The colour of our bra?

Somebody kicked off a campaign on the FB this week – one of declaring the colour of your bras as your status. It was called campaign against breast cancer. Just how it would help raise awareness against Breast Cancer, however, was unclear. And guess what? It actually worked. Not in terms of spreading awareness. But it worked at swiftly changing shades as status names. From white to off-white (depending on how they are washed), to pink, to beige and brown and blues and greens and blacks and reds. There were all kinds of names on FB status. And why shouldn’t there be? Women are beautiful creatures (men are too) and colours look good on women. So, what’s wrong with choosing pretty colours for bras, just as you would for scarves or shirts?

FB is a great source for connecting and I’ve shared loads of old memories with my girl (as in girls, women) friends over it and smiled or laughed or shed tears over them. There was one more occasion to do that over what girls often consider their greatest secret this week. Some did it earnestly. Some did it in very poetic ways, some indicated it as the mood they were in- blue, black is when you’re feeling low, right?

But most of us who did indicate our colours as status also forgot that the world is fast, fast changing because of technology and in a world where most men are techno-sexuals and companies like Google, promise never to delete a word of what you have typed, nothing can be a secret anymore. So, it shocks me to think we even walked into this “hoax” believing that it was going to be an all-girls secret and men would never know what we’re talking about in a space as public as the FB. And now that everyone from your brothers to your bosses are on your FB list, what a thing to write! (Sources too, for journalists!) Oh, how typically “girl” that is!

So, we got laughed at. Men having so much fun at our expense. I heard some of my female colleagues chuckling over what they had written and some smirking at those who had indicated their shades and allowed others to laugh at them. One friend – a male friend called me “silly”. And that’s when the realization kicked-in. The men had found out! The battle between the sexes had never ended.

Of course, everyone knew what the women talking colours was all about. But why so much embarrassment over it, when we all know wearing bras is like wearing socks? I wear “cotton” socks from November to March every year, all the time because I get chilblains if I don’t. I write “cotton” because they are by choice. They have to be cotton! Same with bras. All women have brands. We wear our choices from India-made Juliet, to Wacoal to Victoria’s Secret, depending on what our incomes can afford. (Sometimes, depending on what our husbands can afford or what our boyfriends like). Of course, men think women are silly about these things. But so are men, getting inquisitive about everything women are ever about!

Brassieres- bras for short have stood for many things at many times, for many different people. The most popular being the “Burning the Bra” movement by Radical feminists in the1960s America. They came out on the streets to burn their bras as a protest against patriarchy and condemned them as a piece of clothing used by women to beautify themselves for the sake of men. If you Google or Yahoo or Bing Brassiere, you will find entire histories on the evolution of Bras from corsets to what we can find in the market today. Lingerie trade is major, and a most expensive segment of women’s wardrobe today. And women should always take pride in owning a good piece of lingerie. Women who wear bras today, and comfortable ones, know that we wear it for our own comfort, more than to appease men or just to look beautiful, as some radical feminists think (with due respect). Our Cultural feminist friends will agree that women also have the right to beauty.

So, my point is, when all we’re talking about is a piece of garment, an essential, why should we women be embarrassed about wearing bras, owning them in different colours or worry that men will even find our we wear them (that was the kind of Kathmandu I grew up in- conventional), when it is not even hidden from them in the first place?

Pardon me friends- men and women- if you absolutely disagree with me. But girls, let’s wear our lingerie with pride. It’s just a part of our regular clothing anyway and a very dear part of it.