Dress the way you want to be addressed is a popular saying that buttresses the fact that the way you dress speaks a lot about you.
This saying has, however, been compromised in recent times by our youths. Most of our streets, public places and institutions of higher learning are now adorned with indecent dressing. Ladies are the most culpable.
A dress is simply defined by the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary as “a piece of women’s clothing that is in one piece and covers the body down to the legs, sometimes, reaching below the knees or ankles”.
But for some of our female folks, the reverse is the case. Their own definition of dress is a piece of women’s clothing that is made in many pieces and exposes the body down to the legs and, most times, flying above the knees to the lap.
Some ladies have thrown away their values and our beloved culture as Africans to embrace the Western ways of dressing. They seem to have forgotten that a typical African woman is cultured and is expected to always cover the sensitive parts of her body.
What most of our ladies put on as skirts, especially on school campuses, is just an inch longer than the underwear they put on. Whenever they put on such dresses, they struggle to sit down, let alone bend down or stretch their legs.
Apart from the skimpy and tight nature of these dresses, they are also transparent; revealing certain parts of their bodies to the glare and embarrassment of decent people. It is the equivalent of what my lecturer would call “mobile pornography”.
Some students are so engrossed in this “dress to kill” mentality such that they have thrown decency to the wind, and even outdo the Westerners they try to emulate. The question is, why do we always seek to outdo the West in matters like this and not in science and technology or even any other endeavour?
This indecency was advertised to the embarrassment of some of us during the students’ week of the Rivers State University (RSU), then Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) in 2012.
The week which featured among other things, the Old School Day, witnessed some female students marching within the campus with their low slung knickers (bom shorts), skimpy and body exposing tops, and afro weavons under the guise of mocking the old school style.
In retrospect, in the 1960s and 1970s, one could hardly see young ladies – who are now parents, dressed in such manner. Then there was self-discipline and many students knew why they were in school. They were not distracted. Instead they were properly focused.
Newspaper reports sometime ago showed that some students of the Federal Polytechnic, Auchi, and Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, who dressed indecently were sent back home. They were prevented from entering the school premises. But can that happen today without fear of reprisals from the students?
Such disciplinary measures have helped the two institutions so much to improve and instill morals in their students. The authorities of higher institutions in the country should emulate this and instill similar discipline in the students.
While undergraduates, especially the female ones, are free to be fashionable, this must be done with some decorum and decency. We should not forget that the primary motive of attending school is to acquire knowledge and be exemplary in learning and character.
There is nothing bad in looking good and smart, but the way we go about it matters and tells a lot about us. Our ladies should, therefore, strive to jealously guard their dignity. Of course, dressing to show one’s nakedness or vital parts is ungainly.
Dressing indecently does not add to one’s beauty nor make one a big girl’ as many ladies wrongly assume. Rather, it takes away one’s dignity and exposes one to ridicule and embarrassment. No amount of modernity can disclaim this fact.
There is no doubt that a lot of sex related problems such as rape and other forms of sexual abuses will be reduced in various institutions of higher learning and the society at large  if our ladies can strike a balance between modernity and modesty.
Ibigotemiari wrote from Port Harcourt.