United Airlines bars girls in leggings from boarding flight: they're "not properly clothed"

Please help me out here, because I am honestly trying to understand how this issue has caused such indignation and even outrage.

Why is banning leggings sexist? Or at least any more sexist than their policy of prohibiting exposed mid riffs, which no one here seems to object to.

Does the simple fact that only females wear leggings make banning then sexist?

Maybe I’m missing something here, but it seems this article could have been titled “Family Traveling for Free Mildly Inconvenienced by United’s Dress Code”

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Traditionally it was understood that the holders of these perk tickets would wear 'business attire." The problem is, what’s business attire these days? And do they make business attire for children? Because these were children. Their leggings were too “form fitting”? That means something very different for adults and children. (It really doesn’t help that they have ads about someone doing yoga waiting for one of their planes… while wearing yoga pants.)

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Count the bans that specifically target women, the bans specifically target men, and tell me the ratio.

As an act of reaching across the aisle, I’ll take a leggings ban for a Ed Hardy t-shirt ban.

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There’s a time and a place for that discussion.

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Wait what? Do they have Flip-Up Friday at Space Camp? :confused: (that was a thing when I was in elementary school–ah, the good old days)

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Because it’s generally women who wear them? Not that men don’t wear that ever, just that mostly women do wear them.

Well. Yes. Actually it does. School dress codes also tend to be sexist, because they are predicated on the idea that women’s bodies are a distraction to men and that it’s up to us to dress in a way that men can control their urges. There is a lot of nasty stuff in there about men’s supposed lack of control and about women’s “proper” role in reining that in by not dressing in the wrong way.

Again, we are not school children, and frankly it’s none of their damn business how we dress, because we are buying for a service and our tax dollars help to create the infrastructure that allows the airlines to function.

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That actually doesn’t surprise me at all: there will be a lot of physical activity and no social situations where a DRESS dress would be needed. Some cultures don’t allow girls to wear pants, so this is a way for a girl to wear a skirt/dress to fulfill her cultural requirement (or personal preference), but still be able to be upside down or whatever the activity requires without showing off her underwear.

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Barring tights-wearers from flying pretty much rules out at least half the superheroes out there.

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I’d hike that Appellation Trail! :wink:

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Ahhhhh, c’est clair. I notice they don’t give LEGGINGS as an option :smiley:

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So… does anybody bother pointing out to them that their dress code is sexist, and thus offensive - or do they simply not care?

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anyone who wants to have a less easy time flying standby and have their employee relative catch some crap for it can certainly complain about the free ice cream.

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I was replying to @chgoliz’s comment about the dress code for Space Camp, which is sexist, and which is a place people actually pay to attend, and unlike a privately-owned airline is government-run.

I don’t find the United dress code to be at all sexist, but it is still arbitrary, and anyone being subjected to arbitrary expectations is always something worth questioning.

I’m guessing that capes are ok.

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my mistake, I hadn’t realized the conversation had wandered so.

its a 501(c)(3) organization, but yes, it is directed by a commission appointed by the notoriously liberal Governor of Alabama.

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And knowing the stupidity of people when it comes to enforcing rules, any girl who tries to cheat the system in a tankini and board shorts (or just prefers that combo) will either be kicked out (for not respecting the rules or forced to adorn AT LEAST an additional T-shirt, if not another pair of shorts.

And seriously, if the kids are too young to care, there’s no reason for it because adults think of kids in those terms should be screened from working with children anyway. And if they are old enough to care then the clothes ain’t gonna matter.

I wonder what the answer would be if a parent said “so, if my daughter doesn’t have a one-piece, you’re essentially going to make her take part in a wet T-shirt contest?” Because that is what’ll end up happening.

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There are far more kinds of clothing worn only by women than are worn only by men, so statistically any dress code would mention more of these.

Again though, just because something mostly applies to a particular sex does not make it sexist. Likewise, it is possible to come up with rules that apply equally to both sexes that would be sexist because they unfairly exclude one sex or the other.

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I hope they had VERY nice pajamas.