What’s the Colour of Your Oppression? The Burkha Is Blue, the Ghungat Is Red

Different cultures. Different fabrics. The same question: who gets to choose?

Is it blue?

Is it red?

Is it white?

Or is it black?

It can be any colour, depending on where you were born, the culture you grew up in, the religion you follow, what you were taught, and what the people around you believe.

A woman covers her face with a blue burkha; another pulls a red ghungat over hers. Different fabrics, different customs, different words for them. Yet, in some societies, the same expectation survives translation: a woman’s body must be covered, monitored, and judged.

One woman works alone in a kitchen; another sits among her relatives. Their circumstances may be different, but both may carry the same burden: the shame society has attached to their bodies. They are told that their clothing carries their family’s honour and their own dignity, as if a piece of fabric could determine the worth of a human being.

One woman walks alone at night on a deserted street; another walks through a crowded street in broad daylight. Both may be told to cover up. What is the colour of their oppression?

In a busy place, men stare at her, and somehow she is blamed. On a deserted street, someone threatens her safety, and again she is questioned. What was she wearing? Why was she there? Why was she alone?

What is the colour of her oppression?

“It is religious.”

“It is our tradition.”

“It protects women.”

“It shows respect.”

“Good women dress this way.”

“What will people say?”

These are some of the explanations used to justify expectations placed on women. Religion, tradition, respect, and protection can hold genuine meaning in people’s lives. But when they are used to remove a woman’s freedom to decide for herself, we must ask a difficult question: when does guidance become control?

Patriarchy does not need a man standing behind every woman. Its rules can become so deeply embedded in society that women begin enforcing them on one another.

A mother tells her daughter to cover herself, not necessarily because she wants to hurt her, but because she fears the judgement her daughter may face. A mother-in-law tells a bride to pull her ghungat lower. A woman judges another woman for showing too much skin. Sometimes, those who have lived under restrictive expectations pass them on, believing that obedience is simply the way life works.

And so, the cycle continues.

“Don’t rebel. Where is your shame? Is that what your parents taught you?”

What is the colour of your oppression?

Every day, women and girls experience harassment and sexual violence. Yet, when an assault occurs, attention too often shifts from the actions of the perpetrator to the clothing, behaviour, or whereabouts of the victim. What was she wearing? What was she doing there? Why did she go out?

A pink baby skirt cannot justify abuse. A school uniform cannot justify abuse. A white saree cannot justify abuse. Neither can a burkha, a pair of jeans, or any other garment.

Clothing is not consent. Modesty is not a guarantee of safety, and a lack of modest clothing is never permission to harm someone. Responsibility for sexual violence belongs to the person who commits it, not to the person who experiences it.

Yet society continues to put a piece of fabric on trial.

Even when people protest and demand justice, there remains an uncomfortable truth: a protest cannot guarantee that another woman will be safe tomorrow. Protests can challenge institutions, demand accountability, and break the silence surrounding abuse. But women should not have to keep fighting simply to claim the basic right to live without fear.

When protests are silenced, complaints are ignored, justice is delayed, and harassment is treated as inevitable, the problem goes far beyond clothing. It reflects a society that too often asks women to adjust to injustice instead of demanding that injustice end.

What is the colour of that oppression?

But there is another question we must ask: is it a choice, oppression, or simply compulsion?

A woman may choose to cover herself because of her faith, identity, comfort, or personal beliefs. Another may choose not to. Neither decision should automatically determine her character, morality, or worth.

The problem begins when a choice is no longer a choice.

A woman may be taught that her body must remain hidden, her eyes and head lowered, and her voice quiet. From grandmothers to mothers to daughters, ideas about the “good woman” can pass from one generation to another. Some traditions offer belonging and meaning; others may be used to restrict a woman’s independence. Often, the challenge is learning to question harmful expectations without dismissing the people and cultures to which women belong.

Sometimes, a girl is prepared for marriage before she has even had the chance to experience childhood freely. Her future is decided for her, her wishes are overlooked, and obedience is presented as virtue. When marriage is forced upon her, the long red veil becomes a symbol not of celebration but of a choice taken away.

A fabric can cover a face. Social pressure can silence a voice. Coercion can take away a choice.

For one woman, a ghungat may be a meaningful cultural practice. For another, it may be a demand she is not allowed to refuse. One woman may wear a burkha willingly; another may face punishment if she does not. The same outward appearance can conceal very different realities.

That distinction matters.

It is easy to blame tradition itself, but traditions are lived by real people in complex ways. It is equally easy to defend every practice in the name of culture or religion without asking whether the people affected have a genuine choice.

The question is not whether every woman who covers herself is oppressed. The question is whether she is free to decide, and whether that decision will be respected.

Perhaps the most powerful form of control is the kind that no longer needs to announce itself. When generations are taught that women are naturally weak, that obedience is their duty, and that their identity exists only through their relationships with others, inequality begins to appear normal.

Women may even defend the restrictions placed upon them because those restrictions have been presented as protection, honour, or love. They may pass the same expectations to their daughters, believing they are preparing them for the world.

This does not mean women are responsible for the systems that restrict them. It means that harmful beliefs can survive through ordinary people, including those who have themselves suffered under them.

And we must ask: if domestic violence and marital rape are committed within a marriage, can tradition make them acceptable? Can a relationship erase a woman’s right to dignity, bodily autonomy, and safety? Can the word “wife” turn consent into an obligation?

What is the colour of that tradition?

She is someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, someone’s mother. When will she have the chance to simply be someone?

A human being in her own right, regardless of whether she is a daughter, wife, or mother.

Why should a woman need permission to walk, speak, study, work, love, leave an abusive relationship, dress as she chooses, or simply exist?

Religion has its colours. Tradition has its colours. Respect, protection, and modesty carry different meanings for different people.

But when these ideas are used to deny women the freedom to make decisions about their own lives, the same demand emerges beneath them all: control her body, control her choices, control her future.

This is not an argument that modesty is oppressive or that revealing clothing is empowering. It is an argument for choice. A woman’s clothing should not be treated as a measure of her morality, and no garment should be used to excuse harassment, violence, or discrimination.

We rarely judge a man’s entire character by the clothes he wears. Why, then, should a woman’s clothing become a verdict on who she is?

A ghungat should not be imposed on a woman simply because it is tradition. A burkha should not be forced upon her in the name of protection. A hijab should never be used as an excuse to threaten, humiliate, or assault her. Equally, a woman should not be mocked, punished, or pressured into removing clothing she freely chooses to wear.

Let her choose.

If the world born from my body is built to oppress me, I refuse to accept its rules as inevitable.

Oppression does not always appear in the same colour. Sometimes it is blue; sometimes it is red. Sometimes it calls itself protection, sometimes tradition, sometimes respect. Sometimes it hides behind claims about what women are naturally meant to be.

So, what exactly is the colour of oppression?

Perhaps it is not one colour at all.

Perhaps it is every colour we have been taught never to question, every rule we have been told to obey without understanding, and every expectation that asks a woman to surrender her freedom just to be considered worthy of respect.

The real question is not what colour she wears.

It is whether she is free to choose it.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Opinion Desk.