JANUARY 13 ― Threatening to spray-paint Hindu women who dress “inappropriately” during Thaipusam is nothing short of assault.

Those behind the “Thaipusam Spraying Group” Facebook group also displayed ignorance of their own culture, not knowing that the saree blouse was actually an English invention during the Victorian era and that Indian women traditionally wore the saree over bare breasts.

Women’s rights activist Sivananthi Thanenthiran explained it beautifully when she posted an old photograph on Facebook of her great-great grandmother in a saree without a blouse, whom she described as a hardy woman who could drive a bullock cart and ferry her grandson around, all without an inner top.

People ― both men and women ― are too fixated with trying to control women’s dressing, making a mere physical body the sole measurement of everything from morality, worth, honour and religiosity to one’s responsibility for crimes like rape.

The creator of the Facebook group, one Henry Barnabas, is a man, but a Facebook user who posted “I’m sure support for this 100%” is a woman.

Several members of the despicable group are women too... some of whom post lots of selfies and banal inspirational quote posters on their Facebook profiles.

It’s not surprising that women themselves uphold the very patriarchal structures and sexist stereotypes that oppress them.

Women often call other women “sluts” to dismiss them and can sometimes be even more vicious than men.

It’s somewhat understandable why many men want to control women’s bodies, both in the domestic and public sphere. They just want to maintain their dominant position in society and retain the privilege their gender affords them.

Dictating how women dress and who or how many people women can have sex with, usually under the guise of religion, is simply part of exercising the power that men mistakenly believe they were anointed with through the organ swinging between their legs.

Men have the freedom to go wherever they want to go and to do whatever they want to do, while women always have to think twice, thrice, 100 times about whether they can do a particular job (how to balance work and home?), whether they can go somewhere at night (are the streets lit well enough? Is it too late?), or even what to wear (is this too revealing? Does this make me look fat?).

Muslim women apparently can’t even leave their home without their husband’s permission unless their spouse is trying to beat them to death.

So it makes sense that some men want to keep women under their thumb. Who wouldn’t want the glorious freedom to make money, have sex and go anywhere you like without being second-guessed because of your gender?

I suppose women who attack other women’s dressing do it because they want to share the power that men have by playing by their rules, instead of breaking them.

After all, there are severe punishments for women who defy the rules that men set for them, from social penalties like ostracism to physical ones like getting attacked with aerosol paint or even death.

Some women may also truly believe that men should have power over them and actually don’t mind asking for their husband’s permission before leaving the house or obeying their spouse on how to dress.

These women can live their lives as they see fit. It’s a free country after all.

No one is forcing them to wear a saree without an inner blouse.

But the minute they threaten to spray-paint other women who don’t follow their way of life, they have overstepped the boundary and deserve a (metaphorical) kick in the butt.

To quote Madeleine Albright who said: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women”. Well, there’s a special place in hell for women who attack other women.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.