1. Women Empowerment In India:
Bouquets And Beautiful Women In
Saree
By Devika Mittal

2. Woman, an object?
• One of the most typical topics for research on media and
advertisement has emerged to be the commercialization or
objectification of women.
• Women being the eye candy with the main task of smiling,
dancing or being caught by the villain, the axe revolution or
the “oomph” factor to sell a mango drink has filled pages
after pages.
• Women are being depicted mainly as a show piece, they are
in a subservient position; the ‘liberated’ men and women
would argue which is true and should be condemned.
• However, is this objectification restricted only to
advertisements or the auto expo?

3. Saree clad beauties
• Any programme would involve selection of some tall, long-
haired and beautiful girls to be dressed in sarees for the guest
of honour ceremony and to present the bouquets
• It was definitely an honour for someone to be even
considered for it.
• Here, I must mention that saree is seen as formal attire for
women in India, the politics of it would be discussed later in
the piece.
• Girls, more specifically beautiful girls in sarees to receive the
guests, present bouquets or to move around are a
widespread phenomenon in North India but as a student
trained to be sceptical and question everything, it disturbs
me a lot.

4. Politics with it?
• Saree is the dominant attire but there are many different
traditional types of attire in India including salwar suit but the
one that draws a thin line between being graceful and
sensuous has been chosen.
• It does not mean that i condemn saree, i personally like it a
lot but the way it is generally donned especially by young
girls, it is a more sensuous than attractive.
• It is to note that a programme, if it has enough content,
should not require people to look attractive in order to draw
attention; formal or smart attire should be enough.
• Any dress can be formal if it is not too attractive but graceful
enough. A saree can be that but we must ask, why only
saree?

5. What is formal and what is not?
• Such programmes also have men in the formal Indian wear,
again with the same politics of cultural dominance involved; a
sherwani or kurta is selected.
• However, while men are also expected to dress in a formal
way, it is still the women dazzling in sarees to handover the
bouquets and make short but more appearances on the stage
to say a line or two.
• It will be them who would be asked to accompany the guests.
• Men and women in their traditional attires do represent the
tradition but why are women, more than men, expected to
represent this culture often in sensuous attire?

6. So many WHYs
• Why can’t a man handover the bouquet instead?
• Why can’t he handle the not-so-important tasks on the
stage?
• Why are women dressed in the traditional attire given more
visible but often subservient tasks?

7. Beauty or brains?
• Yes, women do get “empowered” as they are making
appearances, they are getting noticed but at what cost?
• Beauty is a gem, it is not a crime.
• Do you want people to look at you, rather than hear what you
have to say?
• I would like to conclude with what Prof. Pankaj K. Jha, my
teacher in my graduation college had remarked, “When it
comes to representing culture, we often push our women in
front. But when it comes to challenging it, men come forward.
We (women) need to make the choice.”

8. • Read more on Youth Ki Awaaz at http://bit.ly/Z7fGDz