When Decency Became a Judgment
The writer reflects on how social media shaming around women's clothing choices has become reflexive and counterproductive. Rather than reforming behavior, public condemnation—rooted in older village norms around modesty—reveals more about the judges than the judged.
It is common these days to have people on social media rain insults and even curses on people, especially young girls, for dressing immodestly.
This attitude of condemning women should be as old as time itself. There are many stories of some people who have gone into serious depression from how they’ve been treated in public and on social media for their dressing.
I guess you do wonder like I do why more and more people prefer immodest dressing no matter how much we castigate them?
I grew up in a small village where everybody knew everyone. "Fashion" as we call it today was not so much in fashion. I guess this was because our mothers took it personally if they saw you not covered up. Words like "this is not how a woman dresses. Are you are a prostitute?" were used to caution against this kind of fashion.
This made some of us believe that dressing to look good wasn't equal to exposing the body. They call us old school, but it's ok😆😆
Anywho,
I am not here to tell you how right this type of dressing is because you and I know it is not. Neither am I here to talk more about how bad it is because you and I have heard too much about this same topic already.
I want to talk about us addressing someone not decently dressed.
Months back on Facebook, this photo of a young lady dressed half-naked went viral that she was sent out of a shopping mall for immodest dressing. People heaved insults upon insults on her. So I went to the comment section and said: “they did well sending you out. In fact, you deserve it. Where have all the decently dressed women gone to? ” then someone replied;
“they have gone the same place as all the good people. You of all people should know this “.
I read this comment several times and then it dawned on me that what these people need is not punishment but love. Someone dressed immodestly doesn’t make me an angel, so I just watch my tongue trying to correct them.
Coupled with this, I notice how often, people are criticized on what they wear to certain occasions; "Why is she so dressed up for a Saturday class? It's only class. Na waoo. Some people dem cam today na for show their Christmas clothes oh". Or it could be the opposite, "Why is she not dressed up?" If you dress nicely, people will judge. If you do not dress nicely, people will judge. It doesn't have to be this way.
This is something very common today, people tend to say some really bad things to someone doing what they don’t do meanwhile they themselves have faults no one knows yet.
We must learn to speak nicely even to those people we think don’t deserve it. This helps more than heaving insults on them.
- Rhoda Ngwanya
The piece arrives in early 2020, when Cameroonian social media discourse was intensifying around bodies, dress codes, and public morality. Urban-rural tensions over fashion and propriety were playing out daily in comment sections, often with particular harshness toward young women.
The post cuts through moralizing to ask a harder question: what does our urge to shame say about us? Its insight—that 'decently dressed women have gone the same place as good people'—suggests that purity policing is itself a form of performance. The piece remains vital because the cycle of judgment and counter-judgment it describes has only accelerated.