Originally posted by Boogie:
School uniform cures all this nonsense.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:Well, quite - and there's no mention of banning shorts for the boys.
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
What caught my eye was the ban on *all* shorts (even strict Mormons will allow knee-length). An unusually warm spring or fall could make that really miserable for the girls.
quote:With all due respect, although there are plenty of good reasons for requiring all boys over about 12 to wear trousers rather than shorts, dogmatic 'parity' is not one of them. The logic of that would be to say that boys were entitled to wear skirts or bras if they wished to do so, or that girls could go topless in school swimming lessons.
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Yes, there should be parity, if shorts are banned for girls then should be banned for boys too, there is no reason for any difference.
quote:So is there really any more to discuss?
Of course schools should insist that boys be polite and should punish harassment of girls severely. But there’s nothing wrong with telling girls to tone it down on their end. For one thing, school is supposed to be a serious environment. Just as we deem shorts and leggings in lieu of pants — perfectly fine in some recreational settings — to be inappropriate wear for most offices, we’re entitled to deem them inappropriate for school, especially middle school.
quote:The community where the kids live can figure it out.
Originally posted by mousethief:
This is a middle school, so allowing the line to be vague isn't workable. It has to be clearly delineated. So, where should the line be, and who should decide that?
quote:Any ruling in Evanston that is pissing off progressives is dooooomed!
Originally posted by mousethief:
An Evanston, Illinois, middle school has banned shorts, leggings, and yoga pants, and progressives are going apeshit, according to an editorial in the L.A. Times.
quote:Well of course boys should be able to wear skirts or bras if they wish to do so. Clothes are just clothes and don't have any inherent gender - they are gendered because of the gender of the person wearing them.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:With all due respect, although there are plenty of good reasons for requiring all boys over about 12 to wear trousers rather than shorts, dogmatic 'parity' is not one of them. The logic of that would be to say that boys were entitled to wear skirts or bras if they wished to do so, or that girls could go topless in school swimming lessons.
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Yes, there should be parity, if shorts are banned for girls then should be banned for boys too, there is no reason for any difference.
I'd have thought it is impossible to disagree with the statement in the linked article:-
quote:So is there really any more to discuss?
Of course schools should insist that boys be polite and should punish harassment of girls severely. But there’s nothing wrong with telling girls to tone it down on their end. For one thing, school is supposed to be a serious environment. Just as we deem shorts and leggings in lieu of pants — perfectly fine in some recreational settings — to be inappropriate wear for most offices, we’re entitled to deem them inappropriate for school, especially middle school.
quote:We had exactly the same rule except that shirts were regulated too (with same apparent exception for cheerleaders.) It didn't stop wandering eyes either, because we were teenagers. Burkhas probably wouldn't have stopped wandering eyes, honestly.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
The rule at my school was shorts or skirts couldn't come any higher than two inches above the knee. Teachers used rulers to measure. Both boys and girls were sent home for violating the dress code. Oddly enough the rule didn't apply to cheerleaders on pep rally day. Also, the dress code said nothing about low cut shirts or blouses or the tightness of jeans. So, the dress code wasn't very effective at preventing wandering eyes.
quote:Just what I was wondering.....
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
It worked in that they stopped moaning, or it worked in that, by wearing kilts, they made a point to the school?
quote:I greatly enjoy shocking (straight) men who defend the standard line and say that women's chests should be covered because they are very sexual by commenting that women find men's chests rather attractive. Seriously they stutter with bafflement sometimes. And it's not like it's news that women looked at men. (Never mind the gay men who surely look too, but said straight men clearly thought they were normative.) Not one man could accept that it was at least as fair for men to cover their chests to avoid distracting women as vis versa.
Originally posted by stonespring:
Come to think of it, I can think of no valid reason why girls' or women's breasts need to be covered while swimming if men's breasts do not need to. If a woman wants to win a swimming race she may cover them to be more sleek in the water (indeed, some overweight men like me might want to do the same), but for recreational swimming or for just teaching swimming why should that be required? Covering breasts just because straight men in our culture tend to have a fetish for them is absurd and unfair.
quote:The thing is, if this is about modesty and not wearing clothing that is distracting, why are they focusing on pants, especially in such a blanket way. Many shorts are more modest than a short, tight skirt, and leggings & yoga pants are often worn under short skirts or dresses precisely to make them more modest, not less.
Originally posted by mousethief:
An Evanston, Illinois, middle school has banned shorts, leggings, and yoga pants, and progressives are going apeshit, according to an editorial in the L.A. Times.
Should schoolchildren dress modestly? Does this have anything to do with rape culture, or excusing harrassment with "boys will be boys"? Should we be worried at all about what kids wear to school? If there is such a thing as too far (naked is too far, I'm sure we'd all agree), where is the line between too far and acceptable? This is a middle school, so allowing the line to be vague isn't workable. It has to be clearly delineated. So, where should the line be, and who should decide that?
quote:Definitely agree with this, and with the comment that it should be about professionalism (or the school equivalent) rather than titillation.
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
Yes, there should be parity, if shorts are banned for girls then should be banned for boys too, there is no reason for ny difference.
quote:Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
When I was in school, I could not walk out the front door unless my clothing passed muster by my parents. Where are the parents in this case?
quote:A sizable percentage of them have given up monitoring what their kids wear anywhere--either because they're too harried to notice, because they themselves have no sense of what's appropriate, or because they just can't handle another tangle with the teenager at this point. And then there are the kids who wait till Mom/Dad leaves for work and change into a different outfit--or do it on the way to school, at a friend's house or somewhere.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
When I was in school, I could not walk out the front door unless my clothing passed muster by my parents. Where are the parents in this case?
quote:Up to a point, your honour. We are talking about young people of an age that are discovering the extent of their autonomy, have just had a concentrated blast of sex hormones pumped into their blood streams, and are still growing. Boundaries will be pushed. Hemlines are frequently one of those boundaries. Plus the peer-group pressure thing as well - how could I forget that?
Originally posted by Boogie:
School uniform cures all this nonsense.
quote:I'm fine with covering female students' breasts at the swimming pool if male students' breasts must be covered also. Male chests are just as potentially distracting, as you pointed out.
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:I greatly enjoy shocking (straight) men who defend the standard line and say that women's chests should be covered because they are very sexual by commenting that women find men's chests rather attractive. Seriously they stutter with bafflement sometimes. And it's not like it's news that women looked at men. (Never mind the gay men who surely look too, but said straight men clearly thought they were normative.) Not one man could accept that it was at least as fair for men to cover their chests to avoid distracting women as vis versa.
Originally posted by stonespring:
Come to think of it, I can think of no valid reason why girls' or women's breasts need to be covered while swimming if men's breasts do not need to. If a woman wants to win a swimming race she may cover them to be more sleek in the water (indeed, some overweight men like me might want to do the same), but for recreational swimming or for just teaching swimming why should that be required? Covering breasts just because straight men in our culture tend to have a fetish for them is absurd and unfair.
On the other hand for swimming or running, I don't think anyone with breasts could participate even halfway seriously without chest support, which basically means covering, so I think that argument is dead in the water. That and clearly bodies should be covered in school to avoid unnecessary distraction, IMO.
quote:Ever been to yoga? One can discern the level and method of personal grooming with what some wear. Leggings, the next best thing to naked.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
When I was in school, I could not walk out the front door unless my clothing passed muster by my parents. Where are the parents in this case?
quote:Students in middle school are at the age when their hormones have recently kicked in. No one develops self-control overnight, especially when their body keeps changing.
Originally posted by no prophet:
...it situates the problem in the object of the arousal, not properly where it belongs, in the person who is getting aroused. It is the mark of a civilised human being to have the capacity to control their basic urges, to learn to behave politely.
quote:It is not the responsibility of those being objectified to prevent their objectification - that is the responsibility of those doing to objectification. Newsflash, but women wear clothes for themselves just like men do, and don't need to dress to make men's lives easier. Their bodies, their clothes, their decisions.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Ever been to yoga? One can discern the level and method of personal grooming with what some wear. Leggings, the next best thing to naked.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
When I was in school, I could not walk out the front door unless my clothing passed muster by my parents. Where are the parents in this case?
---------
I am nowhere near a prude, but teenagers need no further distractions.
Yes, as Gwai noted, even Burqas will not completely contain the wandering gaze, but accentuating sexuality sharpens the interest and therefore the distraction.
Forgive me for attempting to be reasonable, but somewhere in between?
quote:This was meant as an addendum to Moo's post, but the x-post sits neatly as a refutation to your comment Jade.
The parts of the brain responsible for more "top-down" control, controlling impulses, and planning ahead—the hallmarks of adult behavior—are among the last to mature
quote:No, they aren't. The reason "yoga pants" are called "yoga pants" and not "pants" is that they are entirely normal for doing yoga. They are not normal office attire, any more than hot pants or muscle shirts are.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
quote:When I was in junior high school (middle school wasn't invented yet), girls were forbidden to wear trousers. Skirts had to be of a length such that when the girls knelt, the fabric touched the floor(though by 1968 the school had given up checking). In the winter of 1968-69, there was an extreme cold snap, and girls who walked to school took to wearing jeans and changing into skirts once they got to school. After about a week of this, three friends of mine all came to school wearing ankle-length dresses ("granny dresses," which were newly fashionable, but had not caught on among Midwestern teens). There was never a more distracting fashion--they were the center of groups of enthralled girls, and the boys were kind of fascinated too (I caught a glimpse of her ankle...) The next day the principal issued a special dispensation allowing girls to wear trousers as long as the weather stayed cold. It was never rescinded, even when Spring came.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Provided both genders get to wear trousers.
quote:Isn't this disrespectful toward Adamites, Doukhobors and Christian naturists?
Originally posted by mousethief:
(naked is too far, I'm sure we'd all agree)
quote:There is the thread running in Kerygmania on the unpresentable parts of the body. Kaplan Corday is right and Mousethief's post represents a very clothesist approach, much to be deplored.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:Isn't this disrespectful toward Adamites, Doukhobors and Christian naturists?
Originally posted by mousethief:
(naked is too far, I'm sure we'd all agree)
quote:Fair enough, but teenage men's - hell all straight men of all ages - will also have a good old letch. If our leering makes you feel uncomfortable, well that's just tough. It's our hormones and we have no control over them. Just like the ladies.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:It is not the responsibility of those being objectified to prevent their objectification - that is the responsibility of those doing to objectification. Newsflash, but women wear clothes for themselves just like men do, and don't need to dress to make men's lives easier. Their bodies, their clothes, their decisions.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Ever been to yoga? One can discern the level and method of personal grooming with what some wear. Leggings, the next best thing to naked.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
When I was in school, I could not walk out the front door unless my clothing passed muster by my parents. Where are the parents in this case?
---------
I am nowhere near a prude, but teenagers need no further distractions.
Yes, as Gwai noted, even Burqas will not completely contain the wandering gaze, but accentuating sexuality sharpens the interest and therefore the distraction.
Forgive me for attempting to be reasonable, but somewhere in between?
quote:That's just bullshit. It's the responsibility of people attracted to women to act politely and with good manners because that's the right thing to do. If you are forced to use good manners because a woman is covered up, you don't actually understand what manners and respect are.
Originally posted by deano:
quote:Fair enough, but teenage men's - hell all straight men of all ages - will also have a good old letch. If our leering makes you feel uncomfortable, well that's just tough. It's our hormones and we have no control over them. Just like the ladies.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:It is not the responsibility of those being objectified to prevent their objectification - that is the responsibility of those doing to objectification. Newsflash, but women wear clothes for themselves just like men do, and don't need to dress to make men's lives easier. Their bodies, their clothes, their decisions.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Ever been to yoga? One can discern the level and method of personal grooming with what some wear. Leggings, the next best thing to naked.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
When I was in school, I could not walk out the front door unless my clothing passed muster by my parents. Where are the parents in this case?
---------
I am nowhere near a prude, but teenagers need no further distractions.
Yes, as Gwai noted, even Burqas will not completely contain the wandering gaze, but accentuating sexuality sharpens the interest and therefore the distraction.
Forgive me for attempting to be reasonable, but somewhere in between?
If you want to live in a civilised society where men control their baser instincts and act politely and with good manners, then women need to reciprocate.
quote:In case you haven't noticed, adult women regularly wear yoga pants and leggings when not doing yoga. They wear them as normal clothes. It's therefore not unreasonable for teenage girls to wear what their mothers wear. And a school isn't an office and it's ridiculous to impose office dress codes on them. I wish more teenagers had 2 foot tall red mohawks - schools should be encouraging originality, not stifling it.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:No, they aren't. The reason "yoga pants" are called "yoga pants" and not "pants" is that they are entirely normal for doing yoga. They are not normal office attire, any more than hot pants or muscle shirts are.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
There seems to be a trend amongst schoolgirls around here to wear yoga pants or leggings in place of tights under a dress or long shirt. Someone upthread pointed out the advantages this offers in terms of being able to do cartwheels, hang upside down from monkey bars or whatever without displaying your underwear to all comers. Wearing yoga pants as tights is rather different from wearing them as pants.
(For what it's worth, the dress code for schools around here is that shorts or skirts must be no shorter than mid-thigh, underwear and midriffs must not be visible, and shirts must have sleeves. Plus a load of stuff about no crude / offensive writing on clothing, no 2 foot tall red mohawks etc.)
quote:Do you not think there might be limits to this principle?
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
It's therefore not unreasonable for teenage girls to wear what their mothers wear.
quote:I would be hard pressed to think of ANY principle that doesn't have limits.
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:Do you not think there might be limits to this principle?
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
It's therefore not unreasonable for teenage girls to wear what their mothers wear.
quote:That would be nice. But schools, particularly in the teenage years are conformity factories, where when ass-pants were the style, the boys all wore them. When piercing your belly button and showing your midriff was the rage, all girls did it.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I wish more teenagers had 2 foot tall red mohawks - schools should be encouraging originality, not stifling it.
quote:No. Simply no. This is a ridiculous argument. It is not everyone controls themselves completely or rape each other. This is about teenagers who are not simply inexperienced adults. There is a lot being sorted out.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
It's exactly the kind of thinking that leads to rape being normalised, that the women were asking for it by dressing provocatively and the poor men were only acting on instinct.
quote:I agree that all these things are deplorable, but if they are being done only at privately-funded schools, it's not really my call to make. Dress codes for 11 year olds are hardly the stuff of heart-rending civil rights violations. 11 year olds do not have the full panoply of civil rights that adults enjoy, and there's really no good pretending they do or should.
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Among my liberal peers it is not yoga pants or leggings that is the problem, it is the effort from some "Christian" schools who are telling a young girl that happens to like autographed baseballs and hunting knives and dressing up in boy's clothes and having short hair that she is not feminine enough. It is forbidding a fourth grade girl from coming to school because she saved her head in solidarity with a friend who has lost her hair because of chemotherapy. It is sending a 7 year old boy home because he was wearing a rainbow sweater. It is telling another 7 year old he cannot bring his My Little Pony backpack to school again. An 11 year old boy is in a coma because he tried to hang himself after being bullied at school for wearing a My Little Pony backpack to school.
Yoga pants and leggings are small potatoes among my liberal friends.
quote:This seems eminently sensible and fair to me; I've never heard anything like a convincing argument against it.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I also think that the regulations should be gender neutral.
quote:Embarrassment? On the nutcase side of the con-evo tracks?
I would have thought that the arguments by conservative preachers like the one that human race was going to die out because they couldn't tell the long haired boys from the girls would have died of embarrassment a long time ago.
quote:This is either tongue-in-cheek, in which case it's clever, or seriously meant (Poe's Law snaps into action here), in which case it's mindbogglingly stupid.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:Isn't this disrespectful toward Adamites, Doukhobors and Christian naturists?
Originally posted by mousethief:
(naked is too far, I'm sure we'd all agree)
quote:Indeed. However, they are schools, and it's not ridiculous to impose school dress codes on them. You seem to be arguing that because they're not offices, there should be no dress codes at all.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
And a school isn't an office and it's ridiculous to impose office dress codes on them.
quote:Until next week, when any cell-phone cover except mauve is completely outré, and all the cool and original kids are sporting mauve iPhones. As you would no doubt agree, the number of teenagers who want to be really original, where "original" means original, is diminishingly small. Conformity is the rule in the adolescent years. It's just that it's conformity to peers, not adults or adult-imposed standards.
Originally posted by no prophet:
In the teen years encouraging originality is precisely about not encouraging originality, it is merely about narrow variation on what is considered cool, hot, neat, swell, sick the bomb. Copacetic by any other name. You just get to choose the colour of your thong, your shirt or iPhone cover.
quote:But, again, we're talking about teens here. This kind of adolescent experimentation is normal, age-appropriate, essential even, because they are-- adolescents. That's what they do. It is even charming in it's own quirky way. Trying to squelch that only feeds it, in a way that can have pretty serious unintended consequences.
Originally posted by Enoch:
This may be unkind, but those who think that having a 2 foot high red mohawk is essential to expressing their originality are sending a signal that they haven't got much of a personality to express. If a person feels that looking odd or wearing peculiar clothes is necessary to their identity, it conveys the disconcerting implication that they aren't very sure whether they've got one.
quote:Tossing around suggestive imagery like this is surely just as irresponsible as wearing revealing clothing.
Originally posted by mousethief:
tongue-in-cheek
quote:I don't do it at school. Sheesh.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:Tossing around suggestive imagery like this is surely just as irresponsible as wearing revealing clothing.
Originally posted by mousethief:
tongue-in-cheek
Shame on you.
quote:OK, I've been trying to mess with your mind in previous posts, but this time I'm serious.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Expecting 14 year old boys to solo at controlling their hormones as soon as their hormones come online is absurd.
Not that they should be allowed free reign to harrass or grope or god forbid rape girls.
quote:As you can see, then, I didn't introduce the R-word into the conversation. One of the problems with conversations like this is that any time someone says girls should dress more modestly, someone drags in "it's not about how girls dress and it's all on the boys." I'm saying that's unrealistic, and trying to BREAK the link between girls' clothing and rape. I'm saying we can tone down the sexy clothing, in part to help the boys, and NOT at the same time say "they can't help being offensive, rude, or violent" or "boys will be boys."
“We are frankly shocked at this antiquated and warped message that is being sent to the kids. Under no circumstances should girls be told that their clothing is responsible for boys’ bad behaviors. This kind of message lands itself squarely on a continuum that blames girls and women for assault by men. It also sends the message to boys that their behaviors are excusable, or understandable given what the girls are wearing. And if the sight of a girl’s leg is too much for boys at Haven to handle, then your school has a much bigger problem to deal with.
“We really hope that you will consider the impact of these policies and how they contribute to rape culture. Girls should be able to feel safe and unashamed about what they wear. And boys need to be corrected and taught when they harass girls.”
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
too. Never realized just how strange it must be to be male, all the adult males of my close acquaintance having learned to cope with this issue long ago)*quote:An office is that part of the adult experience that most closely resembles a school. It doesn't really seem like a bad comparison to me.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
And a school isn't an office and it's ridiculous to impose office dress codes on them.
quote:Two-foot tall mohawks are distracting. It isn't reasonable to ask another child to sit behind the wearer of such a hairstyle, as it would block his view of the front of the classroom.
I wish more teenagers had 2 foot tall red mohawks - schools should be encouraging originality, not stifling it.
quote:Frankly, if a teenager shows up at school with a 2 foot mohawk, he should be told "don't be an idiot" or words to that effect, and sent home until he has got over himself. This is part of his education. This is the part that says "if you make yourself look like a prat, nobody will take you seriously."
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But a 12-13-14 year old? Get over yourself. If your worst problem as a middle school teacher is a kid with a mohawk and an attitude, consider yourself twice blessed.
quote:ISTM, it is an individual variation in response, though I've no numbers to back this. I can tell you factor a) is not a universal guarantee against being so distracted.
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Makes me really glad to be a) female and b) not overly susceptible to visual stuff.
quote:Unfortunately this makes the person sending him home look like a prat and a petty martinent and nobody will take them seriously.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Frankly, if a teenager shows up at school with a 2 foot mohawk, he should be told "don't be an idiot" or words to that effect, and sent home until he has got over himself. This is part of his education. This is the part that says "if you make yourself look like a prat, nobody will take you seriously."
quote:I was sent home once when I was at school, and told not to come back till I got my hair cut. It was long enough to go to the bottom of the back of my shirt collar. We also weren't allowed to have beards - though for some reason moustaches were OK.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:Frankly, if a teenager shows up at school with a 2 foot mohawk, he should be told "don't be an idiot" or words to that effect, and sent home until he has got over himself. This is part of his education. This is the part that says "if you make yourself look like a prat, nobody will take you seriously."
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But a 12-13-14 year old? Get over yourself. If your worst problem as a middle school teacher is a kid with a mohawk and an attitude, consider yourself twice blessed.
quote:Of course. And boundaries are constantly pushed on school uniform in the teenage years.
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:Up to a point, your honour. We are talking about young people of an age that are discovering the extent of their autonomy, have just had a concentrated blast of sex hormones pumped into their blood streams, and are still growing. Boundaries will be pushed. Hemlines are frequently one of those boundaries. Plus the peer-group pressure thing as well - how could I forget that?
Originally posted by Boogie:
School uniform cures all this nonsense.
quote:Which in some ways is a perfect preparation for life.
Originally posted by ken:
Like all school uniform rules the main function was to show who is boss, to make it clear that the teachers were in charge and had the power to impose arbitrary rules, and to reinforce the gap between staff and students.
quote:A couple at our church did that with their daughter. They forbade her to take her shoes off in church. Needless to say she was constantly sneaking them off, trying to stand where they couldn't see her. And they pretended to be all upset and berated her appropriately.
Originally posted by Boogie:
But that's the point - they are harmless boundaries, there to be pushed. While they are putting their efforts into 'rebelling' against uniform they aren't breaking anything that actually matters!
quote:I'm wondering how this is a bad thing. The teachers ARE in charge, and schools where they're not are living hell for both the teachers and the students.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:Which in some ways is a perfect preparation for life.
Originally posted by ken:
Like all school uniform rules the main function was to show who is boss, to make it clear that the teachers were in charge and had the power to impose arbitrary rules, and to reinforce the gap between staff and students.
quote:Surely. Which is why I added the second factor.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:ISTM, it is an individual variation in response, though I've no numbers to back this. I can tell you factor a) is not a universal guarantee against being so distracted.
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Makes me really glad to be a) female and b) not overly susceptible to visual stuff.
quote:There are plenty of schools where the teachers are in charge which are living hell for the students. When I was in High School, the rules were changed so students could wear long hair and sideburns if they wanted to. The school did not collapse even if there were minor rebellions.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm wondering how this is a bad thing. The teachers ARE in charge, and schools where they're not are living hell for both the teachers and the students.
quote:True but entirely irrelevant.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
There are plenty of schools where the teachers are in charge which are living hell for the students.
quote:This also would appear to have nothing to do with the topic.
When I was in High School, the rules were changed so students could wear long hair and sideburns if they wanted to. The school did not collapse even if there were minor rebellions.
quote:Who said anything about either petty or arbitrary? Did you post to the wrong thread?
Part of the difference here is a difference in goals. If it's to produce bullies who know how to be subservient to larger bullies, then petty rules arbitrarily enforced are helpful. If you want to produce citizens of a democracy, that takes a different attitude.
quote:Unnecessarily snarky, I think.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:True but entirely irrelevant.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
There are plenty of schools where the teachers are in charge which are living hell for the students.
quote:This also would appear to have nothing to do with the topic.
When I was in High School, the rules were changed so students could wear long hair and sideburns if they wanted to. The school did not collapse even if there were minor rebellions.
quote:Who said anything about either petty or arbitrary? Did you post to the wrong thread?
Part of the difference here is a difference in goals. If it's to produce bullies who know how to be subservient to larger bullies, then petty rules arbitrarily enforced are helpful. If you want to produce citizens of a democracy, that takes a different attitude.
quote:Absolutely. We have this in L.A., of course.
Originally posted by mousethief:
There are schools, including one near here, with major gang problems, where clothing is a flag. When the dress code was instituted, the number of physical altercations plummeted, and the school became safer for everyone.
quote:But they are definitely used as weapons there.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
However, I'm aware of no place where yoga pants are gang attire. Even in Malibu.
quote:Naw, they're just for distraction. It's the titanium boobs that'll kill ya.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:But they are definitely used as weapons there.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
However, I'm aware of no place where yoga pants are gang attire. Even in Malibu.
quote:I'm not responding to mousethief in particular, and I don't necessarily disagree with dress codes or having a special environment, including dress, for adolescent learning. I think most people here know what is meant by the whole "rape culture" thing and some people, including mousethief have explained it a bit, but I thought I should take a stab too since a lot of the discussion of it seems to be around the edges or at the extremes.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I completely understand the animus toward the "girls have to cover up because boys can't help themselves" argument. But I also agree that asking 14 year old boys to act like adults all the time is unreasonable, and that not having girls showing off their wares is a courtesy that will help these boys (or at least the randier ones). But somehow it's totally illicit to draw some kind of distinction between these two positions.
And it's absolutely true that the prefrontal cortex -- the locus of thinking ahead and self-control -- doesn't completely come online until into the 20s. You don't give someone who has never driven before the keys to the car and say, "have at it." You ease them into it until they're ready to solo. Expecting 14 year old boys to solo at controlling their hormones as soon as their hormones come online is absurd.
Not that they should be allowed free reign to harrass or grope or god forbid rape girls. But they are going to struggle with their feelings, and keeping their eyes on their math book. A little erection never hurt anybody, so I don't buy the argument that we should try to keep them from having erections. Indeed teenage boys will have erections if they are within a mile of teenage girls, whether or not they can see them (pheromones?).
quote:This depends totally upon a completely unsupported view that a 2' mohawk makes you look like a prat. It's not a view I share, for example.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:Frankly, if a teenager shows up at school with a 2 foot mohawk, he should be told "don't be an idiot" or words to that effect, and sent home until he has got over himself. This is part of his education. This is the part that says "if you make yourself look like a prat, nobody will take you seriously."
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But a 12-13-14 year old? Get over yourself. If your worst problem as a middle school teacher is a kid with a mohawk and an attitude, consider yourself twice blessed.
quote:Vague rules lead to inequity in enforcement. We see this all the time in the States, where even fairly explicit rules are enforced more heavily on African-Americans and Latino/as than on whites and Asians. Vague rules just make that all the more dangerous. And I'm not saying by nasty administrators who consciously want to make life difficult for (or take out some personal vendetta on) people of color. But cultural differences and unconscious attitudes are also at play here. Vague rules are the enemy of equity. Better to have Doublethink's plan of a gender-neutral code of what needs to be covered, rules against tight fitting, and what you said about gang symbols and other specific contraband words and symbols.
Be vague and let teachers and administrators exercise discretion.
quote:You're mixing up two issues: dress code, and uniforms. This is doubtless because I did so myself, and I apologize. I said "when the dress code was instituted" when in fact what they instituted was school uniforms. I was countering ken's assertion that the only thing uniforms do is enforce a power differential by means of arbitrary, stupid rules. When I said there is a power differential and there needs to be a power differential and it needs to be enforced, I found several different people enter my throat via jumping. I wanted to establish that dress codes did more than enforce the power differential; they have positive, and perhaps even life-saving if violence gets too violent, benefits.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
However, I'm aware of no place where yoga pants are gang attire. Even in Malibu.
quote:As if adults need to teach that to adolescents, who are the most conforming beings on the face of the planet both in personal desire and in groupthink/enforcement.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What I think you are actually teaching is "conform. Be like everyone else. Do not have your own tastes and preferences. Boring is good."
quote:Have you considered that part of the problem is the way the female body gets reduced to a marketable commodity, something that exists solely as "wares" to be consumed by interested males? Your analysis also seems to depend on the rather dubious assumption that either teenaged girls have no sexual attraction towards their male peers or that such female impulses are irrelevant.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I completely understand the animus toward the "girls have to cover up because boys can't help themselves" argument. But I also agree that asking 14 year old boys to act like adults all the time is unreasonable, and that not having girls showing off their wares is a courtesy that will help these boys (or at least the randier ones). But somehow it's totally illicit to draw some kind of distinction between these two positions.
quote:I certainly didn't mean to imply approval of either of those two attitudes, and I'm sorry for my clumsiness in stating my point. I must also say however that you are dodging my point in attacking the presentation.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Have you considered that part of the problem is the way the female body gets reduced to a marketable commodity, something that exists solely as "wares" to be consumed by interested males? Your analysis also seems to depend on the rather dubious assumption that either teenaged girls have no sexual attraction towards their male peers or that such female impulses are irrelevant.
quote:I don't see how that changes anything. fyi: here in L.A., the same thing is instituted in terms of a dress code (long lists of unacceptable clothing that constitutes "gang attire" which changes every year based on, one assumes, the current fashion among gangstas.) But the point is still the same. You are presenting "avoiding gang attire" as an example of a reason other than power/control why dress codes and/or uniforms may be established. And it's a good example of that-- as you correctly point out, it has a positive, even life-saving role. We can all agree on that.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:You're mixing up two issues: dress code, and uniforms. This is doubtless because I did so myself, and I apologize. I said "when the dress code was instituted" when in fact what they instituted was school uniforms. I was countering ken's assertion that the only thing uniforms do is enforce a power differential by means of arbitrary, stupid rules. When I said there is a power differential and there needs to be a power differential and it needs to be enforced, I found several different people enter my throat via jumping. I wanted to establish that dress codes did more than enforce the power differential; they have positive, and perhaps even life-saving if violence gets too violent, benefits.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
However, I'm aware of no place where yoga pants are gang attire. Even in Malibu.
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Boys (all of whom society tends to assume are straight) tend to be taught from a young age that their romantic interactions with girls, especially in the periods of their lives when they are not looking for a wife or life partner, consist of persuading or otherwise getting a girl to give them access to their bodies. Boys are taught that rape is wrong, but they are also taught that (consensually) "scoring" with a girl is a victory. Girls are judged not only on the desirability of their bodies but on how often, in what way, and to whom they allow access to their bodies. A girl who is perceived to signal an invitation to boys to request access to her body is considered shameful in a way that permits girls to demean her and boys to engage her more assertively than they would otherwise. Thus the whole issue with clothing.
Therefore I don't think teaching boys to respect girls' bodies and honor her consent for all kinds of physical contact (and flirtatious language) is not enough. We need to address the whole idea that sexual relations are all about someone who "wants" sex or physical contact (the boy) and someone (the girl) who has to decide whether to "give" sex or physical contact to anyone and who is judged based on whether she seems to be inviting this contact or not (while boys are just assumed to want it all the time). Adolescents need to be taught about the goodness of female desire and sexual assertiveness - and that if a girl has and expresses these things she may not necessarily want sex but is just a sexual, sensual being like boys are. The whole idea of romance being a game played by boys of "get the prize from the girl who guards it" needs to be challenged.
So it's not just about actual rape and slut-shaming or blaming the victims of sexual violence for dressing as if they were "asking for it." It's about the cultural attitudes that give rise to it. Rape culture refers to the worst of these attitudes (like when fratboys talk about how to get girls drunk, use them, and lose them), but it's much wider than situations where consent is refused, partial, or chemically-impaired. It's about how consensual physical contact between boys and girls is judged and what double standards exist between boys and girls.
Back to clothing. I think it's really important to have dress codes that are general, equal for both boys and girls (let's just have everyone cover their chests), and don't refer to specific pieces of clothing (which the vast majority of the time in dress codes are clothes usually worn by girls). Say what parts of the body need to be covered and that clothes can't be too tight or see-through, and ban gang symbols and pictures of nudity, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, etc. and language on clothes explicitly associated with them.
Be vague and let teachers and administrators exercise discretion. ...I think this respects adolescents' autonomy, different parenting styles, etc., in a much better way than treating students like sexual animals that need to be leashed.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:Further, part of the whole purpose of adolescence is to get over the fear of looking like a prat. Teens will look like idiots, that's a given. (Has anyone looked at their own yearbook photos recently? Who among us doesn't cringe?)
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:This depends totally upon a completely unsupported view that a 2' mohawk makes you look like a prat. It's not a view I share, for example.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:Frankly, if a teenager shows up at school with a 2 foot mohawk, he should be told "don't be an idiot" or words to that effect, and sent home until he has got over himself. This is part of his education. This is the part that says "if you make yourself look like a prat, nobody will take you seriously."
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But a 12-13-14 year old? Get over yourself. If your worst problem as a middle school teacher is a kid with a mohawk and an attitude, consider yourself twice blessed.
What I think you are actually teaching is "conform. Be like everyone else. Do not have your own tastes and preferences. Boring is good."
quote:I can only understand your point by the way you present it. The basics of your burqa logic, as I understand it, is:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I certainly didn't mean to imply approval of either of those two attitudes, and I'm sorry for my clumsiness in stating my point. I must also say however that you are dodging my point in attacking the presentation.
quote:In that case you are talking to someone other than me, because I never claimed so, and have taken pains to say that I never claimed so. In this particular thread of the thread, I was addressing a single false statement, that the only purpose for uniforms is assertion of power.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But my point was that that is clearly NOT the case here.
quote:Okay now you're just trolling. If this is where you want to drag the conversation, you can go without me.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The basics of your burqa logic, as I understand it...
quote:Not only was the dress code not general neutral but enforced different depending on a girl's body type. In other words, the more developed girls couldn't wear the clothes but the less developed ones could. That's where I would really draw the line and say the school is going way too far.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Its the banning for one gender that is dumb, that and banning a specific item of clothing. In about five minutes time fashions will change and there will be something differently inappropriate.
Better a dress code for both genders specifying what you must cover and no excessively tight fitting clothing. And yes, uniform helps with that.
quote:Not at all. The underlying logic involved (young men can't control their impulses, so young women must be required to dress according to some desired standard of "modesty") is the same, at least as far as I understand your point. It's just a question of degree. The difference isn't in your argument, it's in your standard of female modesty.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Okay now you're just trolling. If this is where you want to drag the conversation, you can go without me.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The basics of your burqa logic, as I understand it...
quote:Accusing someone of trolling is a personal comment. Comments about other people's motives belong in Hell when they belong anywhere.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Okay now you're just trolling. If this is where you want to drag the conversation, you can go without me.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The basics of your burqa logic, as I understand it...
quote:Thanks for that, lilBuddha. I might frame it for its rare common sense content.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Part of the problem with the some of the arguments here is they exist in a parallel universe where things are as the proponent would prefer them to be, and not in this one where they are not.
And the zero sum mentality gets us nowhere.
Females should not be considered as sexual commodities, but they are so considered.
A woman should be able to walk down the street in nothing but high heels and be perfectly safe, but it is ridiculous to think she should receive no notice.
The emphasis should be equal on male and female, but that is not reality. Men and boys do not, in general, dress as provocatively. Tights are a good example. A boy attending school wearing anything which hugged his penis and testicles as tightly as some tights do the labia would be sent home, no question.
Stonespring's suggestion, with mousethief's addendum, is perfectly reasonable.
And can we stop the rape culture bullshit in context with this discussion? We are speaking of teens who need no further distractions then their changing brains and bodies are giving them regardless.
quote:I said this where? I have taken great pains to explicitly say that the "boys will be boys" and "they just can't help themselves" lines of reasoning are unacceptable. And I said they get dragged in anyway if you at all suggest it might be nice to give these boys a break (point taken above about the girls too). And you go right ahead and prove it.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
young men can't control their impulses
quote:Point taken; no more accusations of trolling.
Originally posted by Gwai:
Accusing someone of trolling is a personal comment. Comments about other people's motives belong in Hell when they belong anywhere.
quote:Yeah, that can seem unfair. It's like pointing out the racism of someone's comments after they've taken great pains to preface what they say with "I'm not a racist [but . . . ]"
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:I said this where? I have taken great pains to explicitly say that the "boys will be boys" and "they just can't help themselves" lines of reasoning are unacceptable.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
young men can't control their impulses
quote:Except that it's not "self-control". You're advocating "other-people-control". You can't teach someone self-control using a system that's premised on maintaining their good behavior by controlling other people.
Originally posted by mousethief:
And I said they get dragged in anyway if you at all suggest it might be nice to give these boys a break [by restricting their female peers] (point taken above about the girls too). And you go right ahead and prove it.
Really, it is taboo to talk about trying to teach adolescent boys to control their urges in any other way than saying "get over it." Talk about helping them learn self-control in any way by lowering the load on their hormone system, and you're a burqua apologist, which I do take to be a personal attack.
quote:No, what's ridiculous is the idea that you're teaching anything that can remotely be described as "self-control" with a system that's based on controlling the actions of other people. The underlying premise of your system is that young men have insufficient control of their actions due to hormone imbalances, so the burden of maintaining their good behavior should fall on their female age-peers.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Indeed talk about them even NEEDING TO LEARN self-control is slanderously turned into "you're saying that boys are animals incapable of blah blah fucking blah. You're giving them a free pass."
As if human beings come into puberty already knowing how to deal with the raging hormones that puberty unleashes. It's a ridiculous expectation.
quote:I saw it as on the edge, but I take your point. How about everyone (not just mousethief) stays away from the personal attacks.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Really, it is taboo to talk about trying to teach adolescent boys to control their urges in any other way than saying "get over it." Talk about helping them learn self-control in any way by lowering the load on their hormone system, and you're a burqua apologist, which I do take to be a personal attack.
quote:Well, since what I actually write isn't going to get read or responded to, have it your way.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The underlying premise of your system is that young men have insufficient control of their actions due to hormone imbalances, so the burden of maintaining their good behavior should fall on their female age-peers.
quote:It was addressing your comment;
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:True but entirely irrelevant.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
There are plenty of schools where the teachers are in charge which are living hell for the students.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm wondering how this is a bad thing. The teachers ARE in charge, and schools where they're not are living hell for both the teachers and the students.
quote:This also would appear to have nothing to do with the topic.
When I was in High School, the rules were changed so students could wear long hair and sideburns if they wanted to. The school did not collapse even if there were minor rebellions.
quote:Who said anything about either petty or arbitrary? Did you post to the wrong thread?
Part of the difference here is a difference in goals. If it's to produce bullies who know how to be subservient to larger bullies, then petty rules arbitrarily enforced are helpful. If you want to produce citizens of a democracy, that takes a different attitude.
quote:The problem is, no one thing will prevent all hell. From this it does not follow that some things don't go partway to toning it down. "Doing X won't solve the entire problem so there's no point in doing it" is the same argument as "Giving that guy a sandwich will still leave 3 billion hungry people. Might as well not bother." It's not the most convincing argument.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If it's intended as a justification for its importance in preventing hell, pointing out that hell is not prevented seems a useful counterargument.
quote:There is a huge difference between adults and adolescents.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Our office abandoned “formal” dress codes a couple of years back – most of us now wear a t-shirt & jeans.
The place hasn’t gone to hell, in fact many processes are more efficient, because of the work we have put in to improve things.
Because of the dress code, despite it, or did it make no difference?
quote:Agreed, but I thought it worth mentioning since the comparison between school and office dress codes has been made several times.
Originally posted by Moo:
[There is a huge difference between adults and adolescents.
Moo
quote:Be more White is evidently also a dress code.
Originally posted by mousethief:
This just in: boy made to quit track team because he dyed his mohawk pink in solidarity with his mum, who is fighting breast cancer.
quote:Agree. (Notice the OP is about an arbitrary and dubious one-sided dress code, rather than a uniform). A uniform solves a heck of a lot of problems-- distractions, the ambiguity of a dress code, competition, financial inequities*, etc. It also just makes getting an adolescent ready and out the door in the a.m.
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Personally I have never had a problem with the idea of school uniform...
AFAIC, asking students to conform by wearing a uniform is not unreasonable. Personally the reason I would disallow yoga pants and leggings is not because they are sexy; it is because they are too scruffy.
quote:Even more bullshit there JC. Looking at a pretty girl - with sex on the mind - isn't rape. Tough.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:That's just bullshit. It's the responsibility of people attracted to women to act politely and with good manners because that's the right thing to do. If you are forced to use good manners because a woman is covered up, you don't actually understand what manners and respect are.
Originally posted by deano:
quote:Fair enough, but teenage men's - hell all straight men of all ages - will also have a good old letch. If our leering makes you feel uncomfortable, well that's just tough. It's our hormones and we have no control over them. Just like the ladies.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:It is not the responsibility of those being objectified to prevent their objectification - that is the responsibility of those doing to objectification. Newsflash, but women wear clothes for themselves just like men do, and don't need to dress to make men's lives easier. Their bodies, their clothes, their decisions.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Ever been to yoga? One can discern the level and method of personal grooming with what some wear. Leggings, the next best thing to naked.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:Wearing leggings, shorts and yoga pants, as is their right and their children's right. They are just normal clothes.
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
When I was in school, I could not walk out the front door unless my clothing passed muster by my parents. Where are the parents in this case?
---------
I am nowhere near a prude, but teenagers need no further distractions.
Yes, as Gwai noted, even Burqas will not completely contain the wandering gaze, but accentuating sexuality sharpens the interest and therefore the distraction.
Forgive me for attempting to be reasonable, but somewhere in between?
If you want to live in a civilised society where men control their baser instincts and act politely and with good manners, then women need to reciprocate.
It's exactly the kind of thinking that leads to rape being normalised, that the women were asking for it by dressing provocatively and the poor men were only acting on instinct.
quote:Well, as has been pronounced on this thread, he doesn't have much personality to express. If he would stop assuming he has freedom to wear what he wants, the school could go work on other distractions, like making sure teachers don't wear beards.
Originally posted by mousethief:
This just in: boy made to quit track team because he dyed his mohawk pink in solidarity with his mum, who is fighting breast cancer.
quote:Where teenagers are concerned, everything is complicated.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
This doesn't seem like a very complicated issue to me.
quote:If you follow the details from that link, he was allowed to wear his Mohawk dyed blue during football season because that was the team color. The coach objected to him having it dyed pink.
Originally posted by mousethief:
This just in: boy made to quit track team because he dyed his mohawk pink in solidarity with his mum, who is fighting breast cancer.
quote:Surely his mother is to blame, having the audacity to have cancer, and allowing her son to engage in all this needless "supportive" and "raising awareness" nonsense that so distracts from real education. If only parents would do their job, teachers wouldn't have to put up with all this c**p.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:Well, as has been pronounced on this thread, he doesn't have much personality to express. If he would stop assuming he has freedom to wear what he wants, the school could go work on other distractions, like making sure teachers don't wear beards.
Originally posted by mousethief:
This just in: boy made to quit track team because he dyed his mohawk pink in solidarity with his mum, who is fighting breast cancer.
quote:Very true. Which is why codes of any sort must be clearly written and enforced evenly.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The boy is an athlete and popular. It's much harder for kids who are gender deviant or a racial minority if there's a tradition that punishes the different.
quote:That would be nice...
Originally posted by mousethief:
Very true. Which is why codes of any sort must be clearly written and enforced evenly.
quote:Interesting point. The Headmaster of a private boys school here in Sydney says that by enforcing a uniform you are forcing boys to be creative and more energetic in how they stand out from the crowd and express their individuality. It is easy to wear weird clothes to say "look at me" but when you're forced to all dress in exactly the same way, including short back and sides haircuts then your individuality needs to come from within. I like that idea but I'm a big fan of uniforms also for their levelling of the social classes and their practicality and insisting on a standard of dress that says what you do here is important and how you present yourself matters.
Originally posted by no prophet:
quote:That would be nice. But schools, particularly in the teenage years are conformity factories, where when ass-pants were the style, the boys all wore them. When piercing your belly button and showing your midriff was the rage, all girls did it.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I wish more teenagers had 2 foot tall red mohawks - schools should be encouraging originality, not stifling it.
In the teen years encouraging originality is precisely about not encouraging originality, it is merely about narrow variation on what is considered cool, hot, neat, swell, sick the bomb. Copacetic by any other name. You just get to choose the colour of your thong, your shirt or iPhone cover.
quote:Sad but true. But the way to stop uneven enforcement of rules is not to get rid of rules, especially if the rules make a difference in the quality of the school experience.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:That would be nice...
Originally posted by mousethief:
Very true. Which is why codes of any sort must be clearly written and enforced evenly.
Black boys suspended from school three times more than white boys says study
quote:Crickets.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The problem is, no one thing will prevent all hell. From this it does not follow that some things don't go partway to toning it down. "Doing X won't solve the entire problem so there's no point in doing it" is the same argument as "Giving that guy a sandwich will still leave 3 billion hungry people. Might as well not bother." It's not the most convincing argument.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If it's intended as a justification for its importance in preventing hell, pointing out that hell is not prevented seems a useful counterargument.
quote:While we wait for this new utopia of even enforcement of fair rules to magically appear, another way to minimize the damage is to minimize the scope of unessential rules. While you may think that strict dress codes are essential to prevent schools going to hell, they're only one of a number of possible ways to make school non-hellish. Given the long history of arbitrary definition and enforcement as shown in the study I linked to earlier.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Sad but true. But the way to stop uneven enforcement of rules is not to get rid of rules, especially if the rules make a difference in the quality of the school experience.
quote:You've just substituted one dress code for another. How many choose/dare to wear something other than jeans and a t-shirt.
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Our office abandoned “formal” dress codes a couple of years back – most of us now wear a t-shirt & jeans.
The place hasn’t gone to hell, in fact many processes are more efficient, because of the work we have put in to improve things.
Because of the dress code, despite it, or did it make no difference?
quote:And who gets the god-like power of determining which rules are essential and which are unessential? You?
While we wait for this new utopia of even enforcement of fair rules to magically appear, another way to minimize the damage is to minimize the scope of unessential rules.
quote:I don't remember saying that, but hey, I don't recognize myself in a lot of what you've posted about me.
While you may think that strict dress codes are essential to prevent schools going to hell,
quote:So, all we have to do is get rid of arbitrary rules, and all of a sudden racism and sexism will magically disappear from our schools? Now who's being unrealistic?
they're only one of a number of possible ways to make school non-hellish. Given the long history of arbitrary definition and enforcement as shown in the study I linked to earlier.
quote:And? What do we do about that? You've got a lot of complaints here but not a lot of thoughts for how to move forward except "fewer rules." Yeah. Fine. Yawn.
Besides the unequal application of these rules to racial minorities, there's going to be no shortage of "common sense" rules that girls shouldn't be too masculine and boys shouldn't be too feminine in the clothes they wear.
quote:Except your proposed solution doesn't even go partway to solving what you identify as the "problem" by your own admission. Your analysis, as near as I can track it, is something along the lines of:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The problem is, no one thing will prevent all hell. From this it does not follow that some things don't go partway to toning it down.
quote:I'll take that as a refusal to engage my analysis (and the rough equivalent of crickets chirping).
Originally posted by mousethief:
Twist, twist, twist.
quote:Fine. Your problem is that you take me to be saying that young adolescent males cannot be affected by scantily clad young ladies -- they are going to have boners, and they have exactly one arousal level. Which is not what I said. But that has to be what I said for your analysis to be on target. Ergo your analysis is off target.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I'll take that as a refusal to engage my analysis (and the rough equivalent of crickets chirping).
Originally posted by mousethief:
Twist, twist, twist.
quote:It varies. Some do – the crntre manager still wears a smart skirt, top & jacket – in addition to my full time job I am also a local councillor, and when I’m going straight from the office to a council meeting, I wear a shirt & smart trousers. Nothing is said.
Originally posted by John Holding:
You've just substituted one dress code for another. How many choose/dare to wear something other than jeans and a t-shirt.
John
quote:Nope.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
While we wait for this new utopia of even enforcement of fair rules to magically appear, another way to minimize the damage is to minimize the scope of unessential rules. While you may think that strict dress codes are essential to prevent schools going to hell, they're only one of a number of possible ways to make school non-hellish. Given the long history of arbitrary definition and enforcement as shown in the study I linked to earlier.
quote:Why is this inevitable?
Besides the unequal application of these rules to racial minorities, there's going to be no shortage of "common sense" rules that girls shouldn't be too masculine and boys shouldn't be too feminine in the clothes they wear.
quote:Which begs the question of why not burquas*? That's not rhetorical. If your position is that the female body must be hidden from male view (at least in an academic context), and that the more of it is hidden the better the result you claim can be achieved, why not mandate some form of maximal cover? Wouldn't that achieve a maximal result? You reject this position, but it seems to be the most logical endpoint of your assertion that the less the female body is seen the better the academic performance of (presumptively straight) teenaged boys will be.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Fine. Your problem is that you take me to be saying that young adolescent males cannot be affected by scantily clad young ladies -- they are going to have boners, and they have exactly one arousal level. Which is not what I said. But that has to be what I said for your analysis to be on target. Ergo your analysis is off target.
quote:Have you worked with teenagers? en masse?
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Only if you over think things and make them more complicated than they have to be. No harm will come from teenagers not being allowed to wear yoga pants to school. School is 10 hours tops. Those teenagers can wear yoga pants the remaining 14 hours of the day, every weekend, and 24/7 during the summer.
quote:I'm not suggesting anything of the sort, just trying to quantify MT's argument. If a skirt that goes to the knees is too distracting, but one that goes two inches lower is sufficient to raise grades and reduce discipline problems (or whatever positive effect MT thinks will be achieved), why wouldn't a whole body covering do even more? That seems to be what he's getting at with his comment about more than one arousal level, but elsewhere he rejects that reasoning.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Your augment leans to the absurd Crœsos. Taking your reasoning, girls should go to class naked, twirling condoms on their fingers.
Having a reasonable dress code for teens, male and female, is not rape culture, not onerous and not unreasonable.
quote:There's a technical name for this -
Originally posted by Gwai:
Taking arguments to their extreme and insisting that is the only way to take them leads to very silly arguments, I think. Obvious reasons not to take the dress code further include the idea that perhaps the school balances the value of covering with other values like not enraging their students or ensuring them moderate comfort. One hears burqas suck to wear.
quote:Except it's not so much an "extreme" as a logical conclusion drawn from the position presented. Covering female students achieves some positive academic outcome for their male peers, this outcome is on a sliding scale, not pass/fail, so more covering means more positive results, and that teenaged girls owe it to teenaged boys as a matter of "courtesy" to help them by covering as much of their bodies as possible.
Originally posted by Gwai:
Taking arguments to their extreme and insisting that is the only way to take them leads to very silly arguments, I think.
quote:Interesting thought. How do you determine the appropriate boundary of "moderate comfort"? How uncomfortable can a school demand its female students make themselves? Obviously to some degree, under MT's standard, since that standard is predicated on not letting teenaged girls dress in a way they find comfortable. And on a related subject, what message is being sent to those female students when they're informed that their personal comfort is less important than preventing their male peers from finding them attractive?
Originally posted by Gwai:
Obvious reasons not to take the dress code further include the idea that perhaps the school balances the value of covering with other values like not enraging their students or ensuring them moderate comfort. One hears burqas suck to wear.
quote:I put italics on the part that I think you are taking to a silly extreme. I don't think anyone is arguing that more coverage will lead always to better results. Clearly there is a point where more coverage will lead to better results--I don't think even you are advocating lilbuddha's naked twirlers--so if you think that should be forbidden, doesn't that mean you are also on the road to burqas?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Except it's not so much an "extreme" as a logical conclusion drawn from the position presented. Covering female students achieves some positive academic outcome for their male peers, this outcome is on a sliding scale, not pass/fail, so more covering means more positive results, and that teenaged girls owe it to teenaged boys as a matter of "courtesy" to help them by covering as much of their bodies as possible.
Originally posted by Gwai:
Taking arguments to their extreme and insisting that is the only way to take them leads to very silly arguments, I think.
quote:Moderate comfort is obviously going to be an opinion, but it will also depend on climate and circumstances. Children in classrooms in northern England, classrooms in southern Texas, and gym class in the two regions will probably have four different sets of needs re comfort. For one thing, I doubt handling the heat is nearly as necessary for school children in northern England as it is in Texas though perhaps appropriate for both in certain seasons.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Interesting thought. How do you determine the appropriate boundary of "moderate comfort"? How uncomfortable can a school demand its female students make themselves? Obviously to some degree, under MT's standard, since that standard is predicated on not letting teenaged girls dress in a way they find comfortable. And on a related subject, what message is being sent to those female students when they're informed that their personal comfort is less important than preventing their male peers from finding them attractive?
Originally posted by Gwai:
Obvious reasons not to take the dress code further include the idea that perhaps the school balances the value of covering with other values like not enraging their students or ensuring them moderate comfort. One hears burqas suck to wear.
quote:Yes - except that most things taken to their logical conclusion end up with ideas involving extreme silliness.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except it's not so much an "extreme" as a logical conclusion drawn from the position presented.
quote:Mousethief seems to be arguing this. Or, more accurately, trying to have it both ways by first arguing that teenaged boys will be attracted to their female age peers regardless of what they're wearing and then arguing that the degree of attraction/impairment is a function of how much gets covered.
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:I put italics on the part that I think you are taking to a silly extreme. I don't think anyone is arguing that more coverage will lead always to better results.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except it's not so much an "extreme" as a logical conclusion drawn from the position presented. Covering female students achieves some positive academic outcome for their male peers, this outcome is on a sliding scale, not pass/fail, so more covering means more positive results, and that teenaged girls owe it to teenaged boys as a matter of "courtesy" to help them by covering as much of their bodies as possible.
quote:First off, I find it dubious that the only possible reason anyone would want to be able to pick their own clothes is for purposes of seduction. Secondly, the male-centeredness of the argument comes from the argument advanced by Mousethief, which is premised not on deliberate seduction but the idea that teenaged boys (but not girls) are academically impaired when they're attracted to their age peers and that the burden of correcting this deficiency is rightfully borne by teenaged girls.
Originally posted by Gwai:
Re not seducing other students in school, I don't see why we need boys or girls--you seem very into worrying that we are preventing the girls' rights to wear very little, aren't you interested in protecting boys' rights to get seduce other people, or only the girls'?--to go about in states of extreme undress in school.
quote:"A-shirt" or "athletic shirt" seem to be acceptable terms.
Originally posted by Gwai:
For instance, at least where I went to high school, we knew that we could get away with too short shorts, but probably couldn't get away with the wife-beater* or with showing bra straps.
*Is there a less offensive name for these? I truly don't know one.
quote:Mousethief doesn't need my help, so I'll only say that that's not my understanding of his arguments at all. I read instead that he's saying more covering helps up to a point, which I agree.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Mousethief seems to be arguing this. Or, more accurately, trying to have it both ways by first arguing that teenaged boys will be attracted to their female age peers regardless of what they're wearing and then arguing that the degree of attraction/impairment is a function of how much gets covered.
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:I put italics on the part that I think you are taking to a silly extreme. I don't think anyone is arguing that more coverage will lead always to better results.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Except it's not so much an "extreme" as a logical conclusion drawn from the position presented. Covering female students achieves some positive academic outcome for their male peers, this outcome is on a sliding scale, not pass/fail, so more covering means more positive results, and that teenaged girls owe it to teenaged boys as a matter of "courtesy" to help them by covering as much of their bodies as possible.
quote:Well, mousethief is male, but I can tell you for free that some women like to look at good looking bodies too.
quote:First off, I find it dubious that the only possible reason anyone would want to be able to pick their own clothes is for purposes of seduction. Secondly, the male-centeredness of the argument comes from the argument advanced by Mousethief, which is premised not on deliberate seduction but the idea that teenaged boys (but not girls) are academically impaired when they're attracted to their age peers and that the burden of correcting this deficiency is rightfully borne by teenaged girls.
Originally posted by Gwai:
Re not seducing other students in school, I don't see why we need boys or girls--you seem very into worrying that we are preventing the girls' rights to wear very little, aren't you interested in protecting boys' rights to get seduce other people, or only the girls'?--to go about in states of extreme undress in school.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:I'm confused. Who suggested that they might cause a disturbance?
Originally posted by stonespring:
If closeted teenage gay boys and girls can manage to keep their attractions to kids of the same sex from becoming noticeable, can't teenage straight boys be expected to not cause trouble or a disturbance in the presence of an attractively-dressed girl?
quote:Dial down the snark and you'll be able to keep up with the conversation.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:I'm confused. Who suggested that they might cause a disturbance?
Originally posted by stonespring:
If closeted teenage gay boys and girls can manage to keep their attractions to kids of the same sex from becoming noticeable, can't teenage straight boys be expected to not cause trouble or a disturbance in the presence of an attractively-dressed girl?
quote:The irony is admirable, but this doesn't answer my question.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Dial down the snark and you'll be able to keep up with the conversation.
quote:What the above "boo-hoo" quote implies is that there's no valid right to wear what a teacher decides is inappropriate, because that's a civil right whose suppression is inconsequential.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:And who gets the god-like power of determining which rules are essential and which are unessential? You?
While we wait for this new utopia of even enforcement of fair rules to magically appear, another way to minimize the damage is to minimize the scope of unessential rules.
Certainly not someone with the attitude:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Dress codes for 11 year olds are hardly the stuff of heart-rending civil rights violations. 11 year olds do not have the full panoply of civil rights that adults enjoy, and there's really no good pretending they do or should.
( Do note the "if we don't give them all of the rights of an adult, we don't have to give them any" embedded in that argument.)
It is the stuff of civil rights violations when a Black girl is told she has to get her hair straightened or a boy is told to not wear pink. It's hardly inconsequential when the child is suspended from school because of the violation.
If we are talking about a dress code that is not a school uniform, which is the norm in most of United States, it's not going to be possible to exactly specify rules. If you have examples of such dazzling clear rules that would handle the hard cases cited in this thread, please do give us a link. Also include the manual of jurisprudence and casebook that describes the fair process you are so sure can be written down.
In real life it's going to have to be a vague set of rules that are interpreted with the right of appeal and the attitude that the child has some rights that will save the ACLU having to drag it into court which they've had to do.
We do restrict rights of 11 year olds. We shouldn't allow them to drink alcohol, or play in traffic or create a threatening environment for other students with gang colors or t-shirts
These are necessary safety rules. Rules that are meant to impose a hair style or non-distracting clothes for girls or prevent a non-gender-conforming dress style not so much. They require a burden that they serve a need other than to show that the petty authority of the teacher is absolute.
In general, extreme detail of dress code is not going to trump the flexibility of fashion. It's too easy to circumvent written rules. If you follow the link above about the boy with the pink Mohawk, you'll see a picture of him and 20 of his friends all wearing pink t-shirts. They're not saying they are gender deviant; they are saying that they are supporting the boy and secondarily that the coach is wrong in his application of rules.
quote:I don't remember saying that, but hey, I don't recognize myself in a lot of what you've posted about me.
While you may think that strict dress codes are essential to prevent schools going to hell,
quote:You're creating a straw man. Eliminating unneeded rules doesn't mean that other rules can't be enforced. The enforcement is going to require work and dispute. But as I mentioned in my earlier anecdote that you didn't find relevant, allowing boys to grow sideburns didn't turn out to be the end of civilized order as predicted by alarmists. I'm pretty sure that pink Mohawks are unlikely to create hell either. Nor is the attempted suppression of heterosexual teen male erections worth much effort.
quote:So, all we have to do is get rid of arbitrary rules, and all of a sudden racism and sexism will magically disappear from our schools? Now who's being unrealistic?
they're only one of a number of possible ways to make school non-hellish. Given the long history of arbitrary definition and enforcement as shown in the study I linked to earlier.
quote:
Besides the unequal application of these rules to racial minorities, there's going to be no shortage of "common sense" rules that girls shouldn't be too masculine and boys shouldn't be too feminine in the clothes they wear.
quote:Ignoring alarmists who see self expression in dress and coiffure as a threat to the social order seems like it would save a lot of work. Having a small vague set of rules (like now) and reducing them to the necessary seems useful unless you come back with your tablets with the precisely written dress code that manages to predict fashion. Reviewing the statistics and fixing biases based on race and gender presentation, as is being done now seems like a good idea. There's some being done now ( Seattle is under federal review for Civil Rights violations) but a lot more could be done.
And? What do we do about that? You've got a lot of complaints here but not a lot of thoughts for how to move forward except "fewer rules." Yeah. Fine. Yawn.
quote:If you're going to imply that the responses to your postings are tedious, then don't be surprised about the crickets.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Yawn.
quote:Yes, sweet little ad hominem. But it doesn't answer the question.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Certainly not someone with the attitude:
quote:I don't note it because it's not there; it's been placed there by your rigid, black-or-white thinking.
( Do note the "if we don't give them all of the rights of an adult, we don't have to give them any" embedded in that argument.)
quote:Yes, we've established that. It doesn't answer my question.
It is the stuff of civil rights violations when a Black girl is told she has to get her hair straightened or a boy is told to not wear pink. It's hardly inconsequential when the child is suspended from school because of the violation.
quote:You're the one who's making a stink about unnecessary rules. Put up or shut up. How do we tell what's unnecessary?
If we are talking about a dress code that is not a school uniform, which is the norm in most of United States, it's not going to be possible to exactly specify rules. If you have examples of such dazzling clear rules that would handle the hard cases cited in this thread, please do give us a link.
quote:While we wait for this new utopia of even enforcement of fair rules to magically appear, who's going to make the rules?
In real life it's going to have to be a vague set of rules that are interpreted with the right of appeal and the attitude that the child has some rights that will save the ACLU having to drag it into court which they've had to do.
quote:Yes, yes, so we've established. So who sets the rules and by what criteria?
We do restrict rights of 11 year olds. We shouldn't allow them to drink alcohol, or play in traffic or create a threatening environment for other students with gang colors or t-shirts
These are necessary safety rules. Rules that are meant to impose a hair style or non-distracting clothes for girls or prevent a non-gender-conforming dress style not so much. They require a burden that they serve a need other than to show that the petty authority of the teacher is absolute.
quote:You are not fairly representing what I'm saying, and pointing that out is not "boo hoo" it's just stating my case. And "boo hoo" strikes me as a borderline personal attack.
While you may think that strict dress codes are essential to prevent schools going to hell,quote:What the above "boo-hoo" quote implies is that there's no valid right to wear what a teacher decides is inappropriate, because that's a civil right whose suppression is inconsequential.
I don't remember saying that, but hey, I don't recognize myself in a lot of what you've posted about me.
quote:This is a scream considering all that has gone down on this thread.
You're creating a straw man.
quote:All the examples in the world don't answer my question. What makes for a fair and necessary rule, and who gets to decide, and how can we usher in this utopia of even enforcement, which you ridiculed me for expressing hope in?
Eliminating unneeded rules doesn't mean that other rules can't be enforced. The enforcement is going to require work and dispute. But as I mentioned in my earlier anecdote that you didn't find relevant, allowing boys to grow sideburns didn't turn out to be the end of civilized order as predicted by alarmists.
quote:What set? What is necessity? Who chooses? Come on. You are falling back on squishy nothings. The difference between our positions is where we draw the line. You excoriate me for thinking that rules can be applied fairly, but your non-solution requires exactly the same thing.
Having a small vague set of rules (like now) and reducing them to the necessary seems useful
quote:Also: how would you have wanted me to ask this question so you didn't find it snarky? I purposely tried to ask it in a neutral tone because I didn't want to add to the snark factor of the thread. How should I have phrased it?
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The irony is admirable, but this doesn't answer my question.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Dial down the snark and you'll be able to keep up with the conversation.
quote:A decent rule of thumb is that rules should:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What makes for a fair and necessary rule, and who gets to decide, and how can we usher in this utopia of even enforcement, which you ridiculed me for expressing hope in?
quote:I am assuming it's not a real question. You appear to have followed the thread and thus know the answer to the question full well-- the theme of "needing the rules to keep the boys from being distracted/aroused" has been a constant refrain. Or perhaps you're suggesting that a distracted/aroused adolescent boy is not a "disruption"-- fair 'nuff, it is sorta par for the course, but that would seem to argue contrary to what you've been doing. So the question was clearly rhetorical, and your feigned innocence a bit too coy. But then, not the first snark you've posted here. You've really outdone yourself.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Also: how would you have wanted me to ask this question so you didn't find it snarky? I purposely tried to ask it in a neutral tone because I didn't want to add to the snark factor of the thread. How should I have phrased it?
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The irony is admirable, but this doesn't answer my question.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Dial down the snark and you'll be able to keep up with the conversation.
quote:As decided by whom?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:A decent rule of thumb is that rules should:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What makes for a fair and necessary rule, and who gets to decide, and how can we usher in this utopia of even enforcement, which you ridiculed me for expressing hope in?
- Be in pursuit of a legitimate end
quote:As determined how? Do we do this by trial and error, or do we base it on studies in peer-reviewed journals on rule-caused harm, or by magic 8-ball, or what?
- Have a reasonable chance of accomplishing (or at least moving towards) that end
- Not cause more (or more severe) problems than the one it's supposed to remedy
quote:You are still misrepresenting me. Fail.
I'd posit that your stated motivation of "boner prevention"
quote:Then "my" "snark" is entirely in your head.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I am assuming it's not a real question.
quote:Bing bing bing! We have a winner. That's snark, and I own it. A disruption is something that, well, DISRUPTS other people. Some schmuck of an adolescent having a boner doesn't disrupt other people. How you could think that's a disruption, let alone think anybody else here thinks it's a disruption, is beyond me. The issue is the horny adolescent being disrupted, not causing a disruption. Unless you can show me where I or someone else have claimed that a titillated lad, in the absence of his actually doing anything disrupting other than getting a hardon, is himself a disruption? Which is what I asked.
Or perhaps you're suggesting that a distracted/aroused adolescent boy is not a "disruption"--
quote:Shrug. Your call.
Any more and we'll probably have to take this below to a warmer spot.
quote:So... not entirely in my head after all, then.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Then "my" "snark" is entirely in your head.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[qb] I am assuming it's not a real question.
quote:Bing bing bing! We have a winner. That's snark, and I own it... Yes, that's snark.
Or perhaps you're suggesting that a distracted/aroused adolescent boy is not a "disruption"--
quote:Obviously from the part you snipped (sorry-- bad word choice in the context of boners) I don't.
Originally posted by mousethief:
[QB] Some schmuck of an adolescent having a boner doesn't disrupt other people. How you could think that's a disruption, let alone think anybody else here thinks it's a disruption, is beyond me.
quote:Typically whoever defined the scope of the rule-making body. For example, "preventing potholes on highways" is a legitimate end for the Department of Transportation, but not for the local school board.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:As decided by whom?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:A decent rule of thumb is that rules should:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What makes for a fair and necessary rule, and who gets to decide, and how can we usher in this utopia of even enforcement, which you ridiculed me for expressing hope in?
- Be in pursuit of a legitimate end
quote:A de minimus standard would be showing some connection between the rule and its purported aim, rather than just blindly assuming that whoever made the rule must know what they're doing because they're a rule-maker (e.g. "students are forbidden from wearing t-shirts in order to prevent highway potholes" or "female students must wear baggy clothing in order to increase the academic performance of male students").
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:As determined how? Do we do this by trial and error, or do we base it on studies in peer-reviewed journals on rule-caused harm, or by magic 8-ball, or what?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
- Have a reasonable chance of accomplishing (or at least moving towards) that end
- Not cause more (or more severe) problems than the one it's supposed to remedy
quote:Well, if your favored policy isn't supposed to reduce boners, or "titillation", or whatever other euphemism you prefer this time around, what exactly is it supposed to do (beyond giving middle-aged school administrators the power to play dress-up with their teenaged charges)?
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:You are still misrepresenting me. Fail.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
[qb]I'd posit that your stated motivation of "boner prevention"
quote:Sorry, it doesn't work retroactively. You can't call me at 2:15 for snark I didn't commit until 4:30. Doesn't work that way. Well I mean obviously you CAN, because you just DID. But it's ridiculous.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So... not entirely in my head after all, then.
quote:Don't be coy. Say what it is or leave off. This is what I have been trying to get you to do, and you STILL cannot.
quote:Obviously from the part you snipped (sorry-- bad word choice in the context of boners) I don't.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Some schmuck of an adolescent having a boner doesn't disrupt other people. How you could think that's a disruption, let alone think anybody else here thinks it's a disruption, is beyond me.
quote:How can you do that within two column inches and expect to be taken seriously?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Well, if your favored policy isn't supposed to reduce boners
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:You are still misrepresenting me. Fail.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'd posit that your stated motivation of "boner prevention"
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
quote:I'm just at a loss as to how you propose reducing boners without preventing any. Unless your goal is reducing the size of boners, not reducing their numbers through prevention. If that's the case I'm not sure anyone will be thanking you for your efforts. This certainly isn't a semantic quibble you'd see in any other measure. Imagine the following conversation.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:How can you do that within two column inches and expect to be taken seriously?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Well, if your favored policy isn't supposed to reduce boners
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:You are still misrepresenting me. Fail.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'd posit that your stated motivation of "boner prevention"
You: Your motivation is boner PREVENTION.
Me: You are misrepresenting me.
You: How can you deny your motivation is boner REDUCTION?
Please tell me you know the difference between those two words?
quote:So what do you think our intrepid and purely hypothetical Safety Officer's next step is: thanking the equally hypothetical "Mousethief" for his semantic precision, or pointing out that the change in numbers indicates a certain number of injuries were prevented?
Safety Officer: Thanks to our accident prevention program, workplace injuries were reduced from 6.1 incidents per thousand hours worked to 4.2 per thousand hours.
Mousethief: I think you mean "accident reduction program". If it's an accident prevention program there wouldn't be any incidents at all!
quote:I expect the rules to continue to be made by the schools, reviewed by the school board, and if they get it wrong, corrected by the citizenry; which you referred to as
Originally posted by mousethief:
I notice you didn't answer my question, Palimpsest. My one, single, easy, simple question. Who gets to decide? You have argued that rules should be minimized. What's your cut-off point? What criteria should be used to decide which rule is a good one and which is a bad one? Who will make this call? Until you answer this, you are blowing smoke.
quote:Now, don't be coy, little mouse...
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm sick of both of you misrepresenting me and mocking me.
quote:Sorry. Like your namesake, your goal is worthy. I'll try to fall back into purgatorial places.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Oy! Peole talk about teenagers and then begin acting like them.
Anyone wish to try starting over instead of worrying about who is misreading who and whose example is the most ridiculous?
I shall try, follow if you wish.
quote:I have issues with the above statements. The science justification for poor impulse control is a dangerous and dubious one. Do you really want to restrict the behavior of the young until they are 25? The Victorians would approve. I think Croesus said it well; Is your bias toward no unneeded regulation or that any regulation by authority is fine. Mine is for the former.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I shall try, follow if you wish.
Teenagers have poor impulse control and they are dealing with a rapid acceleration in noticing each other in a sexual way.
Some sort of standard for dress in school is a helpful thing.
There is a balance between naked and burqa.
No one is suggesting either is appropriate, so therefore this suggests everyone so far has a dress code in mind.
Anyone care to continue the conversation as to what this might be?
Bueller? Bueller?
quote:As I said before, I actually don't have too much of a problem with a uniform if it's comfortable, workable, reasonably priced and provisions made to make it accessible for every income level. It has some distinct advantages I outlined above beyond the whole "modesty" debate.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
See here is, I think, a problem with this discussion. If a person suggests standards, someone will assume they mean draconian. The opposite is true as well. All I am asking for is a calmer discussion.
We all agree that there should be standards.
What are yours?
quote:Then we agree thus far.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I actually don't have too much of a problem with a uniform if it's comfortable, workable, reasonably priced and provisions made to make it accessible for every income level. It has some distinct advantages I outlined above beyond the whole "modesty" debate.
quote:I do not like arbitrary standards either. Unfortunately, there will be the appearance of a weight against the girls simply because standard female attire is much more varied and suggestive than standard male attire.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What I don't appreciate (and the standard in the OP seems to apply here) is standards that appear arbitrary...(Etc.)
quote:How dangerous and how dubious?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The science justification for poor impulse control is a dangerous and dubious one.
quote:We argue for a reasonable dress code in an already controlled environment. Not this escalation.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Do you really want to restrict the behavior of the young until they are 25?
quote:Once again, this is escalating statements well beyond what is necessary.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Does this mean a stock uniform and a military crew cut that everyone must wear or a requirement that you can't walk around barefoot, naked and unvaccinated?
quote:Possibly the urban (or suburban wannabe) gangsta trend for guys to wear their pants pulled down practically to their ankles hasn't hit the UK? How fortunate. Not a great look for anyone.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:I do not like arbitrary standards either. Unfortunately, there will be the appearance of a weight against the girls simply because standard female attire is much more varied and suggestive than standard male attire.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What I don't appreciate (and the standard in the OP seems to apply here) is standards that appear arbitrary...(Etc.)
quote:Necessary for what? Given how vaguely defined the "problems" are that are supposedly solved through uniformity of dress, how can we be sure what's "necessary"?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Once again, this is escalating statements well beyond what is necessary.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Does this mean a stock uniform and a military crew cut that everyone must wear or a requirement that you can't walk around barefoot, naked and unvaccinated?
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Necessary for what? Given how vaguely defined the "problems" are that are supposedly solved through uniformity of dress, how can we be sure what's "necessary"?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Once again, this is escalating statements well beyond what is necessary.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Does this mean a stock uniform and a military crew cut that everyone must wear or a requirement that you can't walk around barefoot, naked and unvaccinated?
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Throwing around absolutes when no one has suggested any, helps the conversation not one whit.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Necessary for what? Given how vaguely defined the "problems" are that are supposedly solved through uniformity of dress, how can we be sure what's "necessary"?
Again I ask, everyone in this thread has admitted a standard should exist. Instead of continually throwing this into an unrealistic meta, can we talk practicals?
quote:I thought I had already answered that. The idea of uniform is to give children boundaries. If the boundary involves something (like uniform) which doesn't actually matter one jot - then they are kicking against something harmless which can't hurt them or get broken. Let them wear what they like to school and they kick other boundaries much more readily. One thing is for sure - teenagers will rebel, it's what they are for! So rebelling against such rules as uniform is good + harmless.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't one of the very basic requirements for "talk[ing] practicals" determining what is supposed to be accomplished? Questions don't get any more practical than "What are we trying to do here?"
quote:Thing is, I think that'd be counterproductive. You're saying "this natural coloured, boringly, sorry, conservatively styled hair is good. Your dyed, starched, backcombed, what have you, hair is Not Acceptable." - in effect, you're drawing attention to superficial appearance by making it important enough to have rules prescribing particular appearance as acceptable, and therefore, by implication, other appearances as unacceptable.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Given that I started the two-foot red mohawk discussion, let me clarify a couple of things:
1. The guy with a pink breast cancer awareness mohawk. If he was permitted to wear a blue mohawk (the school colour), he should be permitted to wear a pink one, whether it's for breast cancer awareness, or simply because he likes pink. One can make a reasonable case for "natural" only, but there is no reasonable argument to permit blue but not pink.
2. I would ban a two-foot red mohawk for the same reason that I wouldn't let a child wear a two-foot high stovepipe hat in class. And yes, I'd ban a 2-foot radius Afro as well. It is simply not reasonable to walk around with a large barrier on your head when other children will have to sit behind you.
3. My personal preference is for a school with a fairly rigid uniform policy, which would include a requirement that hair should be its natural colour (or at least a colour that could realistically be natural) and maintained in a neat and conservative style, no piercings (or at best a single pair of discreet studs) or other jewellery. The idea is that children don't get given a choice about something as superficial as appearance, and so have to pay attention to personality, character and behaviour - things that actually matter.
quote:ISTM, you did not do this. Your argument appeared to be, "If you want a dress code, you want burqas" As has been mentioned, taking the argument to the extreme is not reasonable or correct.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't one of the very basic requirements for "talk[ing] practicals" determining what is supposed to be accomplished? Questions don't get any more practical than "What are we trying to do here?"
quote:I see what you're saying, Karl, but I don't think the cases are symmetrical. The "natural, boring" look which I am requiring is basically the natural state of a human being - just add soap, water, and a trim to keep the hair from becoming too unruly.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Thing is, I think that'd be counterproductive. You're saying "this natural coloured, boringly, sorry, conservatively styled hair is good. Your dyed, starched, backcombed, what have you, hair is Not Acceptable."
quote:It seems a weird idea that we can help people learn how to make responsible choices by preventing them from choosing.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The idea is that children don't get given a choice about something as superficial as appearance, and so have to pay attention to personality, character and behaviour - things that actually matter.
quote:There's nothing "natural" about neat and conservatively styled. My hair is naturally 18" long and hangs in rats tails. Anything else is ornamentation.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:I see what you're saying, Karl, but I don't think the cases are symmetrical. The "natural, boring" look which I am requiring is basically the natural state of a human being - just add soap, water, and a trim to keep the hair from becoming too unruly.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Thing is, I think that'd be counterproductive. You're saying "this natural coloured, boringly, sorry, conservatively styled hair is good. Your dyed, starched, backcombed, what have you, hair is Not Acceptable."
Everything else - be it hair in bright colours, hair packed with chemicals to make it stand up, stick out, lie flat, or whatever, piercings, tattoos, makeup - is ornamentation.
I'm not singling out particular styles as unacceptable, I am grouping together all forms of personal adornment as unhelpful.
(And following Boogie's point, these are pretty safe boundaries for children to push against.)
quote:We've actually had several answers, from "boundaries" to "reducing (but not preventing!) boners".
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:I thought I had already answered that. The idea of uniform is to give children boundaries. If the boundary involves something (like uniform) which doesn't actually matter one jot - then they are kicking against something harmless which can't hurt them or get broken. Let them wear what they like to school and they kick other boundaries much more readily. One thing is for sure - teenagers will rebel, it's what they are for! So rebelling against such rules as uniform is good + harmless.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't one of the very basic requirements for "talk[ing] practicals" determining what is supposed to be accomplished? Questions don't get any more practical than "What are we trying to do here?"
quote:I've always thought the idea of uniforms concealing familial poverty was overstated. Kids are observant and can usually tell who is making do with a worn out uniform or wearing a sibling's hand-me-downs.
Originally posted by Boogie:
Secondly it minimises peer pressure a great deal. I was a very poor Minister's daughter and VERY grateful to be spared the school fashion parade.
quote:Actually my argument was in response to a specific justification being advanced. A better summary would be "If you want a dress code in order to reduce (but not prevent!) boners, burqas would be the optimal way to achieve this end". I also noted that "reducing distraction" and/or "reducing attraction" is more or less the exact same justification offered by burqa advocates and questioned why we should find the justification compelling for school uniforms but not for burquas.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:ISTM, you did not do this. Your argument appeared to be, "If you want a dress code, you want burqas" As has been mentioned, taking the argument to the extreme is not reasonable or correct.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Isn't one of the very basic requirements for "talk[ing] practicals" determining what is supposed to be accomplished? Questions don't get any more practical than "What are we trying to do here?"
quote:Once again, wouldn't a formless, all-concealing garment like a burqa be the optimal solution if your aim is to "prevent distraction" and your premise is that less revealing clothing is less distracting?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
As to what is supposed to be accomplished: less distraction in class.
Adults are more distracted more by revealing attire why would this not be true of teens?
quote:All forms of personal adornment? Doesn't that include all forms of clothing (except safety gear)?
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I'm not singling out particular styles as unacceptable, I am grouping together all forms of personal adornment as unhelpful.
![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
quote:I'm questioning whether putting a hyena in a cheap suit makes it any less a hyena.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Creosos, were you never at school? I only ask because the kind of arguments you're coming out with would only make sense if you didn't realise what a pack of hyenas teenagers actually are.
quote:No. Children need to wear clothes in school, for reasons of warmth, hygiene, safety (there are some places you really don't want a paper cut) and decency.(Yes, "decency" is a cultural artefact, but it's a pretty pervasive one - I suspect naturist schools will remain a minority interest...)
Originally posted by Crœsos:
All forms of personal adornment? Doesn't that include all forms of clothing (except safety gear)?
quote:And the answer to that question, as most people are telling you, is yes. Yes it does.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I'm questioning whether putting a hyena in a cheap suit makes it any less a hyena.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Creosos, were you never at school? I only ask because the kind of arguments you're coming out with would only make sense if you didn't realise what a pack of hyenas teenagers actually are.
quote:And the minimal effort you can expend on your 18" rat tails in order to keep it out of the way of your lunch, the chemicals and bunsen burner flame in the science lab, and prevent it from flying around during sports, is either to cut it short or to tie it back.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
There's nothing "natural" about neat and conservatively styled. My hair is naturally 18" long and hangs in rats tails. Anything else is ornamentation.
quote:Master Tor opts for the latter.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Traditionally, schoolboys adopt the former approach and schoolgirls the latter, but in my regime you would be free to adopt either (although I will note that the former approach has the advantage of being faster to wash.)
quote:I agree. If a particular style of hair, clothing or whatever is acceptable for some children, it should be acceptable for all children. This should apply either in my strict uniform regime, or in a more relaxed mufti system.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'd argue that sex discrimination laws ought to prevent such simplistic boys = short hair rules, but I don't have to have that fight, as long hair is allowed at his school. I'd be happy to go to court to get a ruling on it, though.
quote:The Boy looks quite fetching in a full kilt...
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:I agree. If a particular style of hair, clothing or whatever is acceptable for some children, it should be acceptable for all children. This should apply either in my strict uniform regime, or in a more relaxed mufti system.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'd argue that sex discrimination laws ought to prevent such simplistic boys = short hair rules, but I don't have to have that fight, as long hair is allowed at his school. I'd be happy to go to court to get a ruling on it, though.
I'd make one exception, and bow to standard ideas of decency to mandate that girls are not permitted to swim in just a pair of trunks, and we won't play "shirts vs skins" in girls' PE lessons.
quote:Yes, but either as a bare assertion or for reasons that don't really hold up under close examination.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:And the answer to that question, as most people are telling you, is yes. Yes it does.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I'm questioning whether putting a hyena in a cheap suit makes it any less a hyena.
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Creosos, were you never at school? I only ask because the kind of arguments you're coming out with would only make sense if you didn't realise what a pack of hyenas teenagers actually are.
quote:Is there any context in which it is good for any young person educationally or otherwise to be allowed to go to court either on their own initiative or with the encouragement of their parents to demand the right to wear what they please? In what context, ever, is "I must be entitled to do what I want to do just because I'm me", a legitimate claim, or anything other than the waste of the legal system's time, and of the public money that the school is going to have to spend to resist such trivia?
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
... but I don't have to have that fight, as long hair is allowed at his school. I'd be happy to go to court to get a ruling on it, though.
quote:It felt like an unreasonable imposition at the time. Nothing in the intervening forty years has changed my mind.
Originally posted by Enoch:
There may be issues that will arise in one's life that are genuinely matters of conscience. Whether one complies with a school's uniform/dress code or rules about haircuts is not one of them.
quote:Yes. And note, it's not a "demand (for) the right to wear what they please", but a demand that the rules are applied equally to both males and females, something which is enshrined in UK law.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:Is there any context in which it is good for any young person educationally or otherwise to be allowed to go to court either on their own initiative or with the encouragement of their parents to demand the right to wear what they please?
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
... but I don't have to have that fight, as long hair is allowed at his school. I'd be happy to go to court to get a ruling on it, though.
quote:I had to wear school uniform and I disliked it. And I had the run-in over hair length too (not that I got sent home). I wouldn't loose a lot of sleep if school uniforms vanished tomorrow.
If, as has been suggested here, clothes and hairstyles aren;t that important, than they are the very things we should allow them to decide for themselves. Important things - like whether or not to get stoned out of your mind and fall asleep in the road - can be reserved for later.
quote:Those advocates are about extreme control. Our cultures and governments are about the compromise between personal freedoms, societal freedoms and the framework of control needed to balance these. We are all about not taking things to the extreme. So why should dress codes go this way?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I also noted that "reducing distraction" and/or "reducing attraction" is more or less the exact same justification offered by burqa advocates and questioned why we should find the justification compelling for school uniforms but not for burquas.
quote:I am having difficulty answering this line of reasoning seriously. It is difficult to believe it is proffered in all seriousness.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Once again, wouldn't a formless, all-concealing garment like a burqa be the optimal solution if your aim is to "prevent distraction" and your premise is that less revealing clothing is less distracting?
quote:This. Even with a nice, simple uniform my son usually headed out the door with school tie in pocket, to put it on on the bus.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Then there's the huge time saver in the morning-- notoriously hard to get teens up and out the door in the morning. Eliminating all the variables for attire really speeds things up.
quote:No. Uniform is considerably less expensive for parents. When I was at secondary school, my entire wardrobe consisted of: three shirts, two skirts, two cardigans, shoes, socks, underwear, PE kit (two polos and a tracksuit) and a few bits and pieces for the weekend. Which is to say a very small amount of clothing.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
At any rate, mandating the purchase of a whole new secondary wardrobe, on top of whatever clothes students prefer to wear in "civilian life" seems like a very expensive bit of experimental psychology.
quote:IME, the fact that your uniform is a bit worn-out doesn’t make much difference on the teasing front. What does make a difference is that you don’t have the same branded trainers that all your classmates do, or that you have worn the same thing twice this week. See my earlier point about uniforms being cheaper for parents because a child requires very few clothes as long as you launder them frequently.
I've always thought the idea of uniforms concealing familial poverty was overstated. Kids are observant and can usually tell who is making do with a worn out uniform or wearing a sibling's hand-me-downs.
quote:Sure, Karl - any system, whether uniform, dress-code or no code at all, is going to have its own unique ways of failing or being abused. I could point you to examples of students deliberately wearing non-compliant or challenging clothing in order to be sent home for the day, for example.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Actually, there's been quite a bit of fuss in the UK about some schools, barred from selecting on ability, effectively avoiding having "riff-raff" apply to their school by specifying uniform items from specific suppliers that are very expensive, so deterring the poorer children who they fear might damage their position in the league tables.
quote:My kids' uniforms were always khaki-colored pants + blue or green polo shirt. Had the shirt been red, they would have looked most like a Target employee.
Originally posted by Evangeline:
Uniforms don't have to have anything to do with the military, don't nurses wear uniforms? firefighters? cheerleaders, football teams and McDonalds crew.
quote:Yes. I don't know if this was the intent or not, but one of my sons goes to a high school that requires all uniform items to be purchased from the school. The items are virtually identical to those purchased at Target, but have a small school monogram. They are triple the cost of the ones at Target.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Actually, there's been quite a bit of fuss in the UK about some schools, barred from selecting on ability, effectively avoiding having "riff-raff" apply to their school by specifying uniform items from specific suppliers that are very expensive, so deterring the poorer children who they fear might damage their position in the league tables.
quote:That's how it was when I was at school. (which was a selective grammar school) The uniform was more expensive, much more expensive, than the clothes I'd normally wear. Things had improved by the time my daughter went to secondary school (one of the lowest-achieving schools in London as it happens, and not anywhere ith the slightest pretensions to poshness), but things like blazers still cost more than the clothes she usually wore.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
...specifying uniform items from specific suppliers that are very expensive...
quote:My son detested his school uniform and shredded it on the last day.
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
People are just different Marvin. My daughters were the same as me and couldn't wait till they were 16 and could leave them behind.
quote:This seems dubious, given how few adults voluntarily wear school uniforms.
Originally posted by Gwai:
I think most adults like school uniforms fine though, and teachers and parents tend to agree they are wise, in my experience.
quote:Yeah, you never see adults wearing a polo and khakis.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:This seems dubious, given how few adults voluntarily wear school uniforms.
Originally posted by Gwai:
I think most adults like school uniforms fine though, and teachers and parents tend to agree they are wise, in my experience.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:Ummm, you can do that, you know. There's nothing stopping you from wearing the same outfit every day, and yet despite expressing a preference for doing so, you don't. Or at least that's what the conditional "If" at the start of your sentence leads me to conclude. I have to ask, if that's your preference, why aren't you doing so already?
Originally posted by Gwai:
If I had to wear the same thing to work everyday that would be so completely fine with me. Would make getting dressed way faster!
quote:Why can't I? I'm female. A man could maybe get away with wearing the same thing every day. If I wore the same thing every day, it would be discussed as odd. Oddness is not particularly professional.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Ummm, you can do that, you know. There's nothing stopping you from wearing the same outfit every day, and yet despite expressing a preference for doing so, you don't. Or at least that's what the conditional "If" at the start of your sentence leads me to conclude. I have to ask, if that's your preference, why aren't you doing so already?
Originally posted by Gwai:
If I had to wear the same thing to work everyday that would be so completely fine with me. Would make getting dressed way faster!
quote:Cross is clearly believes students should come to school naked if they want.
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Croesos:
I've just re-read this thread, and in twenty-something posts of yours I cannot find a single suggestion of what might be a better way to go for this school in Evanston. Please point it out to me if I missed it. But otherwise all your posts have been about criticizing others.
You clearly feel strongly about it, but despite offering a couple of posts on criteria, these appear to have been no use in helping you develop any positive suggestions. Despite being asked for these twice by lilBuddha you don't seem to have anything positive to offer so far.
So how about spending a moment or two to give it some thought? Your deep thought may be just what we all need on our road to enlightenment. You are surely not the sort of person to be afraid of criticism yourself given your expertise in the field of giving it to others. So please let's hear it.
I'm not interested in your posting style - rather, its content, which seems to remain so tantalisingly out of reach.
quote:Of course not, we want to remind the students that the U.S. Military is under civilian control.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
When you talk about the advantages of compulsory uniforms, are you also requiring teachers to wear the uniforms?
quote:If you insist. A better way to go would be to stop inventing artificial problems. There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason for schools to enforce dress codes radically more stringent than general applicable public decency laws, and a lot of evidence that the crackdown they've instituted is causing more harm than the problem it's allegedly solving. Here's a bit from an interview with Sophie Hasty, a thirteen year old student at Evanston's Haven Middle School and one of the organizers against the dress code.
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Croesos:
I've just re-read this thread, and in twenty-something posts of yours I cannot find a single suggestion of what might be a better way to go for this school in Evanston.
<snip>
So how about spending a moment or two to give it some thought? Your deep thought may be just what we all need on our road to enlightenment. You are surely not the sort of person to be afraid of criticism yourself given your expertise in the field of giving it to others. So please let's hear it.
quote:Ms. Hasty is, of course, a partisan on one side of this issue, but she doesn't seem tremendously unreasonable to me and the situations she describes seem quite plausible. More than plausible, if the school administration is as authoritarian as some of the pro-uniformity posters here.
Hasty: Last year, I never really paid attention to the dress code. But this year, teachers started to get stricter about it and giving stupid reasons for it. The reason was basically: “boys.” It’s a lot like saying that if guys do something to harass us, it’s our fault for that. We’re the ones being punished for what guys do.
<snip>
Slate: What are the shorts?
Hasty: Our gym shorts. We have to put them over our leggings.
Slate: That seems embarrassing.
Hasty: It is. It’s humiliating to walk around the hallways wearing bright blue shorts. Boys yell “dress code!” when they see you. They act more inappropriate when you’re walking around in blue shorts when you’ve gotten dress-coded than when you’re just wearing leggings. I asked a teacher to tell us about an incident where a girl was wearing leggings and a guy was getting distracted. There hasn’t been one.
<snip>
Slate: What do boys at school think about the campaign?
Hasty: The boys were definitely into it. They think the dress code is against them, too, because they don’t like having it blamed on them by teachers, being told that the dress code is their fault. They don’t think it’s fair to them or us.
Slate: Do boys get dress-coded, too?
Hasty: Sometimes, but not in the way we do. When they get dress-coded, it’s not like they’re wearing leggings. They’re sagging. All a teacher needs to tell them to do is pull up their pants or take off their hood or take off their hat. They don’t need to wear these blue shorts all day. So the focus is mainly on the girls at the moment.
quote:This seems to be at odds with the idea that most adults like school uniforms. If adults really like uniforms, wouldn't people be pleased to see you wearing the same thing every day? Or is this something that adults only like if it's forced on someone else, not them?
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:Why can't I? I'm female. A man could maybe get away with wearing the same thing every day. If I wore the same thing every day, it would be discussed as odd. Oddness is not particularly professional.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
There's nothing stopping you from wearing the same outfit every day, and yet despite expressing a preference for doing so, you don't. Or at least that's what the conditional "If" at the start of your sentence leads me to conclude. I have to ask, if that's your preference, why aren't you doing so already?
quote:I am not sure if I can answer this before I have to leave, but quickly: When did I say people wouldn't like for me to wear the same clothes? I said they would think it weird, and that I didn't want to be weird, and didn't think being weird would be professional. I doubt they would mind my wearing the same clothes, but for a woman to do so would brand her as unusual. I'm fine with sticking out, but I prefer a reason before I do so at work.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:This seems to be at odds with the idea that most adults like school uniforms. If adults really like uniforms, wouldn't people be pleased to see you wearing the same thing every day? Or is this something that adults only like if it's forced on someone else, not them?
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:Why can't I? I'm female. A man could maybe get away with wearing the same thing every day. If I wore the same thing every day, it would be discussed as odd. Oddness is not particularly professional.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
There's nothing stopping you from wearing the same outfit every day, and yet despite expressing a preference for doing so, you don't. Or at least that's what the conditional "If" at the start of your sentence leads me to conclude. I have to ask, if that's your preference, why aren't you doing so already?
quote:Has anyone argued for this? I have not. A bit more stringent, but certainly not "radically".
Originally posted by Crœsos:
A better way to go would be to stop inventing artificial problems. There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason for schools to enforce dress codes radically more stringent than general applicable public decency laws,
quote:Grey, yet nude.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
What about this look?
URL=http://blog.elsaisaac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/megan -fox6.jpg
[broke possibly NSFW link]
quote:Weirdness may not be professional, but likeability is. If people like that form of weirdness, as you claim, it shouldn't be a problem, professionally speaking.
Originally posted by Gwai:
I am not sure if I can answer this before I have to leave, but quickly: When did I say people wouldn't like for me to wear the same clothes? I said they would think it weird, and that I didn't want to be weird, and didn't think being weird would be professional. I doubt they would mind my wearing the same clothes, but for a woman to do so would brand her as unusual.
quote:You've already given one: "Would make getting dressed way faster!"
Originally posted by Gwai:
I'm fine with sticking out, but I prefer a reason before I do so at work.
quote:You want me to re-publish the public decency laws of Evanston, Illinois? That seems a little excessive.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:And you still haven't given an example of what should be allowed and what should not.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
A better way to go would be to stop inventing artificial problems. There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason for schools to enforce dress codes radically more stringent than general[ly] applicable public decency laws,
quote:Good question. I'm guessing that since Ms. Fox remains unincarcerated her mode of dress was either legal in whatever jurisdiction that photo was taken in, or she somehow managed to escape the notice of the authorities.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
What about [URL=http://blog.elsaisaac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/megan-fox6.jpg]this look?
URL=http://blog.elsaisaac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/megan -fox6.jpg
[broke possibly NSFW link]
quote:Certainly less revealing than what 70% of my students wear-- the yoga pants, from what I can tell from where the photo is cropped, appear to be of sufficient weight to cover about the same way a snug fitting pair of jeans would. And the color seems to be chosen precisely to make one blend in-- to not be distracting. Nothing to see here, move along...
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And you still haven't given an example of what should be allowed and what should not.
What about [URL=http://blog.elsaisaac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/megan-fox6.jpg]this look?
URL=http://blog.elsaisaac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/megan -fox6.jpg
[broke possibly NSFW link]
quote:See? I knew you could do it!
If you insist.
quote:Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought most US cities do not have decency laws as such in the modern age. A few prohibitions in the municipal code, but not a coherent policy.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You want me to re-publish the public decency laws of Evanston, Illinois? That seems a little excessive.
quote:I don't know, anything which reveals the genitalia is questionable in school.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Nothing to see here, move along...
quote:Ummm...there is plenty to see there.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:Certainly less revealing than what 70% of my students wear-- the yoga pants, from what I can tell from where the photo is cropped, appear to be of sufficient weight to cover about the same way a snug fitting pair of jeans would. And the color seems to be chosen precisely to make one blend in-- to not be distracting. Nothing to see here, move along...
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And you still haven't given an example of what should be allowed and what should not.
What about [URL=http://blog.elsaisaac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/megan-fox6.jpg]this look?
URL=http://blog.elsaisaac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/megan -fox6.jpg
[broke possibly NSFW link]
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:I don't know, anything which reveals the genitalia is questionable in school.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Nothing to see here, move along...
Something weird going on with the cite. When I first clicked on your link I got a rather shy looking girl wearing dark grey yoga pants and a loose-fitting grey t-shirt-- no naughty parts visible whatsoever. Now the link appears to be broken. What are you guys seeing???quote:Counterpoint:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Why would you expect 13 year old boys to be in favor of girls wearing modest clothing?
quote:I'm guessing that we're supposed to believe that thirteen year old boys might get "distracted" if they found out the wrong type of leg covering is tucked into the girls' boots where it can't be seen? Sorry, but a test for "modesty" that requires close inspection of parts of garments that aren't normally visible doesn't even pass the laugh test.
One Haven Middle School mom brought a pair of yoga pants and Ugg boots to illustrate her point at a recent meeting on the school’s dress code, which has come under fire from parents and students who say its restrictions on leggings go too far.
She said that just that day, a teacher had asked her sixth-grade daughter to pull her pants out of her boots and over the top so the teacher could tell they weren’t leggings.
quote:I happen to have a 13 year old son and he would say that yoga pants are normal girl wear and no big deal.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Why would you expect 13 year old boys to be in favor of girls wearing modest clothing?
quote:Why is that excessive? Do you think they're very extensive, or unusually hard to find? If you're suggesting the public decency laws of Evanston as an example of a reasonable standard, it doesn't seem too much to ask that you at least link to it.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:You want me to re-publish the public decency laws of Evanston, Illinois? That seems a little excessive.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:And you still haven't given an example of what should be allowed and what should not.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
A better way to go would be to stop inventing artificial problems. There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason for schools to enforce dress codes radically more stringent than general[ly] applicable public decency laws,
quote:Is this what you had in mind?
9-5-11. PUBLIC NUDITY; URINATING OR DEFECATING IN PUBLIC.
(A)
It shall be unlawful for any person to appear in a public place in a state of nudity or to make any indecent exposure of his/her person. For purposes of this Section, nudity shall be defined as: The showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic areas or buttocks, or female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple. Women breastfeeding in public are exempt from this definition.
quote:Seriously...
Originally posted by art dunce:
My son has a seventeen year old sister that he loves and admires (and who is a dancer and wears yoga pants or leggings a lot) and he would not agree with you.
quote:In other words, the dress code is applied to both girls and boys, but the boys have an easier fix, because they just have to pull their pants up, whereas a leggings-wearing girl has no pants to pull up.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Slate: Do boys get dress-coded, too?
Hasty: Sometimes, but not in the way we do.
quote:But it does usually indicate that the ostensible justification for the rule is a façade advanced to conceal the true motives of the enforcing authorities. Think, for example, of U.S. marijuana law or New York City's "Stop and Frisk" policy, which whatever their ostensible justifications largely serve as mechanisms to selectively imprison/harass young black men. I'm not as willing as you to automatically assume that a rule being enforced in bad faith was crafted in good faith.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Arbitrary enforcement means the enforcement needs to be made less arbitrary, not that the rule being enforced is inherently wrong.
quote:Who said I assumed anything? Where did I say this?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not as willing as you to automatically assume that a rule being enforced in bad faith was crafted in good faith.
quote:Guidance in which? The ostensible justification for the rules in question, or the somewhat murkier agenda being pursued under the justification of said rules?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:Who said I assumed anything? Where did I say this?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not as willing as you to automatically assume that a rule being enforced in bad faith was crafted in good faith.
If, instead of continually arguing the abstract, you gave practical guidance, we might progress in the discussion.
quote:Sometimes the rule is a good rule that is being badly enforced.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Arbitrary enforcement means the enforcement needs to be made less arbitrary, not that the rule being enforced is inherently wrong.
quote:Why is this is so? It would seem like there is an adult bias against females voluntarily wearing something like a uniform. Is this a remnant of class status markers?
Originally posted by Gwai:
...Why can't I? I'm female. A man could maybe get away with wearing the same thing every day. If I wore the same thing every day, it would be discussed as odd. Oddness is not particularly professional.
quote:No, it is not. Not inherently. Structure, purpose and enforcement are components of any rule. One done poorly does not necessarily imply all are done poorly. Examination of the situation is necessary.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
But arbitrary enforcement is a mark of a rule that requires arbitrary interpretation.
quote:Only the non-gay ones.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Why would you expect 13 year old boys to be in favor of girls wearing modest clothing?
quote:I am still wondering what the answer to this might be.
Originally posted by leo:
quote:Have you worked with teenagers? en masse?
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Only if you over think things and make them more complicated than they have to be. No harm will come from teenagers not being allowed to wear yoga pants to school. School is 10 hours tops. Those teenagers can wear yoga pants the remaining 14 hours of the day, every weekend, and 24/7 during the summer.
quote:I would suspect it's closer to sexism. We're suspected to look ornamental or to be more interested in clothes maybe.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:Why is this is so? It would seem like there is an adult bias against females voluntarily wearing something like a uniform. Is this a remnant of class status markers?
Originally posted by Gwai:
...Why can't I? I'm female. A man could maybe get away with wearing the same thing every day. If I wore the same thing every day, it would be discussed as odd. Oddness is not particularly professional.
quote:I wear something like a uniform to work - so do most of my colleagues, male and female.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Why is this is so? It would seem like there is an adult bias against females voluntarily wearing something like a uniform. Is this a remnant of class status markers?
quote:No - not at all.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Boogie:
Do you and your colleagues all wear the same suit each day?
)
quote:I think it is sometimes unwise. It is very easy to con people if you are wearing a uniform, they will not tend to look at your ID or think about who you actually are - they see you as your role.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Do you regard it as an outrageous intrusion that some jobs expect people to wear a uniform, armed forces, barristers, hospital doctors, nurses, shop assistants, airlines, railway companies etc, even some garages?
quote:It's possible there is a pond difference here. Women wear uniforms in certain occupations all the time here. To be sure, there are issues about whether women get a fair deal in accessing the higher paid varieties, and are over-represented in the lower paid ones. But I genuinely don't think the wearing of uniforms in itself is an issue between the sexes.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:Why is this is so? It would seem like there is an adult bias against females voluntarily wearing something like a uniform. Is this a remnant of class status markers?
Originally posted by Gwai:
...Why can't I? I'm female. A man could maybe get away with wearing the same thing every day. If I wore the same thing every day, it would be discussed as odd. Oddness is not particularly professional.
quote:That's actually an argument for a national uniform. As Jerry Seinfeld pointed out, "In Star Trek, all of the advanced civilizations have them." Croesus will argue that naked could count as a uniform.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:I think it is sometimes unwise. It is very easy to con people if you are wearing a uniform, they will not tend to look at your ID or think about who you actually are - they see you as your role.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Do you regard it as an outrageous intrusion that some jobs expect people to wear a uniform, armed forces, barristers, hospital doctors, nurses, shop assistants, airlines, railway companies etc, even some garages?
This is why, for example, maximum security hospitals do not have uniformed nursing staff. Similarly, thinking people look 'respectable' can lead people not to to think critically about what they are being told. You would think our experience of the financial crisis and domestic politics would teach people this, but they tend to fall back on dodgy heuristics.
quote:But pinning on the insignia
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Croesus will argue that naked could count as a uniform.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
quote:Can't take naked much further than bald.
Originally posted by leo:
And we could have a national haircut - like North Korea.
quote:I think what's going on with women being expected to change outfits every day isn't so much about uniforms--women do wear those, and they can be freeing if you don't like fussing. The problem comes in when you're expected to wear "business" or "business casual," and precisely because it's no a uniform, people expect women to take it to the opposite extreme--that is, to dress socially, as if we were all fashionistas instead of workers. I mean, two guys can show up wearing identical suits and shirts and ties, and nobody notices, let alone says anything. But let two women show up in the same dress or top and slacks, and suddenly everybody's got to comment. Meh.
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:It's possible there is a pond difference here. Women wear uniforms in certain occupations all the time here. To be sure, there are issues about whether women get a fair deal in accessing the higher paid varieties, and are over-represented in the lower paid ones. But I genuinely don't think the wearing of uniforms in itself is an issue between the sexes.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:Why is this is so? It would seem like there is an adult bias against females voluntarily wearing something like a uniform. Is this a remnant of class status markers?
Originally posted by Gwai:
...Why can't I? I'm female. A man could maybe get away with wearing the same thing every day. If I wore the same thing every day, it would be discussed as odd. Oddness is not particularly professional.
Also I think you are confusing uniform with dress code.
quote:I have no objection to a company making a specific costume a condition of employment. I am happy to work in a field where most rarely have to wear drag like a suit and tie and I prefer to work for companies where they're more concerned about the quality of work the employees produce rather than specifying dress codes. So in that sense, yes I do see it as intrusive, but a management prerogative. I'd be less tolerant of say, an Orthodox Jewish town that required all women on the street to wear wigs or a place that didn't allow people with long hair or beards to walk the streets.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Do you regard it as an outrageous intrusion that some jobs expect people to wear a uniform, armed forces, barristers, hospital doctors, nurses, shop assistants, airlines, railway companies etc, even some garages?
quote:So what is the colour now?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
One example was that in the twenties, homosexuals would flaunt their secret homosexuality by wearing red ties. That clearly is no longer the case.
quote:That depends on what work you expect them to do.
...This is why attempts to provide exact prescriptive dress codes are unlikely to work;...
quote:What world does this statement come from? Some bizarre universe at the confluence of The Office and The Gangs of New York?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The more restrictive and codified dress and behavior codes are, the more the tiniest gestures can be used to communicate. A pause of a few seconds in a response can be a violent insult.
quote:We consider a dress code or uniforms for school and suddenly it is A Clockwork Orange
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
This is why attempts to provide exact prescriptive dress codes are unlikely to work; people will use the margins to communicate. And precise gestures will mutate as they are adapted by those who didn't figure out the coded meaning.
quote:I believe now they say 'I'm gay'.
Originally posted by leo:
quote:So what is the colour now?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
One example was that in the twenties, homosexuals would flaunt their secret homosexuality by wearing red ties. That clearly is no longer the case.
And what for those who no longer wear ties if we can help it?
quote:More like 1984. Here's a current ACLU letter I got about defending a child from getting kicked out of school due to the interpretation of his hand gesture. And if you read the experts on this thread a kid should be kicked out of school for wearing a red Mohawk, but then a pink Mohawk is maybe ok if a blue Mohawk was allowed.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:What world does this statement come from? Some bizarre universe at the confluence of The Office and The Gangs of New York?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The more restrictive and codified dress and behavior codes are, the more the tiniest gestures can be used to communicate. A pause of a few seconds in a response can be a violent insult.
quote:We consider a dress code or uniforms for school and suddenly it is A Clockwork Orange
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
This is why attempts to provide exact prescriptive dress codes are unlikely to work; people will use the margins to communicate. And precise gestures will mutate as they are adapted by those who didn't figure out the coded meaning.
quote:Tie oolor is rarely useful anymore this way. There was a brief period where a perky retro bowtie would to it, but that's lost meaning. The fashion changes too quickly, there are many non-tie alternatives like t-shirts and if you want to play the game you have to pay attention, hire a consultant or you could try Normcore.
Originally posted by leo:
quote:So what is the colour now?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
One example was that in the twenties, homosexuals would flaunt their secret homosexuality by wearing red ties. That clearly is no longer the case.
And what for those who no longer wear ties if we can help it?
quote:Must have led to no end of fun when they came across trade-union leaders and Labour politicians who also often affected red ties (and sometimes still do)
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
One example was that in the twenties, homosexuals would flaunt their secret homosexuality by wearing red ties.
quote:Mimicry rings can be a problem with coded signals. Or as they used to say in the days of coded ties; "today's trade is tomorrow's competition"
Originally posted by ken:
quote:Must have led to no end of fun when they came across trade-union leaders and Labour politicians who also often affected red ties (and sometimes still do)
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
One example was that in the twenties, homosexuals would flaunt their secret homosexuality by wearing red ties.
quote:The story used be that in the late 50s/early 60s, gay US school and college students used signal their preference by wearing socks with red in them on Fridays. I have no idea if it was true, as my only authority was a Saturday Evening Post feature article on US youth. AFAIK, there was no equivalent here.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
One example was that in the twenties, homosexuals would flaunt their secret homosexuality by wearing red ties. That clearly is no longer the case.
