Varsity dress codes often perceived to primarily target female students
Women protest against dress code legislation in Kampala on February 26, 2014. Ugandan public servants hit out at a list of strict new rules forbidding them from showing cleavage, having long nails and dyed hair or wearing skirts above the knee.
What you need to know:
- A study identifies that student dressing is driven by the quest for attention, appeal to the opposite sex and fashion.
- Sceptics of moral policing of dressing often point out that in traditional Africa, both men and women had very scanty, if any, dressing.
Through a circular dated October 12, the Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology joined Kenya Methodist University, the University of Eldoret and Strathmore University in imposing dress codes and banning “indecent dressing” among students.
The targets were “micro and miniskirts, skintight trousers, ragged or ripped jeans, tank tops, low-cut blouses and dresses, micro shorts, transparent dresses, attires that show bra straps and sleeveless T-shirts” for female and sagging trousers and shirts displaying chests for male students. More often than not, such codes are perceived to primarily target female students, hence seen as gender-biased.
A dress code is a set of rules on clothing prescribed as acceptable for particular groupings, institutions, careers and/or associations, based on social norms and hinged on purpose, circumstance and occasion. That is why a lecturer would not turn up in class donning a dressing gown or lingerie.
Male clergy attire
Neither would a footballer turn up for a game dressed in a suit, tie and gumboots or a volley-baller play in high heels. In the same vein, no one would go to meet the President in their undergarments.
The problem with dressing is that the standards are as diverse as humanity. As Eveline Sullerot notes in Woman, Society and Change, differences in men’s and women’s dressing is often dictated by the variation in their physiology. As well, different cultures prescribe contradictory attires for women and men.
“In one, trousers are an exclusively masculine garb; in another, feminine.” In major religions, the garb worn by male clergy would easily pass for a woman’s attire in many cultures.
The sociological concept of relativism states that you cannot judge and condemn the practices or culture of another group using your own standards. Could those imposing dress codes be using their own subjective standards rather than the wearer’s? This argument formed the basis of the My Dress My Choice campaign on November 17, 2014, against the public undressing of women for wearing short dresses in Nairobi City.
What exactly is a short dress or skirt? When this question was posed to a British luminary (accounts cite different personalities), the person replied that it should be short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the subject matter. The response shows just how fluid the matter is.
Moral policing
Sceptics of moral policing of dressing often point out that in traditional Africa, both men and women had very scanty, if any, dressing. Yet they had negligible cases of sexual violence. Does this not illustrate that sexual excitement is in the beholder’s mind rather than the wearer’s dressing?
We are certainly not operating within a traditional environment but in a changing society characterised by Western liberalism. But this may not mean that people should ignore the effect of their behaviour on others’ sensibilities. That is why an individual’s rights are limited by those of others. T
he fact that there is no law providing guidance on dressing implies that neither those imposing the codes nor the affected have any legal recourse. So, it is not clear how disputes from such bans would be adjudicated.
The few studies on dressing in universities, largely from Nigeria, converge that student dress codes are driven by a quest to instil morality, decency, and context appropriateness, as well as tame sexual violence.
Assessment of students’ perceptions of dress code in tertiary institutions in Nigeria: A study of Federal College of Education Zaria by Asaju, K. (2013) established that most (73 per cent) students did not think that the dresses listed in the code were indecent.
However, 62 per cent, 80 per cent and 65 per cent affirmed that the code aligned with their family, religious and cultural values respectively. This suggests that the students dressed differently when in other spaces.
Dress code: A panacea to indecent dressing and cultural breakdown in Nigerian tertiary institutions, by Mofoluwawo, E.O. and Oyelade, T. (2012), identifies that student dressing is driven by the quest for attention, appeal to the opposite sex and fashion.
Dress code policies in Nigerian universities and their gender responsiveness by Anigbogu, N.A. (2007) observes that senior women in universities endorsed the dress codes perceived to be biased against female students.
Sexual harassment
Some 73.8 per cent of students also did, citing that the codes would uphold moral principle and reduce sexual harassment. However, 58 per cent of female and male students stated that dress codes would not eliminate sexual harassment, but 57 per cent of lecturers felt otherwise.
Respondents typified “indecent dressing” as “exposing underwear or intimate parts”, “too transparent”, “revealing”, “too short” and “too tight”.
There is no indication that the edicts by local universities were subjected to students’ opinions before being passed. Given that universities are research institutions, would it not be helpful to conduct opinion polls and use the evidence as a basis for action?
The writer is an international gender and development consultant and scholar ([email protected]).
