WEARING ‘YOU CAN SEE’ DOES NOT MEAN TELLING MEN ‘YOU CAN RAPE’

It was in 2001 when I first time heard the word ‘yu ken sie’ which I thought a new slang word in Tetun (Timor-Leste national language) or perhaps any new Chinese product for women. My country Timor-Leste was just regaining its independence from Indonesia after referendum in 1999 so everything was gradually restored from ash of 1999 crisis. I was a teenager studying in 7th grade and every day I had to walk during almost one hour to reach the school.

It was from the daily conversation with my girls schoolmates on our way to school that I later realized the ‘yu ken sie' was not a Chinese expression but in fact an English expression said ‘You can see’ which referred to the tank top, a sleeveless type of clothes for women. This tank top mostly made of thick or fine materials; like cotton, polyester or silk, with tiny spaghetti strap on or wide strap on the shoulder or without strap which let the area of the shoulders, neck and a bit down to the breast may be exposed.

I recalled from our conversation, my girl peers said that women in Dili had then became influenced by the presence of the many male malae and most of them wear ‘you can see’ (tank top) to get laid with them in order to earn their money as a benefit. The male malae here referred to many white and black male foreigners came to Timor-Leste through UN Mission or Peace Keeping Force mission during Timor-Leste’s independence transition process. Dili, the thirteenth district and the capital city of Timor-Leste became the center of concentration of these missions while they also dispersed to other twelve districts.

Within the post crisis situation, the economic activities regained through the emergency aid fund from UN and international aid agencies. Economic activities revived in Dili by gaining its income from the foreigners who works in Dili and considered as the highest income earners and also the locals who gained job from the international aid agencies and also some emerging institutions and commercial services started to operate.

Within that economic revival, it also brought potentials to transactional sex to occur within the circumstances and that was what we – the rural teenage girls living two hundred kilometers away from eastern part of Dili - were told by some people - who just returned from visiting Dili and got culture shock after observing changes in Dili and then conclude that debauchery are happening in Dili. The women who are wearing ‘you can see’ tank top are the symbol of the debauchery itself. I could only hear the stories with surprise but deep in my mind I did not fully understand about the linkage between the ‘you can see’ tank top and the Dili debauchery tale.

Then, through the conversation with my peers and my mother and many other women, I was explained that when a woman wearing ’you can see’ tank top, it will let men to easily see her body and thus trigger lust toward the woman. As a norm, woman should dress properly and not exposing her body to men through a revealing dress. For girls or women, tank top should be worn inside a shirt to diminish the transparency and exposure of the curve lines of the breast and the body. Wearing a tank top means the girl or the woman is intentionally exposing her body to be seen by men and provoke their lust thus sending them signals that the girl or the woman is available for them to be laid off with or even be raped. In short, wearing a ‘you can see’ tank top means you are offering yourself to men and showing yourself as a prostitute. This sounded scary to me that I did not even dare to see a women wearing tank top in front of me with the thought of her being seen as prostitute even if she is not a prostitute at all. One’s false thought can be dangerous to others.

Even when I went to church for Sunday mass, the priest during his preach, also advise us the young girls to not follow the trend wearing ‘you can see’ tank top and that many people considered as part of western influence to diminish the local cultural values. Listening to these concepts, I started to fear my own body and hate the ‘you can see’ tank top.

Few years after, the negative stereotype on wearing tank top started to lose as many people travels to Dili and came back with new insights and understanding that a ‘you can see’ tank top was just a piece of clothes worn during hot days and many women in the town started to wear it as part of the trend.

So when I first time came to Dili in 2004 from Lospalos, I saw how Dili was a city located in a coastal area with sea on the north side and hills on the south side. Being a coastal area makes Dili having high temperature weather and until today most people living in Dili will always complained on how hot the weather is which got them easily dehydrated and to ease the body sweatiness was by wearing thin clothes and tank top was one of the most chosen shirt for men and women to stay a little bit comfortable surviving the hot weather of Dili. Unlike in Lospalos, temperature are moderate and not so hot and nor so cool. It is certainly obvious that wearing a tank top makes body easily exposed but it was ridiculous for me that time, to think that all the women in Dili who wearing tank top because of the hot day were offering themselves to be laid off by men (maybe they are some but who am I to judge?) and I was not able to present this thought to challenge those friends who think so.

Time passed by, I grew up as an adult and Timor-Leste has officially recognized as new emerging country with a gradual development process in all aspects. Timor-Leste has engaged itself in many commitments related to human rights, women rights, children rights and many other fundamental global commitments. It is through this global interactions influence that I had chance to learn and understand about those issues. I am also fascinated with the content of women’s rights, gender and feminism issues which lead me to understand more about the injustice and inequality issues occurring in the society and how to face them. After observing and trying to understand the perspectives, I personally feel how burdensome it is to be a woman living in a society which its majority still favors and gives more privilege to men and under respecting, underestimate, and underrate women as inferior, incompetent and fragile entity and thus are less prioritized to have equal access to many opportunities unlike men.

Even on women’s body and what she wears are also judged and controlled by the society through the norm of proper dress code which teaches women that, if they wear properly men will respect but if they not wear properly men will not respect them. This is reflected in a local Tetum idiom said ‘mane ne’e asu no feto mak naan. Naan tenki tara aas se lakohi asu atu mai dada’ which means man is like a dog and woman is the meat, thus the meat has to be hung high so the dog could not grab it. This thought makes women become the sexual object for men and it lead to the thought that the responsibility of women’s safety and protection is in women’s own hands and for men, it is normal to mistreat women or being disrespectful towards women because of what she wear.
Women are considered provoking men’s lustful evil out from its shell by wearing the sexy or exposed clothes whether intentionally or not while men are not taught to control their lustful evil inside them . In fact, everyday or every second women still has big chance on being raped or harassed even when wearing unsexy or ‘polite’ dress. This fallacy stays strongly and society still tolerate men for being disrespectful in their behaviors and their thoughts towards women which create a complex misunderstanding in the relation between men and women later on.

The notion of teaching men to respect women of whoever she is and whatever she wear has not widely understood but thanks to those who continue advocate for it and it too should start from everyone include myself. To teach my son, brother cousins and every man to respect women is a noble responsibility, a task and a mission with struggle that might not be easy though. However, slowly but surely, the small steps need to be taken and will bring change.

Today 8 September 2018, I saw some of local women activists advocate a campaign to stop sexual harassment towards women in public space because of what they wear in Cristo Rei beach, Dili. I recalled the event was misunderstood by the local people in social media as an event to promote women wearing bikini which is also still seen as a taboo and a western influence. I did not participate in the event but I am fully into the aim of the event that for whatever dress a woman wear, whether it is sexy or unsexy dress, women should be respected and men are responsible and ought to contribute to women’s safety in public space by respecting them and not harassing them both in verbal nor in action.

VZ