Rambling about dress codes and gender roles

It’s rather hard not to notice that uniforms are rather prevalent in Japan. Of course, everyone knows about the middle through high school ones (and for some elementary schools), though I think it’s kind of disturbing how it’s become sort of a fetish. At least, the “Japanese schoolgirl” has – guy’s uniforms, not so much, perhaps because they tend to be lacking in fashion, though at the same time possessing more practicality.

I have this feeling that the people who design girl’s uniforms never actually wore one, because it just doesn’t make any sense to wear a dress in winter. It’s certainly more fashionable than what *I* personally would choose to wear when it’s cold, but what do I know about uniforms.

It’s a rather stark contrast coming to Japan from college in the United States, in part because of this huge different in fashion and school structure. I have to say, I’ve got rather mixed feelings about this whole thing. I’ve never actually attended school where uniforms were mandatory so I don’t have any personal experience with that, but the moderately sized private school that I went to 2^nd-5^th grade had something close – there were hair length specifications, something on shoes, shirts had to be tucked in, and clothing couldn’t have any words on it except for school apparel. I remember in 4^th grade, the administration toyed with the idea of uniforms, and there was almost universal backlash, at least from the kids. One of the pros brought up was that you wouldn’t have to worry about what to wear each day. That would certainly have been convenient, if I actually cared about clothes at the time.

In high school, we had absolutely no dress code at all – in fact, our Principal mentioned several times that theoretically you could walk around campus naked if you wanted to. (of course, this was never officially stated as school policy) That made a rather big impact on me, particularly since most Taiwanese middle and high schools still enforce a dress code, though I’ve noticed the rules have become significantly less rigid since when I first moved. Nowadays, “Japanese” fashion haircuts are a lot more popular, whereas before it was more of a buzzcut thing.

Anyway, back to the whole “can’t-figure-out-which-side-of-the-fence-I’m-on” thing. First, I want to clarify that I’m talking about East Asia-style dress codes, rather than some American high school ones where you don’t actually have a uniform, just some clothing that you’re not allowed to wear. I’m conflicted about the former, rather than the latter. By that, I mean that the latter seems rather stupid and reeks of double-standards a lot, at least from what I’ve been told. Maybe not having personal experience in this regard will damage my credibility.

But either way, from a purely philosophical/theoretical perspective, one of my pet peeves is this value system in which a girl who shows “too much” skin “doesn’t respect herself” and is “distracting”. I’ve heard this countless times, partly because I’m sort of involved in Christian Community, but also because Taiwan is ironically rather conservative when it comes to these sorts of issues, although at the same time we’re known for betel nut girls. Go figure. But anyway, the argument goes like this – if you wear short skirts or show off your cleavage, the boys will get distracted, and we can’t have that. For their sake, cover up. Well logically, in this paradigm boys can’t control themselves and won’t be able to stop staring at a girl who shows skin above her knees and elbows. Also, it assumes that only boys have raging hormones. That seems rather unfair. Truth be told, lots of guys are indeed unfortunately oftentimes attracted to a girl because of her physical features rather than actual personality traits and other positive characteristics, but it certainly doesn’t give us much credit. Besides, for your entire life you’re going to have to control inappropriate urges. May as well start learning to do so in school.

Besides, why should it be the girl’s responsibility to keep us guys in check? It’s kind of like arguing that if you’re dressed “provocatively”, don’t be surprised if you get raped. That’s sick. (obviously, a more extreme example to make the point, but essentially it’s the same thing)

And of course, you do have guys who wear cutoff t-shirts that expose their entire chest through the arm holes, or guys with pants halfway down so you’ve got a full view of their boxers. However, from what I’ve heard this doesn’t seem to get called out as much. Probably varies by school administration.

But in either case, why is wearing something revealing “not respecting yourself”? It might even be the other way around. It may be that you are *not* ashamed of your body that you’re fine with showing off as much as you like. This isn’t to say that self respect is affected or determined by what you wear, but showing off your body shouldn’t be a way of disrespecting yourself. Lots of other ways to do that, no worries.

So in this regard, I tend to favor East Asian style dress codes, because nobody has to deal with this sort of BS regarding standards of what’s okay and what’s not, and arbitrary definitions that change based on whether or not your boobs are actually large enough to create cleavage. That being said, I don’t know what to think about the issue of choice. All in all, I prefer the college environment where (as far as I know) you can wear whatever the hell you want, and I have to admit that there are times that I cringe at someone’s choice of clothing, but I believe that it’s their own personal choice. But if this isn’t the case, then I would easily prefer uniforms if not for the pesky issue of gender roles.

I think in the Church, this is an issue that can end up on either end of the spectrum, depending on who you talk to. You’ve got the “progressive” ones who don’t see any problem with females being ordained or becoming pastors, and you’ve got the “conservative” ones who believe that based on their interpretation of the Bible, it’s just not right to have a female Pastor preaching to men, or something along those lines. This affects people’s beliefs about gender roles in a relationship, particularly when it comes to marriage. As you may have guessed, I tend to fall on the more progressive side of fence for most issues, and this isn’t an exception – I think it’s stupid if a high school graduation ceremony makes it a rule that girls have to wear dresses. (or that boys *can’t* wear them, for that matter) So in this regard, I’ve got a problem with uniforms, because you’re not allowed freedom of choice, but you’re also forced to conform to a certain expectation of “girl” and “boy”, at least visually, and I’m rather uncomfortable with that. I don’t know if you’re allowed to wear pants rather than the school uniform dress as a Japanese high school girl, but from what I’ve seen, I’m fairly certain that this is against the rules. And this then creates situations like I mentioned at the beginning of this post about the impracticality of wearing dresses that only come down to slightly above your knees when it’s snowing outside, or sweater vests when it’s 27 degrees (celcius), and humid.

Relatively recently, I heard a guy say that it may be kind of irrational, but he wouldn’t be able to handle it if his wife made more money than he did, and that kind of bothered me, not necessarily because he said it, but because it still appears to be a rather common sentiment.

The first time I remember eating a meal my Dad prepared for me was when I was nearly twenty years old. (In his defense, it might be that he had in fact cooked stuff for us before but I just forgot) Point being, for almost all my life it was Mom that cooked, and washed the clothes, and did all the housework. As I grew up, I slowly resolved not to become like my Dad, at least when it came to household responsibilities and tasks – I just didn’t think it was fair. It seemed that “gender equality” became something in which a woman was expected to work outside the home, but the man was not expected to reduce the burden at home, in which case the woman just got screwed over with even more work than before. This seemed to be the case in many Communist countries as well, where gender roles were changed positively in the workplace, but not at home.

I’m not blaming my Dad for it, as he’s just a convenient example that influenced me greatly (to his credit, he does these things volitionally now, though it took some unfortunate circumstances to get this way) – rather the society that shapes our values, artificially telling us what we can or can’t do, that it made perfect sense that he, as a Taiwanese man could be excused for not doing the dishes just because of his Y chromosome. It’s more a commentary on the strict gender roles in Taiwanese society more than a personal indictment per se.

I haven’t really come to any concrete conclusion regarding this issue, except that I’m rather dead set primarily against *mandated* gender roles. That is to say, it’s great if a girl wants to grow up to become President or a doctor or fighter pilot or construction worker (or any other stereotypically male role), but at the same time she shouldn’t be disparaged if she chooses to become a housewife. It ought to be the same the other way around, where a stay-at-home-Dad shouldn’t feel ashamed if he’s at home taking care of kids, but it seems that this is still a cultural thing that we haven’t really gotten past yet. For practical reasons, girls should know how to cook, just as guys should. I mean if you’re really bad at it like I am, sure, don't commit suicide over it, but there shouldn’t be any biological reason that determines it. Wear pants if you like to, but don’t feel “inferior” if you like to wear dresses. (The extreme case of some misguided feminists, I think)

Times are changing… whether that’s good or bad depends on your perspective, I think.