Dear Zodwa, cover up the thunder thighs!

I’m all for women’s rights; power to the women! I also believe short dresses and even no dress or underwear is never a reason for a woman to be violated.

But respect from your peers and strangers is a completely different ballgame. I’m talking about Zodwa wa Bantu and her piece of material she called a dress at the Durban July.

The 32-year-old then coolly says that she left her debt collecting job when her star began to shine … This star, by the way, is dancing at a Durban Shisa Nyama without any underwear.

Oh, she also wore this little number for women, because we need to embrace our cellulite and and and. Yawn.

Walking around a racecourse will never be a move in the right direction for the advancement of women’s rights. In fact, it takes the movement about four steps backwards.

We want equal rights with men, but we don’t see men running around semi-naked. Sure, women are held to a different standard altogether, but how do we expect society not to judge us if women themselves are the ones appearing in the nude.

Can I ask what if Skolopad’s, and Zodwa’s star doesn’t shine for too long… how do they go back into corporate world, expecting to be taken seriously if everyone has seen them naked?

Yes, judge me on the quality of my work and pretend as though you have never seen my buttocks or breasts, for if you dare to treat me in any way I deem unfit, you would be undermining my rights as a woman with equal rights.

I feel sorry for women’s rights organisations, who work so hard to guarantee basic rights for women in rural settings, stuck in stereotypes that hold them in subjection to men. Women running around naked discredit the hard work they put in.

If you’re going to be a provocateur, call a spade a spade, leave women’s rights out of it.

To the semi to fully naked women who want to dominate the public domain, you make it impossible for the rest of us to be taken seriously because the men who steer boardrooms are blinded by thunder thighs and hips that don’t lie.

Stop it.

Kekeletso Nakeli-Dhliwayo