De-coding the harmful practice of dress codes

"Jeans are not professional attire, and they can only be worn on casual Friday's,"

said our boss during a staff meeting. This was my first professional role in Higher Education, and this anecdote was just the tip of our department's dysfunctional ice berg. The wildest part of this staff meeting was not that we worked in a social justice center, nor was it that we advocated against the act of policing people and what they wore.The true kicker here was that when they said this, we all couldn't help but notice that she herself was wearing dark-wash blue jeans... and no, it was not 'casual Friday.'

Do as I say, not as I do.

This same boss had also pulled a colleague aside one day to tell them that the color of their hair was 'unprofessional.' To rationalize her concern, she said that the president of our Institution could pull any of us into a meeting at any point of the day and that they could not represent out department in this way. I can't say enough how big of an exaggeration this was, but it didn't matter, because she made the rules. The obsession and energy my boss put into what someone looked like was not only dehumanizing, it also became more and more apparent in the social justice work we were doing. Instead of collaborating on social justice initiatives with our community, the focus was (and still is) on appeasing policing entities and a further investment in carceral feminism.

Where else have you heard this idea of only having "natural" hair as a means to achieve professionalism? Black women and Black men have been enduring this racist standard that limits and penalizes their existence for a lifetime. There are countless stories of du-rags being banned from schools because they are seen as "unprofessional" and are also wrongfully associated with being in a gang. It doesn't just stop at du-rags either, it also has an impact on numerous cultures, including folks who wear a hijab. Although some countries mandate that women are required to wear hijabs, the US has made it all the way around on the other side of the argument by banning hijabs in some spaces altogether. For example, in a school in Massachusetts, an 8th grader was written up for wearing a Hijab as a school who stated this was outside of their dress code. Another example of policing Black folks and their hair is when Black women in the 2021 Olympics created a swim cap specifically meant to accommodate Black women's hair called the Soul Cap. However, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) ruled against anyone using these caps because they did not fit the "natural" shape of the head. Not only is this inaccurate and oppressive, this sentiment is also deeply rooted in medical racism and phrenology. Phrenology is a baseless pseudoscience that was created to keep African Americans enslaved and further push a narrative of inferiority. Someone's shape of their head being "natural" is quite literally based off of whiteness and pseudoscience, so for the Olympics to use this reasoning as to why the Soul Cap could not be used is at the very least alarming. Phrenology was popular in the 1840's and 1850's to keep slavery in place, so to continue this narrative in 2021 is very telling with how far we have come.

To top it off, it is notable that these "natural" standards are the same as American Apparel's Dress code. You know, that one company that closed its doors because the CEO, who was a fierce advocate and creator of their dress code, was found to have been sexually harassing and assaulting his staff. This same company also required a polaroid picture to be taken at every interview so that your "style" could be assessed. If you were hired, then you were forced to wear the brand head to toe during shifts, and your "allowance" for your "uniform" was not to be used on clothing "opposite of your gender." Also, women had to wear painfully uncomfortable shoes while the men got to wear any shoes they preferred. How do I know this? I worked there for 3 years during my Master's program before the company was eventually shut down. This dress code may have sounded particularly unsettling, but it was and still is relatively similar to most dress codes you will encounter in the US.

Our experiences in the office I was referencing earlier continued to worsen, and eventually an entire department was turned over after 1 year. I think about how we could have done things differently, or what alternatives could have been explored for this particular dress code situation. But I come to the same conclusion every time, which is that it doesn't matter. Our boss had created a dress code with arbitrary expectations that were based off of her personal taste for an entire department. Makes me think of this video in the MO House of Representatives in January of 2023.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/eb5c27_cd0cd545b57541099db2af868924b352/480p/mp4/file.mp4

An abuse of power comes as no surprise

Jenny Holzer said it back in 1983, and it still unfortunately reigns true 40 years later in 2023. Dress codes are a clear indicator of an abuse in power, as the concept itself is rooted in colonialism. Indigenous communities were kidnapped, murdered, and taken from their families and made to assimilate to US "culture" by cutting their hair, being punished when speaking their native language, and being relegated to boarding schools rife with sexual, physical, mental, and emotional abuse. If you aren't familiar with this history, this is a great article to help you start somewhere.

The concept of assimilation is used as a way to normalize and describe the history of colonization mentioned above. Dress codes are a tool of colonization and oppression that enables an abuse of power, and upholds oppressive ideologies like ableism, colonialism, classism, sizeism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, and so much more. So, when you are in power and asked to enforce policies rooted in oppression, you are continuing the cycle of harm and dehumanization. And guess what? You ABSOLUTELY CAN AND SHOULD advocate for either abolishing your dress codes or at the very least advocating to make them non-gender specific if you are in power.

Dress codes are subjectively different when it comes to where you are working, what your profession is, and what kind of style you prefer. It's overwhelming obvious that it has everything to do with who you are and who you are not. One of the many intentionally violating things about a dress code, and oppressive practices adjacent to these, is that it does not matter how meticulously you follow the directive or rule that has been given to you. What a dress code is truly communicating to you is that whiteness is the standard, and it only matters how close your appearance is aligned to whiteness. Essentially, white, cis-gender, men typically get to determine what dress codes are and your appearance should be adjacent to this (but not too gay, dammit!).

So, what does this mean for People of Color? It means that dress codes are strategically designed to act as a vehicle to further criminalize, dehumanize, and oppress People of Color. Let's continue to peel back the layers by seeing how dress codes are enforced in school settings.

"I think a lot of people just got really fed up with the fact that they were being dress coded every single day for something that their white counterparts would not be getting dress coded for.”

The quote above is from a student participant in a report that The National Women's Law Center put out called Dress Coded II: Protest, progress, and power in D.C. Schools. This report is thoughtfully conducted through interviews with students, and includes both qualitative and quantitative data. The term 'Adultification', defined by Georgetown Law in an educational storytelling gallery, is referenced in this study and explains that this form of oppression is "linked to harsher treatment and higher standards for black girls in school."

Adultification addresses how Black youth are treated as adults at a very young age through punitive measures, and contributes to the school to prison pipeline. Research has overwhelmingly shown that Black youth are disproportionately impacted by dress codes, and that this leads to over-policing Black youth (and eventually Black adults). The Firecracker Foundation and The National Women's Law Center has done extensive work around the over-policing of Black bodies and are great resources to look further into (and donate to!). Over-policing of Black and Brown bodies is at the core of understanding the abuse of power our systems engage in, and again, dress codes are tools created to ensure this very thing happens.

Adultification is a helpful explanation behind why Black boys are 3x more likely to be suspended from school than white boys, and Black girls are 6x more likely to be suspended from school than white girls, which can be further read about on The Firecracker Foundation's website. When you take adultification into consideration, along with the school to prison pipeline that exists for Black youth, then it is a much clearer picture of how Black men are incarcerated at a rate 6 times compared to white men. It should also be noted that 1 in 3 Black men will be incarcerated at some point in his life in the US. How can you follow a standard that was intentionally created to oppress you? You can't.

In addition to adultification, many scholars and advocates refer to implicit bias as a contributing factor to oppressive practices. The Kirwan Institute has a comprehensive explanation of implicit bias and the ways it disproportionately impacts People of Color on their website. The Institute references a study done in 2003 that found"Students who displayed a “black walking style” were perceived by their teachers as lower in academic achievement, highly aggressive and more likely to be in need of special education services (Neal, et al., 2003)." This portrays how adultification, stereotyping, and implicit bias leads to oppressive and unjust practices and policies such as dress codes codify these ideologies.

Overall, it is clear through qualitative and quantitative research that dress codes have a negative and disproportional impact on Black girls at schools, and that dress codes perpetuate rape culture.

Stop sexualizing children

Rape culture, as I like to define it, refers to our society's commitment to upholding systems that protect and enable abusers to cause harm. There has been some rightful pushback from RAINN on how rape culture, by definition, excuses the actions of perpetrators as being a cultural phenomena, when in reality, we know that abusing someone is a choice someone makes. I personally think both of these sentiments are true-- we do live in a culture that normalizes abuse for perpetrators and talks about gender-based violence as an unavoidable destiny.

Systems, schools in particular, have defended their dress codes by saying that some young girls are "distracting" to a learning environment when they are dressed in leggings, have a tank top on, are wearing spaghetti straps, or are wearing anything "revealing." Not only does this sexualize children's bodies, but it also communicates that perpetration or unwanted attention is uncontrollable by the person wielding the harm. This is at the root of victim blaming and rape culture, the myth that abuse is out of the abusers control, when it is actually a grand display of taking power away from someone through a great amount of control. When we combine the sexualization of young girls, particularly girls of color, with adultification, racism, and implicit bias, it is no surprise that 6 in 10 Black women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

Dress codes essentially teach children that their bodies are not their own and that their value and worth is based off of your appearance-- as long as it's as close to whiteness and heteronormativity as possible. It's also no wonder being a queer kid can feel so disorienting!

Mind your business, cister!

Another catch about dress codes is that as long as you present or pass as cis-gender, your appearance has a better chance of not constantly being policed. The Anti-violence Project out of the University of Victoria has perfectly outlined the ways in which dress codes are imbedded in our society as not just the norm, but as an expectation you will be punished for not following. If you do not meet the norms of a dress code, you are perceived as a problem in need of fixing, rather than an individual. Expressing yourself outside of the "norm" in a workplace or school setting with a dress code is systemically built to create otherness and isolation, rather than connectivity and community.

Boys Don't Cry was my first overt experience learning about the dangers of not being perceived as cis-gender. The movie was assigned in my first ever women's studies class, and it was triggering as heck, but opened my small-ish town eyes to a lot of realities I was ignorant to. For those who were not in my women's studies class in 2010, Boys Don't Cry is based on a true story about Nebraskan Brandon Teena who was murdered for being trans. This murder occurred in 1993.

Let's fast forward to 30 years in the year of our lordt 2023. You'd hope our culture came to some realization about the negatives around policing peoples' appearances, but we still see children being suspended, bullied, physically assaulted, and sometimes even murdered because being themselves falls outside of heteronormative expectations (aka, dress codes). In 2008 a young child was murdered for having "hit on" his classmate, when in reality, this was a child who had just come out as gay and presented as feminine. So, his classmate murdered them and was eventually charged with a hate crime. This should have never happened, and we should not live in a world where policies support oppressive and hateful actions resulting in murder. There have also been instances where children pushing norms, even in the slightest, have resulted in punitive measures. An example of this was in 2020 when a teenage boy at a Texas high school was suspended for wearing nail polish.

There are countless stories like these, and most of them we will never hear about because there are systems and policies in place to back them up. And not to mention, being gender nonconforming and defending your existence should not be the expectation when someone does not appear as cis-gender. I'd be remiss if I did not give a huge shoutout to ALOK for all of their advocacy, research, and education on gender justices topics and for being an incredible human advocating for an end to policing people for what they wear and who they are.

TDLR;

If you get one takeaway from this post, I hope that it is to remove the word 'un/professional' and 'inappropriate' from your vocabulary. If you are a person with oodles of power, ask yourself, "Why am I so concerned with how someone else looks while doing their job?" And while you're at it, maybe investigate why you care about what someone else looks like and find help for yourself.

You. Deserve. To. Heal.