Flickr (The local people photo archive)
The topic of much discussion recently has been rape. Due to an increase of this act in victimizing women, automobile engineers from India came up with the idea of SHE. She stands for Society Harnessing Equipment a development project to create prevention underwear for unwanted sexual advances.
SHE as a development project hopes to place gps (global positioning system) modules on women’s lingerie. Not only will they have a tracking device so that a woman’s family and local police stations may be contacted, they would have pressure sensors allowing a shock to emit as an attacker attempts to molest a woman.
You can read more about the devlopers and the she project here.
Fashion has been involved in many campaigns that support and aim to protect women and children. Fashion for a cause is always a great thing, but I almost wonder if this is too far.
Should women have to subject themselves to buying shock inducing underwear?
This is almost like forcing someone to wear a chastity belt, though it is a woman’s choice to decide when she is ready to have sex. It seems that some forget women don’t choose to be raped.
Having this type of underwear released into the mass market can have multiple benefits as well as some areas of concern.
For one, it would be great for young girls growing up in dangerous areas. Another is that this could be fashion’s version of the pepper spray.
Though I wonder how the shocks will know when to become activated, would there be an on or off button? How effective can this prevention method be if these advancements leave the product to be expensively priced.
What if she is in a low signal area when faced with an attacker, will the gps alert her whereabouts?
Additionally what of having gps and waves so close to a woman’s ovaries, in the long run will we find out they do damage?
Some points to consider in the matter.
I think that attempting to address the issue is a right step in fighting rape but we need to find a more effective way.
The feminist in me is saying this is a limitation on a woman’s freedom to be how she wants with no pressure.
We can start by teaching men it is wrong to force themselves sexually upon women. We have soda ban commercials, no smoking cigarette campaigns and yet no advertisements on the damaging effect of rape.
Again it is also a woman’s choice to decide to wear the underwear. Though if we live in fear and have to wear rape preventing underwear what level will we go to next.
Tweet @emcblue your thoughts on the anti-rape lingerie, we want to know what you think.
