our mistakes because we are so much progressive, right? Unfortunately, some people don’t want us to go all the way. It’s quite odd for the first gender equal country in Africa to have such a discriminatory law. Now to ‘decency’, which moves from the conventional having sex or defecating in public, to women’s bodies. First off, so many people- especially women- have become victims of an unclear law on ‘indecency’. Whatever law enforcement thinks is indecent, then it is indecent. In the proposed bill to amend the existing law on indecency, they define indecency as exposure of nudity or genitals or having sex in public. For some MPs, this definition is not enough because someone left out women’s breasts and mentioned only genitals. If the bill is amended and merely exposing one’s bare breasts in public is classified as indecent, then we should just admit that men and women in Rwanda are not equal before the law. There would be no difference between the law now and in the 1970s. And one should wonder, why breasts? Why do we hate them so much? Why do they 'piss' off some people when they are mere parts of women’s bodies? We cannot even say this hate we have towards seeing them in public is cultural. Yes, culture evolves, and it has been a minute since we wore hides and skins, but if our ancestors- who had unrealistic taboos and norms- had found it indecent to expose breasts in public, they would have hidden them. So culture is not leveraged. But then there comes religion, and all of a sudden women should hide their breasts, their knee pits, sometimes even their arms, as if it's a sin to own those body features. Scientifically, men have breasts too by the way, but just a few years ago, they (intore) were dancing topless in public events and it was completely normal. Even today, they still feel the need to show us how ‘blessed’ they are in all public spaces- as should be their right, but women too. Unrealistic moral standards that are set for women and women only, bringing shame to their bodies just because they are different should not be a story we tell in Rwanda today. Some notable laws from countries one would say are more advanced in human rights give women freedom to be topless where men are allowed to be topless too. This hate towards breasts is not just Rwandan. In some cultures in the world, they practice “breast ironing,” a painful practice of massaging or pounding young girls' breasts with heated objects to suppress or reverse the growth of breasts. Why? To protect the girl from harassment, rape, abduction and early forced marriage. Women’s bodies are believed to cause them harm. They are overly sexualized, and it all of a sudden becomes their fault. A topless man would be judged “manly” or “fit”, while for a woman, even ‘side boob’ and cleavage would be indecent. We should understand that breasts are part of women’s bodies and appreciate femininity as a whole instead of shaming it as if it's a bad thing. Young girls feel embarrassed for growing breasts when instead they should celebrate it. They are laughed at by their peers, and whatever age they may be, they are shamed for the shape and size of their breasts. Their breasts are too big, too small, too saggy, and more words that sexualize and shame them. Some women are so ashamed of their breasts that they won’t even leave the house without a bra, or else people will stare, they will laugh at you. If we really mean it when we talk about equality, wherever a man can go topless, a woman should be able to be topless too. Policing women’s bodies using the law, on top of self-acclaimed culturists and religious moralists will only be a setback despite all the gains we have made as a country in women’s rights. The author is a journalist and gender equality advocate. Opinions in this article are of the author.
