For this week’s assignment we reflected on the “cultural meaning” of clothing and fashion. We read another entry from the People’s History (note to self: not so great quality – content spotty, bad grammar, misspellings, etc.) and watched a mashup video made from a JC Penney’s catalog. YouTube, always so helpful, suggested another video of a Montgomery Wards catalog that I watched as well. This one has great disco music and far less editorializing that the other – it also shows a broader range of 1970s clothing. In all, I had a better experience with this video since it wasn’t entirely mocking what was actually a period of time I experienced. And of course, wore all those bad clothes.
Memory
The Monkey Wards video is from 1976, which was a very memorable year for me as I spent the summer in NY where my father was working at the Democratic Convention. I was 12 years old. It was the Bicentennial, we were celebrating the country’s 200th birthday. Everything was red, white and blue. The leisure suit was everywhere, as were loud plaid pants on men. Pop-ish, modern styles with a commercial edge were in.
I remember all of those clothes, all of those styles. I was raised on those high waist-ed pants and struggle with today’s much, much lower waist-ed fashions. You can see the past – conservative and traditional, fighting with the present – dancing away from the hippy as counter-cultural fashion icon, to the very imminent future of full blown disco. Three’s Company, Dallas, the Six Million Dollar Man, Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch. It all seems so mild now, but it was a huge shift from the mainstream 60s styles -- highly fitted, conservative, conventional (except for the pop, mod stuff).
Relevance
Besides the trip down memory lane, this week’s investigation cues up an issue near and dear to my heart: how adults’ perceptions of young people are so quickly triggered by clothes and fashion.
One of my standard training “take home points” is that adults misinterpret young people’s appearance (largely clothing and fashion choices) as disrespectful, when instead they are simply doing what they are supposed to be doing – figuring out who they are, who they want to be and what they think is good, appropriate and right for themselves. Who am I? The search for identity.
But for adults, it becomes yet another instance of moral panic. Bra straps that show! Bare mid-riffs! Piercings! Sagging pats!
A PR nightmare – coming from my background, this is my primary concern. And so the scope of my work (and that of my colleagues) is to educate others about adolescent development, encourage the viewing of young people through a developmental lens. But we consistently run into this challenge and it goes well beyond negative stereotypes, tsk-tsks and eye rolls.
Adults continue to legislate appropriate adolescent dress and behavior in ways that directly interferes with adolescent development. But we do it for the best of reasons! Right?
Back in the day
It was about long hair on boys. Certainly our history celebrates many men with long hair – from our distant past. But the hippies pushed it, the production of Hair celebrated and the gay community sustains it. These days, were more likely to see young men with extremely short hair or no hair. Fear of long hair on boys isn’t dead though – as evidenced in this news story from just last year about a young man – great student – who is threatened with suspension and termination of after school activities – if he doesn’t cut his hair. The rationale: it’s in the dress code. And the rationale for the dress code? Long hair inhibits learning? Disruption of social norms? Interference with the goal of conformity? I was touched to read a single comment about this article, and the lone perspective of (usually the chief villain) a parent:
Posted by simpleman | 10 months ago
i have the same issue with my 10 year old son. the wills point school has continued to punish him with detentions and ridicule for having hair so long as 2inches in the back. as his father i am against long hair (i shave mine), however he wants his to be what i call scruffy just like the teen role models the we see on tv and in music bands. he is a staight "A" student and one awsome kid. when the school told hime they would punish him for not looking like what THEY wanted him to look like i gave him the choice to either stand up for what he believed in or do what they wanted him to. he decided to stand up for himself with my total support. treating someone different because of the way they look is discrimination. research martin luther king and you'll figure it out. none us us have any right to tell anyone you have to look a certain way and punish them if they don't. that's criminal.
this wills point school has even went so far as to have my son write about this as part of his punishment and complied to the point when they told him he had to write a written apology for looking the way he does and he DID NOT comply to that order. he said"im not saying im sorry for my hair".
who does anyone in the world think they are to say YOU CAN'T LOOK LIKE THAT?
i am now looking for a way to fight for my sons right to freedom. i thought my father, uncles and grandfather had already fought this fight for me.
Saggy Pants
From the inordinate amount of attention it warrants, one would think that the real threat to student achievement is the wearing of saggy pants by young men. This is a fashion choice largely made by young African-american men (but far from exclusively) which means that race enters the discussion in a big way. Adding to already suspect attitudes toward young people are the always present notes of racism – making this a volatile debate.
This topic is in the news a lot, and recently some coworkers were discussing the ways our local schools are coping (which I gathered wasn’t very well). My cursory investigation for this assignment pointed me towards Florida, where lawmakers are, once again, trying to legislate solutions to adolescent development.
The bill currently circulating in the Florida State Senate would make the wearing of baggy pants, worn at a level that reveals underwear, forbidden in public schools or while students are on any part of school property, this would include buildings and playgrounds.
Elsewhere, laws are considered that go beyond the school yard – making it illegal to wear baggy pants anywhere!
American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, News Release
February 8, 2005
Bill banning baggy pants interferes with personal liberties, targets hip-hop culture
The ACLU of Virginia is asking state senators to vote down a bill banning pants worn too low. The bill, introduced by Delegate Algie Howell imposes a $50.00 fine on anyone who “intentionally wears and displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person's intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner.” It passed the House of Delegates earlier this week by a vote of 60-34.
Sure, this is an older article, but Google can point to lots of these stories all the way to today. Interestingly, both the ACLU and the NAACP have entered this fight. Common cause, as it were.
posted by John Kennedy on Mar 21, 2008 4:35:19 PM
The Florida NAACP and allied organizations Friday opposed Orlando Sen. Gary Siplin's bill to ban schoolkids from wearing their pants too low, saying it could lead to more legal trouble for black male students.
"In essence, it will criminalize the wearing of saggy pants and thereby provide a new avenue of interaction between young people and the criminal justice system," Nweze said.
Siplin's bill (SB302) was approved 28-11 last week by the Florida Senate. Although it calls for no criminal sanctions, it would prohibit students from wearing pants low so that they expose undergarments that, in turn, expose sexual organs -- covered or uncovered.
Violators would receive a warning for a first offense and suspensions from school for each subsequent infraction, under the legislation…
But the NAACP, ACLU and Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C., social advocacy organization, said the proposal is directed primarily and black males and could lead to arrests. Jim Freeman, an attorney with the Advancement Project…called the legislation "a huge overreach," and is part of a growing number of harsh disciplinary penalties aimed at youngsters for generally minor offenses.
"The penalties for normal adolescent behavior have been ratcheted up," Freeman said.
Before reading this article, I had not even considered the “profiling” possibilities created by laws like this. But I’ve run into the equivalent. One of the communities my organization worked with passed law that made it a crime for more than four teenagers to gather together in a public place – to address gang activity, you know. In actuality the youth serving and social justice folks recognized that it was simply a way for police to target largely adolescent Latino boys. As a result, the community made it illegal for kids to play at a playground or play a game of soccer. "Penalties for normal adolescent behavior" indeed.
There are reasons to consider laws differently for youth and adults. They do need greater protections in many cases. But the double standards in this area are shocking. Again, a point my coworkers are fond of making. When asked: why are girls so violent? They would answer: Why are adults so violent? Why are we at war? Why do we have a death penalty? Isn’t is a sociological fact that we apply different standards to “others” than we do for ourselves?
A commenter from the NAACP article make the case humorously:
If you can get arrested for sagging pants, does that mean that tourists can get arrested for going around in their skimpy shorts, no shirts, etc? Can people get arrested for being on the beaches in skimpy bathing bikinis?? Where would this stop?
Posted by: winsurTsa | September 29, 2008 at 11:27 PM
Even President Obama (as candidate Obama) had (more reasoned thoughts) on the issue:
Nov 3 2008 1:45 PM EST
By Chris Harris, with reporting by Sway Calloway
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama may not necessarily support lifestyle legislation — including state bans on low-slung, sagging trousers — but that doesn't mean he thinks dudes should be showing off their skivvies.
What a tight-rope he must walk! But I appreciate the reporter’s (MTV!) phrase “lifestyle legislation” – I wonder what else belongs in that category. Interestingly, this quote was from a interview MTV conducted with then candidate Obama as part of their own youth action/advocacy campaign: Think MTV
But interestingly, even Mr. Obama perceives the baggy pants style as disrespectful:
There are some issues that we face that you don't have to pass a law [against], but that doesn't mean folks can't have some sense and some respect for other people. And, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear — I'm one of them.
Debate it
Frankly, I don’t want to see people’s underpants either. I’m even more horrified by seeing a young girl’s thong peeking out of her low-rise jeans.
But I don’t mind the pink bra strap sitting next to the tank top strap sitting next to another tank top strap. And those male models with the pants sitting just a little too low with just a hint of underwear? Who am I to object?
Yes, I consider it a distraction at times. And I’ve had to instruct young people on what was and wasn’t appropriate “professional” attire, what was expected of them in a given situation, etc. And maybe it was because of my own struggles with “conformity” I was always careful to frame my comments in terms of other people’s perceptions. That while how they dressed was their choice, they frequently had no control of how other people would perceive them based on those choices. So – being aware of those perceptions and being intentional with how one dealt with them – was a key ingredient for success (and survival).
Ultimately, this is the debate I wish we were having – how best to support young people’s development. There are challenging things they’ll be exploring which require us to restrain our own moralistic judgment – instead using a developmental standard to guide our actions. It’s not that I think young people should be encouraged to dress in ways that could ultimately harm or limit their success. I think that as adults, we need to appreciate that it is their right to do it – to defy our standards with their own -- and their responsibility to work out – successfully – a place for themselves in the world. In the process of finding that place they’ll learn and experience – with our help and because of our not always kind judgment -- what it takes to fit and succeed in the world: the standards, dress codes and expected behaviors of their community. At the same time, their ideas, perceptions, fashion choices, will slowly re-shape and evolve the community they join.
What world are we offering them? What does the “world” or “community” look like to them? Do they see possibility? Potential? Hope? Every time we think to judge their early identity-related decisions (like how to dress) I want us to see it as a reflection of the options we make available to them. We own that part of the puzzle, so what are we doing to change it?
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