Gauhar Khan's Short Dress and Violent Attack

Yesterday, Sunday, November 30^th, an Indian model/reality TV star named Gauhar Khan was slapped and verbally attacked by a man because she was wearing "too" short of a dress. What makes this even more interesting, is that she was slapped WHILE presenting at the finale of Raw Star. You can see a snippet of what happened here:

Why did the man do this? Well, he claims it is because the woman is Muslim and Muslim women should not wear short dresses (Jha, 2014). While this attacker is going to court today because of criminal intimidation and causing hurt, this sort of violence and dominance over women’s clothing and sexuality is commonplace in India. A female, Indian writer for BuzzFeed explains this systematic oppression in her article here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/men-will-be-men

She writes about how: 

Khan fell victim to a mindset that the rest of us encounter privately in our living rooms and offices and on our daily commutes: an ugly Venn diagram overlap of moral policing and body policing and sexism, resulting in the constant lurking threat that if you do not fall into the conventions of how a woman must dress, you could – at any point – drive a man to violence (2014).

Jha notes that this mindset derives from religion and “Indian Culture” and it reminds me of a few different research articles we have discussed throughout the semester. Namely, it reminds me of many articles like Janna Kim’s where she reveals heterosexual scripts on primetime, American television. She found power inequalities between men and women in regard to sexuality, where men are aggressive and actively pursuing women, and women are judged for their sexual conduct (2007). This type of male freedom in regard to sexuality is very evident in the Indian culture, whereas women are to be passive, guarded, and male-pleasing.

On top of that, the incident also addresses how the Indian culture “paints Indian men as primal, dictated by a carnal pursuit of sex and violence, lacking the very basic tenets of respect and self-control that any functioning society assumes of its members” (Jha, 2014). This type of dominant relationship reminded me of Holz-Ivory’s findings about gendered relationships on American television between both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Holz-Ivory and colleagues found that masculinity is often associated with dominance in a relationship whereas femininity is associated with submissiveness. This type of gendered relationship was made very clear in Gauhar Khan’s attack, where the man felt like he needed to dominantly attack Khan for wearing a short dress. It seems like this gendered relationship between men and women that we have discussed time and time again about American television and sexuality is arguably exaggerated in India, where women are frequently abused and “under constant scrutiny and policing” (Jha, 2014). On top of that, it reminds me again of articles like Janna Kim’s, where men are painted as needing sex and that this sex is a defining aspect of their masculinity. Clearly, this is true in Indian culture, as well.

The incident lastly reminded me of a consistently found moderating variable in a few studies we have come across: religion. For example, Keren Eyal and Dale Kunkel found in their study about the effects of sex in television on attitudes about premarital sex in young adults, that “religiosity is an important factor in sexual socialization” (2008). This has been consistent across many studies we have looked at in regard to sexual socialization and is clearly very evident in Khan’s attack. Men’s victim blaming and violent behavior in India, like Khan’s attacker, are often dismissed because of religion. The attacker even said the reason he slapped her was because Muslim women should not dress in short dresses. While we have talked about religion briefly a few times, this article brought to light how powerful religion can be in sexual socialization. Especially in countries and regions where religion is even more tied to cultural values and morals, like India.

The reason I chose to talk about this incident for my last blog post, was because I think it addresses many different aspects of sexuality that we have discussed in our course. On the first day of class, I remember we all asked and wondered what sexuality even meant. Was it referring to the act of sex? Was it referring to the way we dress? Was it referring to our sexual orientation? And throughout this course, I have realized, sexuality is an encompassing term that relates to many, many different aspects of a persons’ sex, gender, relationships, orientation, clothing, thoughts, behaviors, and health. So next time I see that a person was attacked or victim blamed for what they were wearing or what they were doing, I hope I will look at it with a critical eye and relate it back to the many different aspects of sexuality, society, and media that all affect why the incident even took place.

References:

Eyal, K., & Kunkel, D. (2008). The effects of sex in television drama shows on emerging adults’ sexual attitudes and moral judgments. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 52(2), 161-181.

Holz Ivory, A., Gibson, R. & Ivory, J.D. (2009). Gendered relationships on television: Portrayals of same-sex and heterosexual couples. Mass Communications & Society, 12(2), 170-192.

 Jha, R. (2014, December 1). A man slapped Gauhar Khan for wearing a short dress and here's why you should care. Buzzfeed.

Kim, J. L., Sorsoli, C. L. Collins, K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research, 44(2), 145-157.