Look at that naughty, naughty shirt. The hussy!
Look at that naughty, naughty shirt. Wait, no, it’s a stylish yet authoritative shirt.
There are some suggestions of unequal enforcement, but it’s not perfectly clear. If you have a spare scholarship lying around, you might offer it to this young lady, who has already earned it.
If she was a housewife, I doubt if she would also be a high school student.
One area of unequal enforcement which is typically clear - at least in the sense of being explicit - is that many US school (and business) dress codes are still sexist in nature.
If your kids are expected to be enrolled in a school, and all of the local options have sexist dress codes, then consider pushing non-sexist codes as a requirement for your local school district. It’s not as if they have a legal leg to stand on.
Can you give an example?
FWIW, there seems to be a lot of backstory to the incident which makes it more complicated. Sounds like a bright girl had no patience for a swaggering authority abusing official, and didn’t mind tweaking her.
Not off hand, but a cursory search for “dress code pdf” will no doubt yield countless examples. Anything which delineates acceptable dress as being dependant upon the sex of the person in question. It’s a surprisingly (to me, at least) common practice.
Good on the student then for taking them to task. Too many in town (and other) politics try to normalize being in charge of rather than in service to their populace.
Examples abound, even among stories on this very site. Many dress codes are predicated on the idea that a girl’s body is an irresistable lure that causes young men to sin. The very same reasoning justifies the burqa. It also justifies rape.
Nobody ever seems to think teenage boys are irresistable. As the father of a teenage boy, I can understand why.
So, there’s no acceptable dress code then? I mean, topless is legal in the majority of US states. Why not in school, if the weather permits?
Also, do we accept businesses have a right to a dress code for all their employees, or is that sexist oppression too? Well, excluding Fox News of course.
Not to be disrespectful, but what the hell are you talking about?
The SRO] was within five feet of me, he had his hand on his gun
Why the actual fuck does a school resource officer have a gun?
Because freedom is slavery.
I’m asking if ANY dress codes are acceptable, or if they’re all sexist and oppressive. I hear lots of criticism, but no one defining the line.
YMMV. My 18 yo son got a PM from a female future college classmate who saw his Facebook page with his shirtless climbing pics and wrote “you’re hot, tell me about yourself”. Given the school is 60% female, perhaps she was just trying to get a jump on the competition.
I’m guessing it’s a euphemism for cop, so they can say they don’t have “police” in the school, just “resource officers”.
Yes, but why does the school narc have a gun?
Because he has a small member? This is the way a lot of our country is, you’re nobody and have no authority if you’re not armed. A gun in school, even in a supposedly trained hands, sounds like a bad idea to me too.
You’re talking about a more affluent suburb of Charlotte. Don’t make me laugh.
I defined one possible line above, that line being “sexism.” If parents prefer/require for their kids to not receive sexist treatment, or socialize sexist norms, then WHY not start by taking schools to task on their often deliberately sexist dress codes?
Saying that ANY dress code is inherently sexist does not make much sense. A dress code would be sexist by virtue of being sex-specific. [quote=“gellfex, post:6, topic:101479”]
I mean, topless is legal in the majority of US states. Why not in school, if the weather permits?
[/quote]
There are settings where kids sweating upon the furniture unclothed would be unsanitary. And there are others where it would not - such as at the school swimming pool. But whether or not going shirtless is sanitary in any given scenario does not have anything to do with what one’s sex might be.
A private organization which is entitled to its sexist dress code can get called out as an organization which promotes sexist values. Then people can more readily consider if they want to allow themselves to be subject to that, or what associating with a group might do to one’s own reputation.
But such dress codes are not only found in private companies. They are also found in federal, state, and municipal offices which are paid for with public funds. As well as in public schools. Schools which exist in part to socialize children towards what norms they should expect from higher education, employers, and social life at large. So avoiding sexism in public schools would go quite far towards curbing sexism and people’s acceptance of it in the business world as well.
[quote=“gellfex, post:3, topic:101479”]
Can you give an example?
[/quote]Literally this story. LITERALLY. THIS. STORY.
Christ, take your pick.
[quote=“gellfex, post:6, topic:101479”]
So, there’s no acceptable dress code then? I mean, topless is legal in the majority of US states. Why not in school, if the weather permits?
[/quote]Fallacy fallacy, slippery slope (implied), and loaded questions.
[quote=“gellfex, post:10, topic:101479”]
I’m asking if ANY dress codes are acceptable, or if they’re all sexist and oppressive. I hear lots of criticism, but no one defining the line.
[/quote]personal incredulity
[quote=“gellfex, post:10, topic:101479”]
YMMV. My 18 yo son got a PM from a female future college classmate who saw his Facebook page with his shirtless climbing pics and wrote “you’re hot, tell me about yourself”. Given the school is 60% female, perhaps she was just trying to get a jump on the competition.
[/quote]anecdotal
Are we going for a bingo?
Sexist is an adjective, but it does not actually specifically describe what in a dress code is sexist. Can you give examples? The school codes I’m familiar with only vary between sexes in the specific stuff women wear. At my kids school a female student could dress as a male could and have no problem. I’m pretty sure the reverse is not true, unless the student actually identified as female. The last time this subject came up I explained their code was way more restrictive of male dress.
So you think shirtless is OK to allow or disallow as long as it’s for all, rather than anyone should be allowed to be shirtless anywhere or their rights are being restricted?
@emo_pinata, according to @popobawa4u if the code is equal it’s OK. So if the code states that shoulders of ANY student should be covered, is that still sexist? What if the code said button down shirt and khakis for all? I’m trying to narrow is this about equality or about expression.
It’a actually kinda funny you open with an anecdote example, then criticize my counterexample anecdote to @Boundegar statement.
This thread, already:
By “sexist” I already said that I mean anything which depends upon the sex of the person in question. It doesn’t really matter what it is, specifically. To say that “boys will wear this” and “girls will wear this” is sexist, when a school could just as easily make one list of what any student may wear.
That makes it sound like if you choose to internalize sex-specific clothing anyway, then a sex-specific dress code conveniently ceases to be an issue. Notions such as “stuff women wear” and “dress as a male” suggest that you presume sex-specific clothing as a social default, so you are unable to see when it is codified. But when some students or schools don’t think outside of their comfort zone when drafting their code, it can have unintended consequences. For example saying that boys are forbidden from wearing low-hanging pants or girls are forbidden from skirts above the knee becomes contentious when a girl wears those pants, or a boy wears that skirt. Instead they could simply say that ALL pants need to be kept up with a belt, and ALL shirts need to be at least knee length, it’s really easy.
Yes, if the same requirements apply to any sex, it isn’t sexist. I am not clear why this why this keeps being reiterated as if it were unclear. Whether or not to have a dress code is a different question to justify than why to codify a dress code which is sexist in nature.
I wasn’t trying to suggest that dress codes are generally necessary, or sensible, or fashionable. My point was that it is trivially easy at least to have them not be sexist. There are other problems which less easily addressed. Dress codes which are classist or ethnocentric can still be an infringement upon people’s rights. How about a school or workplace which brags about how “multicultural” they are, but stipulates that European-style clothing is A-OK, but indigenous American-style clothing is not? Eurocentrism in clothing is a real problem, but it’s bigger and more difficult to solve.
I would say that’s a false dichotomy.
Boy, I was right with you applauding your consistency right up til the end. If a code were the simple oxford shirt and khakis I mentioned earlier, it would be fair, non-sexist (as much as decreeing male stereotyped garb can be non-sexist) but very restrictive of expression. I’ve gotten the feeling in previous discussions that much of the antipathy to dress codes is expression based.
So if a dress code that restricts female and male stereotypical garb is made nongender applied, it would be fine? Like: if you wear pants you must wear a button down shirt, tie and jacket or sweater, if you wear a skirt, you must wear a shoulder covering shirt and the skirt must reach your fingertips. Does that actually pass your (or anyone’s) muster?
Duh. It’s a euphemism.
Ride that treadmill.
