What We Lose When We Loosen Dress Codes

[maestrob]

Allowing senators to wear what they please on the Senate floor may seem like liberation, but abandoning the dress code could wind up symbolizing the failure to achieve consensus.

By Rhonda Garelick
Rhonda Garelick is the D.E. Hughes Jr. Distinguished Chair for English and Professor of Journalism by courtesy at Southern Methodist University.

Sept. 22, 2023

Responses to the Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s new relaxation of Senate dress codes have so far fallen along partisan lines: Republicans have been deploring it as a lapse in decorum and order. “Most if not all Republican senators think we ought to dress up to go to work,” Mitch McConnell said. Mitt Romney called it “a terrible choice,” and from the House, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene pronounced the change “disgraceful.”

Democrats have tended to dismiss these complaints, insisting that matters of dress are mere distractions in light of the grave matters facing the Senate: On X (formerly Twitter), the Democratic senator Tina Smith wondered how anyone could complain about a dress code when “House Republicans are about to drive the federal government off a cliff.” Senator John Fetterman, famous for sporting shorts and hoodies (and for whose benefit many believe the rules were changed), expressed a similar sentiment in an interview with MSNBC: “Aren’t there more important things we should be talking about rather than if I dress like a slob?”

Well, yes and no.

The fact is that how we dress in various settings is inextricable from serious political issues. How we dress telegraphs intricate messages to those around us, as well as to ourselves — messages we receive and interpret constantly, consciously or not. There is no such thing as “total freedom” of dress, only different registers of meaning, which are entirely context dependent. Just as words make sense only relationally — in sentences and paragraphs — garments have meaning only in relation to other garments. A tuxedo’d guest at a wedding is unexceptional, nearly invisible. A tuxedo’d guest at a picnic is a spectacle.

To begin with, this new “code-free code” poses special challenges for women, since business attire is actually a standard created for men. The simple dark suit with pants, jacket and collared shirt was launched in the late 19th century as attire for a new class of (male) office workers, and patterned after the sober, unadorned garb of clergymen. The suit turns a man into a compact, easily readable visual unit over which the eye skims quickly, uninterrupted by embellishments or intricacies of silhouette. Suits, therefore, homogenize men’s bodies, making variations of weight, even height, less noticeable, focusing attention on the face. Men’s suits say “we are heads, not bodies.”

Business attire does some of this for women, but can never offer the same degree of carefree simplicity. Women are still the adorned, visible, bodily sex whose physicality gets staged by clothes. Accordingly, women’s fashion — including even business attire — requires a near-infinity of daily micro-decisions from head to toe: dress or pants? Low or high neckline? Flats or heels? (If heels, how high?) What kind of jewelry? How much makeup? What is my hair “saying”? Harder still, these decisions all carry a perpetual risk of tipping us somehow into “inappropriateness” — of exposing too much or too little, of trying too hard or not enough, of missing that sweet spot between alluring and dowdy, while, of course, presenting the usual challenges concerning age and body type.

Casual wear just makes it all harder. John Fetterman in a hoodie and shorts or Ted Cruz in a polo shirt might read as athletic or relaxed, conjuring the basketball court or golf course — places associated with youthful male prowess or preppy privilege. Would we think the same of Susan Collins dressed similarly? Leisure wear for women risks depriving them of gravitas, making them look “off duty,” and hence outside the space of authority. (Senator Collins acknowledged as much when she joked about wearing a bikini to work.) Would women in the Senate in sweatshirts, yoga pants or tennis skirts be taken seriously? To put it another way, women’s dignity and authority remain, alas, more socially precarious than men’s — harder to construct sartorially and far easier to lose. Taking away the dress code might exacerbate this inequity. What’s more, formal business attire offers some of the most gender-neutral fashion options, thereby enhancing sartorial equity for nonbinary individuals.

And what about the inequity within the Senate workplace as a whole? The new freedom of dress applies to senators only, not to anyone else who works there. This could lead to a new kind of visual class stratification, wherein a group of older (median age of 65.3), mostly white (88 percent), mostly male people (75 percent) in various states of leisure wear is being served by a cadre of younger, less well paid, more ethnically diverse interns and staff members all in formal business wear. In such a context, the business attire of nonsenators might start looking disturbingly like waiters’ uniforms at a country club. Hardly a liberating or egalitarian message. Context is everything.

Finally, dress codes are a marker of social, national, professional or philosophical commonality. They bespeak shared ideals or training, membership in a group. This is why sports teams and the military wear uniforms. Why medical professionals wear white coats. Business attire may not be a uniform, exactly, but it serves a similar function. It’s true that in recent years, offices have loosened their dress codes, embracing all kinds of workplace attire. But the Senate is more than just a “workplace.” It represents the highest level of our country’s government, whose actions are watched by and hold consequences for the entire world. Such an august body needs to look the part. A sea of 100 adults all dressed in some kind of instantly recognizable, respectful manner — a suit and tie, a skirt and jacket — creates a unified visual entity. A group in which individuals have agreed to subsume their differences into an overarching, sartorial whole.

But as we all know, the Senate has never been more divided. In a body so riven, one of the last symbolic markers of accord is a dress code. Can such a code eliminate the profound differences beneath the surface? Of course not. But it does remind senators and everyone around them (including the general public) of the still-noble goal of consensus. A sum greater than its parts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/styl ... itics.html

[Belle]

Totally agree!! Same with orchestral musicians who still wear formal attire and about which some egalitarians constantly complain. Haven't we pandered to the lowest common denominator long enough?! Are there any things left of value which might be symbolized in a common, formal 'uniform'? Even the Bolsheviks and Chinese revolutionaries wore uniforms.

When I was teaching (I left 15 years ago) there was a move afoot for teachers to be able to wear uniforms, so that they weren't forced to spend so much money on clothing for their profession, year on year. I found the idea rather appealing for that reason and also that the students already were identified by their school uniforms. One of our (all-female) staff members was an arch individual and she simply said she refused to be curtailed by any uniform which, she claimed, affected her individuality and rights. None of my colleagues agreed with her and, in fact, I told her I was pretty sure no uniform would ever over-ride my sense of individuality in forcing me to conform!!

So it is with professional livery; it's not about conformity per se but putting a value on the environment, profession and/or artistic pursuit. One of the (many) reasons I eschew Andre Rieu is because of the ridiculous attire of his female orchestral musicians who always appear to me have rummaged through a charity bin the day of the concert in order to find their 'frocks'!!

[jserraglio]

Yes, if you are a penguin, why not be told you must look like one?



Or if you're a flamingo, why should you not be encouraged to flaunt it?



But why, if dress codes are to be the norm for musicians going forward, is the unsightly blue rinse brigade in their aging audiences not told they must wear head scarves?

[maestrob]

I'm all for suits on the Senate floor, and blazers or sportcoats on weekends.

It used to be that clothing denoted respect for not only your surroundings, but for those people around you. Now we show no respect. I think Schumer's move is just tacky in the extreme. I did not need to see Ted Cruz in a sweaty t-shirt!

When I was rehearsing my singers, I always wore a dress shirt and slacks with loafers, not sneakers and jeans, ever. In Carnegie Hall rehearsals, I always wore a blazer or sportcoat and creased slacks. This trend of wearing sports gear to show up for a vote is tiresome, to say the least!

[Belle]

I'm all for suits on the Senate floor, and blazers or sportcoats on weekends.

It used to be that clothing denoted respect for not only your surroundings, but for those people around you. Now we show no respect. I think Schumer's move is just tacky in the extreme. I did not need to see Ted Cruz in a sweaty t-shirt!

When I was rehearsing my singers, I always wore a dress shirt and slacks with loafers, not sneakers and jeans, ever. In Carnegie Hall rehearsals, I always wore a blazer or sportcoat and creased slacks. This trend of wearing sports gear to show up for a vote is tiresome, to say the least!

Something we can agree on!! Clothing still denotes respect, IMO, and when wearing formal attire - such as that of a symphony orchestra - we're taking the focus away from individualism in livery and allowing the music to take the central position (unlike Yuja Wang, who makes it all about her!). The so-called democratization of clothing has seen the inevitable decline in standards. But I only attend concerts in Vienna these days (never in Australia) and I know those people always comport themselves well, young and old alike, because the good old 'death stare' is alive and well in that city!!! As to whether I can muster the requisite energy to fly again to Europe remains uncertain. And Vienna has changed so much that it's likely to invite disappointment.

I must say I loved seeing (on TV) the Wiener Philharmoniker in their Neujahrskonzert with The Dude and everyone wearing that flash Vivienne Westwood livery. Forgotten the exact year but they all looked absolutely stunning!!

[jserraglio]

Comment: Dress codes be damned. I have had to endure the dowager death stare from concert hall blue-rinse grandes dames straight out of the Victorian era. Yet the very same busybodies thought nothing of crinkling their programs and waggling their tongues incessantly during a performance.

Black High School Student Suspended Over His Hair Length Sues Texas Leaders

Darryl George and his mother filed a federal lawsuit after the teenager was suspended because his hairstyle violated a school district dress code.

New York Times
By Amanda Holpuch
Sept. 24, 2023

A Black high school student in Texas who was suspended because of the way he wears his hair, along with his mother, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Saturday against the state’s governor and attorney general.

Darryl George, 17, and his mother, Darresha George, said in the lawsuit that the state leaders failed to enforce a new Texas law that makes it illegal for schools and employers to discriminate against people with hairstyles “commonly or historically associated with race.”

The law, called the CROWN Act, went into effect on Sept. 1. The day before, Darryl was given an in-school suspension because officials at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, said that his hair violated the district’s dress code, according to the lawsuit.

Darryl, a high school junior, has locs, or long ropelike strands of hair, that he pins on his head in a barrel roll. He wears his locs as an “expression of cultural pride,” according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

As of Saturday, Darryl was still suspended from his high school, which is about 30 miles east of Houston. The in-school suspension requires him to sit on a stool in a cubicle, with work brought to him, according to his mother.

Barbers Hill Independent School District’s dress code mandates that a male student’s hair “will not extend, at any time, below the eyebrows or below the earlobes” or “below the top of a T-shirt collar.”

If Darryl’s locs are not pinned up or pulled back, his hair falls below that length.

A school district spokesman, David Bloom, told The New York Times this month that the dress code was “not in conflict” with the CROWN Act because the code permits protective hairstyles if the hair would not go beyond the permitted length when let down.

The district, which was not named as a defendant in the federal suit, filed a lawsuit last week asking a state court to clarify whether its dress code complies with the CROWN Act, KTRK-TV, a local news channel, reported.

“The district does not intend to enhance the current disciplinary action against the student for the ongoing violation of its grooming policy pending the court’s ruling on whether the district’s policy is legal,” the district said in a statement to the news station.

The George family’s lawsuit is seeking a temporary restraining order to stop Darryl’s suspension while the case moves through the federal court.

The lawsuit said that the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and the attorney general, Ken Paxton, allowed the school to violate the CROWN Act. Their offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday. Mr. Bloom did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Abbott and Mr. Paxton are also accused of “purposely or recklessly” causing Ms. George and Darryl emotional distress by not intervening, the lawsuit said. Ms. George has become ill from the stress of the situation and has had a series of seizures, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also claims that Darryl’s protections under the federal Civil Rights Act are being violated because the dress code policy disproportionately affects Black male students.

Politicians and activists who support the George family have criticized the school.

State Representative Rhetta Andrews Bowers, a Democrat and the primary author of the CROWN Act, said in a statement on Friday that the school district was trying “to find loopholes to skirt the law and perpetuate hair discrimination” and called for it to stop disciplinary action against Darryl.

At least 24 states have adopted similar laws that make it illegal to discriminate against students or workers because of their hairstyle.

In May 2020, two cousins who attended high school in the same district as Darryl, DeAndre Arnold and Kaden Bradford, were suspended for the length of their dreadlocks. Their families sued and the case is still proceeding.

[david johnson]

I grew up in the 50s-60s. I notice that some folx moaning about casual clothing don'
t really know much regarding the look - LOL. My advice to govt' leaders, etc. is don't dress down. Preachers have been having the problem, too. I've seen everything from a bright red tux to the t-shirt/backwards cap/cargo shorts/clunky shoes. It's best to look like you know what you're going to talk about. In various cultures, some color combos, clothing cuts, and styles back up the 'dress for success' ideas. Neither the slob nor the rhinestone-cowboy look works out of place. Interesting topic.