I thought I might share a picture which might shed light on “appropriate” saree blouses.

This is a very old picture taken when my great-grandfather brought his family to Malaysia.

The two women seated here are his mother (my great-great-grandmother) and his wife (my great-grandmother).

My great-great-grandmother wore a saree, always, but never with a blouse, but she was a strong and hardy woman who could harness and drive the bullock cart to ferry her grandson around - a story always related to me by my grandfather. All in a saree, and without a saree blouse.

The saree blouse along with the petticoat was a Victorian invention, as the colonialists found the saree too revealing for their tastes.

So in fact, it is the blouse and the petticoat which are the ‘modern’ trends in wearing the saree and that bare skin was the ancient norm.

So how was it that women and men, could operate and live together in a world where breasts, backs, necks, arms, waists were so clearly on display?

This is because sexualisation (and by this I specifically mean women’s bodies seen only as providing sex and sexual pleasure to men) is also relatively a new trend, arising from a consumerist society.

In the past women’s backs performed field tasks, household chores and carried water. Now they are seen as only enticing men.

In the past, breasts fed children and were a place to rest and seek repose but now, they are seen only as enticing men.

So if men and women want to safeguard culture, perhaps the best way to do it is to respect bodies, the differences in bodies, and the different functions and purposes of bodies.

Just as my great-great-grandmother was free and safe to drive her bullock cart everywhere in her little town without a man, and without - in her case - a saree blouse!

SIVANANTHI THANENTHIRAN is executive director at the Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (Arrow).