Her dress for His Deviance? Study on Relationship between Women Body Revealing Clothing Choices and Harassment in Public Transportation (Referring to ‘Maradana’ area).

Abstract

The study investigates the relationship between women body-revealing clothing and harassment in public transportation. Main objective of this study was to find out and analyze whether there is any relationship between body-revealing clothing choices of women and harassment against women in public transportation in Maradana area. Also at the same time to study men’s and women’s perception of body-revealing clothing choices of women and harassment in public transportation system and to study the social work intervention. Within Sri Lankan context in day to day experiences and through the social media it is common to see most of the perpetrator in public transportation system is blaming the victims as they are the reason for their own unsafely. Also, victims have the fear or guiltiness that their way of dressing may causes for them to be harassed. Therefore, it is important to identify what is the real truth behind this scenario whether it is a socially constructed ideology or is it because of the women’s body-revealing clothing patterns. Semi structured questionnaire used to collect both data with a 50 of the sample including both males and females and mixed method used as the methodology. When concerning about the factors behind these harassments, there are certain arguments that the dress of the women causes for the harassment as well. Therefore, this study focus on that concept and the final results was that 64% respondent mention that there is a link between women body-revealing clothing choices and harassment. As well as it is important to provide gender sensitivity and address these issues in conferences will be effective for the reduction of the harassment.