Do you have PCOD? It's probably because you dress like a man, says principal of Mumbai college

Jeans are the root cause of all evil. No wait, that's patriarchy. Photo: Shutterstock/IndiaPicture

A lot is said about the way women dress. Wear a skirt or a dress, then you're spreading Western propaganda. Show a little skin in that sari, you're inviting rape. Cover yourself up head to toe in jeans and shirt, and you're making sure you can't give your husband chubby little sons.

Or so thinks, Swati Deshpande-the principal of the Government Polytechnic College in Bandra, Mumbai.

According to the Times of India, Deshpande believes that when women start dressing like boys (read pant-shirt), they go through a gender reversal in their heads, as a result of which their urge to pop out children reduces and they also become susceptible to ailments such as polycystic ovarian disorder.

"I have heard theories on why girls suffer from PCODs (Poly Cystic Ovarian Diseases) at an early age. When they dress like men, they start thinking or behaving like them. There is a gender role reversal in their head. Due to this, the natural urge to reproduce diminishes right from a young age and therefore they suffer from problems like PCOD," said Deshpande.  

So what, if extensive research has proved that PCOD is actually caused by a sedentary lifestyle? So what if clothes are by no means a certificate of a woman's character or health? So what, if our educators are actually ignorant?

Students of the Bandra polytechnic-male or female-all wear white shirts and black trousers as a part of their uniform. However, Deshpande is keen on making the female students switch to salwar kameez.

While hundreds of thousands of Indian women are striving to change the patriarchal mindset, which reduces women to vessels of procreation-Deshpande is trying to make sure that boys and girls in her college are segregated in the canteen, and avoid mingling with each other as much as possible.

Maybe someone should tell her it's 2017 we're living in. Better yet, maybe someone should sack her for this huge blow to gender equality.