This is an open letter to all women. I would like to share my thoughts about being a woman. It is sad when we see women being treated like trash. But then again, let us answer truthfully - have we caused our own downfall?

Now, before I have a string of women affairs NGOs commenting on how 'backward' people like me are, I have one simple question for them - do you lock your houses at night when you are away from home? You do, don't you - to prevent thieves and robbers from entering. Same for your cars. We lock and install expensive tracking and alarm systems to prevent theft. Prevention is better cure.

So why do people take offence when we ask women to dress decently as a preventive measure? Now don't give me stupid answers like women wearing the tudung and children also get raped. Because that is a stupid answer. Houses with full alarm systems and locked doors also get broken into but do we stop locking our doors? Do we stop taking precautions?

Let us be practical. Of course, decent dressing has different interpretations. A woman with a tudung but tight, figure-hugging kebaya and showing plenty of cleavage is not decent. And neither are those Britney Spears and Madonna wannabes we see at Jalan Bukit Bintang and the malls.

Why do I care about how these girls dress? Because it comes back to how women are perceived in society. When women dress skimpily to promote F1 racing for example, it lowers our dignity. When we do scandalous photo shoots, we lose respect as we are looked upon as sex objects.

If men are abusive towards certain women, it is because they do not respect women. When women voluntarily become mistresses with no sense of shame, men start looking at women lowly.

Remember the movie 'Fatal Attraction'? The character by Glenn Close was the 'evil' one. Moviegoers sympathised more with the character played by Michael Douglas. In a similar real life, people will still sympathise with the husband because the other woman is deemed a home wrecker with no sense of morals.

I believe the time has come for women to take stock of their lives. Please stand up and be counted. You do not need a man to make it in this world. You do not have to compromise your dignity by living with an abusive man. You do not have to allow sick men take nude shots of you, even if he is your husband, if you are not comfortable with it. I know of married men who show pictures of their wives in the nude for others to see.

First, you must have respect for yourself. Then earn respect from others through your intelligence and perseverance. If you are busy pulling down a skirt which is too short, do you think people will respect you? Try doing that and see what happens.

And if you keep trying to snare a rich man, especially if he is married, that doesn't bode well for us women who want to make it through hard work and our own strength. Get married only to men who respect you, not those who treat you as a sex object. Only when he respects you will it mean that he truly loves you.