Slut Shaming and Dress Codes

[Bella Fortuna]

Is that a flagpole in your trousers are you just trying to uphold standards?

[JimC]

Is that a flagpole in your trousers are you just trying to uphold standards?

Careful, I don't want HR knowing about this!

[Bella Fortuna]

Is that a flagpole in your trousers are you just trying to uphold standards?

Careful, I don't want HR knowing about this!

I'll never tell.

LET THE FLAG FLY!

[Cormac]

Female teachers at our boys school are advised to be sensible in their choice of clothes (ie avoiding very short skirts, or lots of cleavage). Common sense, really, and it doesn't go to prudish extremes by any means - some of our younger teachers get pretty close to the boundary, fuzzy though it may be...

I didn't think that was the fashion these days.

Mind you, I would have thought a lady would at least wear undergarments if she's teaching young gentlemen...

[JimC]

Female teachers at our boys school are advised to be sensible in their choice of clothes (ie avoiding very short skirts, or lots of cleavage). Common sense, really, and it doesn't go to prudish extremes by any means - some of our younger teachers get pretty close to the boundary, fuzzy though it may be...

I didn't think that was the fashion these days.

Mind you, I would have thought a lady would at least wear undergarments if she's teaching young gentlemen...

"Ladies, please adjust your fuzzy boundaries..."

[Cormac]

Female teachers at our boys school are advised to be sensible in their choice of clothes (ie avoiding very short skirts, or lots of cleavage). Common sense, really, and it doesn't go to prudish extremes by any means - some of our younger teachers get pretty close to the boundary, fuzzy though it may be...

I didn't think that was the fashion these days.

Mind you, I would have thought a lady would at least wear undergarments if she's teaching young gentlemen...

"Ladies, please adjust your fuzzy boundaries..."

[hadespussercats]

Because the world becomes a nasty place right quick if everyone's default position is to treat other people like crap.

Is everyone's default position to treat people like crap? I'd say it's not, I'd say indifference is the default position and that one earns respect or contempt by ones words or actions. I do not think giving people apriori respect is a good idea.

In this case, respect doesn't mean obedience or awe or trust, just polite and compassionate behavior.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

No, I explained why being polite, and respectful, works for me. Be extension, then, it can work for anybody. Calling a woman "bitch" is not respectful of her and should engender resentment if she's not been completely subverted by the culture.

Yeah I understand that it is reasonable to be mannerly to people you don't know. However that is not the same claiming the need that boys be educated to respect women. Why? Why specifically women? What is it that makes this woman suppose that the entire sex is worthy of respect apriori of deeds?

I'm not going to try to find out if you're serious.

[pErvinalia]

[JimC]

Don't call me Shirley...

[Audley Strange]

Because the world becomes a nasty place right quick if everyone's default position is to treat other people like crap.

Is everyone's default position to treat people like crap? I'd say it's not, I'd say indifference is the default position and that one earns respect or contempt by ones words or actions. I do not think giving people apriori respect is a good idea.

In this case, respect doesn't mean obedience or awe or trust, just polite and compassionate behavior.

Well surely it's compassionate if you know that certain costumes may distract some of pupils to tell the person who is distracting to go home and wear a costume that is less distracting? Surely it's polite if you accept and know that not to demand everyone else change biology and behaviour just so you can wear whatever ridiculous pieces of cloth you wish?

Now, at a school dance, which is essentially a copulation ritual, I'd say there should be a more relaxed attitude to dressing up, but not in class.

Also, in my experiences and from hearing my wife and her friends, the people who have most issue with the way young women dress are other women. So before we start blaming young boys for all this, how about we look at the boards who are making these demands and seeing if in fact it is not also women who have to be taught to respect young women. Or perhaps we could just say "don't dress like a whore at school", millions of young girls manage that every single day without blaming men.

[Coito ergo sum]

Is that a flagpole in your trousers are you just trying to uphold standards?

Careful, I don't want HR knowing about this!

I'll never tell.

LET THE FLAG FLY!

If HR does it, it's not against company policy.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Is that a flagpole in your trousers are you just trying to uphold standards?

Careful, I don't want HR knowing about this!

I'll never tell.

LET THE FLAG FLY!

If HR doesn't know about it, it's not against company policy.

[Coito ergo sum]

Because the world becomes a nasty place right quick if everyone's default position is to treat other people like crap.

Is everyone's default position to treat people like crap? I'd say it's not, I'd say indifference is the default position and that one earns respect or contempt by ones words or actions. I do not think giving people apriori respect is a good idea.

In this case, respect doesn't mean obedience or awe or trust, just polite and compassionate behavior.

Well surely it's compassionate if you know that certain costumes may distract some of pupils to tell the person who is distracting to go home and wear a costume that is less distracting? Surely it's polite if you accept and know that not to demand everyone else change biology and behaviour just so you can wear whatever ridiculous pieces of cloth you wish?

This is kind of what I was thinking too. Except I would add that the bloggers and authors cited in the OP seem to snarkily reference male biology with derision. They talk about how it's "teh menz" who are going to be distracted because they may "pop wood" over it, and therefore the male biology ought to be ignored.

More than that, however, I think they overstate the dominance of male biology in the decision making. It is part of the decision, to be sure. But, males are not the only ones that would be "distracted" by such clothing. Females, too, would be distracted by various sexually revealing clothing. It might not be sexual arousal, but often there is commentary, teasing, jealousy, and all sorts of other emotions that are heightened by these things.

And, we still have a lot of the "old" culture rearing its ugly head here, getting repackaged as feminism. There is sort of a "how dare you comment on a woman's clothing or appearance..." attitude. A woman as seen as particularly sensitive to any comment or restriction on her appearance. Men of course are men and just wear suits and it doesn't matter if they're restricted by dress codes, because a real man doesn't complain about such things.

Now, at a school dance, which is essentially a copulation ritual, I'd say there should be a more relaxed attitude to dressing up, but not in class.

There is relaxed, and then there is relaxed. I mean, it's weird, to me, when middle schoolers dress like stereotypical hookers and at the age of 13 are dancing ass to cock on the dance floor, grinding.

Also, in my experiences and from hearing my wife and her friends, the people who have most issue with the way young women dress are other women. So before we start blaming young boys for all this, how about we look at the boards who are making these demands and seeing if in fact it is not also women who have to be taught to respect young women. Or perhaps we could just say "don't dress like a whore at school", millions of young girls manage that every single day without blaming men.

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I have started the process of thinking about available schools for Little She. One of the things that I'm leaning toward is a school with a uniform. I really like the idea of taking this sort of thing out of the equation, and to take the competition over what kind of jeans, or sneakers, or the designer name of one's handbag, out of the equation. It's a waste of time and money, and it is not what I wish my little one to learn. That sort of commercial competition is part of what keeps people poor or at least not well-off, and keeps people spinning their wheels wasting their money on what they think the neighbors will think or whether someone will look down their nose. It's a wrong-headed attitude, and is basically throwing oneself in a bucket with other crabs, always dragging each other down. What kids need is to be taught, in short, to not worry so much about impressing others with clothes and make-up. In the book "Millionaire Next Door" the book reports on recent surveys which found that the average male millionaire reported not spending more than about $400 on a suit of clothes. That's not an expensive suit, by the way. That's a fairly mid-range suit at a local Men's Wearhouse store. The people that buy the $1000 suits were, according to the book, middle managers, and middle to just above middle income people in the $50k to $60k annual income range who were not millionaires.

Let that sink in. That example typifies the concept. Worrying about clothes and wasting money on fashion. Think of the money people waste....

It's not exactly the same issue as "revealing" clothing, because that kind of clothing can be cheap, but it is moreso a statement on the need to impress others, which I think the wearing of revealing clothes is. It's fashion. And, ultimately, it doesn't do the wearer of the clothes any good, and it only caters to the snobbery of people who have no business being judges in the first place. I wouldn't want my little girl feeling she has to look a certain way to impress her girlfriends and I certainly wouldn't want her to be dressing in a way to sexually titillate boys at a middle school dance.

[Audley Strange]

Excellent Post CES.

I had issues with clothing when at school (I was a very tall kid and kept growing rapidly) My mother was poor, but due to some stupid fucking bureaucracy in the 80's was told she not entitled to certain benefits which she was. I went to school in the most horrible hand-downs. (My mother did try her best, but she'd been dumped by my father and left with a whole load of financial problems). My uniform was at one point a mix and match of my grandfather's and my uncles clothes, but it was a uniform. I got teased occassionally by some of the kids who's parents would shell out money for them to wear fashionable clothing (at the time waffle weave trousers were all the rage) but the uniform was uniform.

The uniform is not there to just stop us "raping the bitches", it was brought in so that everyone was equal, whether rich or poor, that everyone was dressed "professionally" (so to speak) that clothing wasn't sexualised (we make our kids do the most important exams in their life when they are rampaging through puberty, so that's important, though I'd say we'd be better off considering an alternative).

Now from what I have learned (granted only from media) about U.S. schools is that there is an issue (or some complain there is) about Jock Culture which I would assume includes all the Cheerleading cliques, which is exactly what liberals and feminists have been bitching about for years. The point is that the problem is not going to be solved by knee jerk man-blaming while demanding respect from them for that abuse. One actually has to consider what the motivations of these dress codes are, not just bleat something akin "a woman can do what she wants and everyone should accommodate that without question and consider her blameless in every situation, now give me respect you fucking rapist!"

As for school dances, like it or not many 13 year olds think they are adults. As we get older and more distant from it we understand they are not. Try telling a 13 year old that.

As for clothing, yeah the middle ground think they have to dress to impress, probably because its the only way they can. I know a bloke who's loaded who always wears jeans and t-shirts and my old boss, who earned less than double what I did was always broke because of his addiction to Armani.