Short shorts too school

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I am a fact-based liberal. I think the facts matter. And I think it is a good thing to question your own beliefs and to consider both sides of any story. I have no problem with that being my ideology.

This is the problem... people want a simple solution that fits a simple narrative. If the story is "Backwards male rural administrator in red state does something sexist", you buy the story because it fits so well with what you believe. The realities of the local community don't matter. What the administrator actually is trying to do doesn't matter. Everyone one in the story fits the script. The administrator is backwards and domineering. The student is a victim, a well-behaved students who never disrupts.

I think the problem you presented is the simple story: crazy administrator run amok. The more complex story is that many cultures, our included, spend a lot of time policing young women's behavior. I posted a link some time ago about "vocal fry", a common speech pattern that blew up a few years ago. Women reporters were suddenly criticized for speaking a in way that both men and women have always spoken. The idea that girls are hyper sexual and need to be reigned in should be challenged. Sure, we need reasonable dress codes, but the idea that girls are routinely making blatant sexual displays is, in my experience, ridiculous. Often, school rules are out of line with community standards. A woman showing her shoulders is pretty normal just about anywhere in the US, school polices forbidding collarbones are not uncommon. Is the learning environment really impacted by how much shoulder is showing or how many inches of thigh is sitting in the seat? Like any government regulation, the benefit to the community must be weighed the restriction of rights. This part is not a local issue. The government's right to restrict personal freedoms does not vary from one jurisdiction to another. One state cannot ban interracial marriage because of their community standards. (Whoa, you say, from school dress codes to interracial marriage?
It's all on a spectrum of community rights vs personal rights.) For a long time, we have accepted that restricting young women's freedoms is a necessity for the common good. That is what is being challenged, not "hey let's point fingers at the redneck!"

At the same time, this doesn't have to be contentious. Schools should put the standard out there with examples, parents and the community should look at it and challenge it as necessary and the administrators should consistently enforce it. What makes the news is not the routine story of a student being legitimately called up for a dress code violation, it is the stories where it appears administrators are applying judgments unevenly or where the school rules are excessively restrictive. We should be talking about those cases.

2 Replies

Thank god for Uniforms.

0 Replies

@engineer,

Quote:

I think the problem you presented is the simple story: crazy administrator run amok. The more complex story is that many cultures, our included, spend a lot of time policing young women's behavior. I posted a link some time ago about "vocal fry"...

Thank you Engineer. This is exactly the point I am making. The "many cultures ... policing young women's behavior" is without question a compelling story. Of course it is a part of a bigger story, but we will start here.

There are several things that make your story a compelling story.

- There is data that supports it.
- The story fits with a general cultural themes and matches direction our culture is going.
- The story can be fit so there is a clear victim and identifiable villains.
- In this particular story, the victims are often White. (This is the reason that gender issues get much more traction than racial and cultural issues.).

There are problems with a compelling story.

- The data, and the facts that challenge the story are ignored or thrown out.
- Consequentially, people with personal stories don't fit the accepted story are marginalized.
- In individual cases, the compelling story can cause people to jump to conclusions that are simply wrong.

How a Narrative Works

You, Engineer, have set up a narrative. You have a list of facts (most of which I accept) and you ignore those facts that counter your narrative. There is nothing wrong with a narrative as long as you don't confuse it with the truth.

If you hear about a school policy, and you make a judgement based on your narrative without having heard both sides of the story, I think your judgement is necessarily flawed because you don't have the facts.

If the goal is to find fact based policies that further the goal of education, you might find that reality doesn't always match your narrative. This, of course, assumes that you are open minded enough to question your narrative.

2 Replies

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

school polices forbidding collarbones

A bit draconian, surely? Wouldn't it make arm movement extremely difficult, not to mention causing all kinds of upper-skeletal problems?

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

I will give one specific example that, as an engineer and as the father of a daughter, drives me crazy.

We all want to lower the amount of sexual assault on campus. There is one strategy that is proven, by scientifically valid research, to do exactly that. It is a fact that programs that target girls; teaching them not to abuse alcohol and to assertively and clearly say "No" when they don't want sex, significantly lower the incidence of sexual assault on campuses. The programs that target boys "teaching them not to rape" simply don't work.

There is significant opposition to these programs... the ones that actually work to reduce the incidence of sexual assault... because they don't match the political narrative.

I find this quite frustrating.

0 Replies

Quote:

Short shorts too school

Surely, if you're big enough to run afoul of a short-shorts dress code, you should be old enough to know the difference between 'too' and 'to' ? Maybe if you paid more attention during English class?

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Thank you Engineer.

You are welcome as always.

maxdancona wrote:

There are several things that make your story a compelling story.

- There is data that supports it.
- The story fits with a general cultural themes and matches direction our culture is going.
- The story can be fit so there is a clear victim and identifiable villains.
- In this particular story, the victims are often White. (This is the reason that gender issues get much more traction than racial and cultural issues.).

In my community, the victims are typically black, although I can find examples of either locally.

maxdancona wrote:

There are problems with a compelling story.

- The data, and the facts that challenge the story are ignored or thrown out.
- Consequentially, people with personal stories don't fit the accepted story are marginalized.
- In individual cases, the compelling story can cause people to jump to conclusions that are simply wrong.

This is where you typically lose me. It is not my job to debate your point. You need to present facts to support your position and I can't find anywhere in this thread where you have done that. I can even just accept a logical argument with no facts rebutting my arguments if it is persuasive, but so far you haven't made that either. In fact you start with the premise with "the blatant display of sexuality as expressed through clothing happens in adolescent girls." Don't see that, sorry. I have kids, go to the football games, meet their friends, don't see this. I did laugh when looking up shoulders and dress codes when an editorial came up where the guy said "Boys' shoulders are not sexy. Girls' shoulders are sexy. So no, girls shouldn't wear shoulder-baring dresses to class." To my eye, the issue here is not the girls. If this is what you are basing your argument on, your building on the sand. At a higher level, it seems you are discarding the argument not based on merit at all, but as a knee jerk response to "radical liberalism". That is not being a fact based liberal. What facts have you looked at the support my assertion? Are you ignoring those?

maxdancona wrote:

You, Engineer, have set up a narrative. You have a list of facts (most of which I accept) and you ignore those facts that counter your narrative. There is nothing wrong with a narrative as long as you don't confuse it with the truth.

Had I taken debate, I'm sure my teacher would be proud. It is your turn to set up a counter narrative. Throw some of those facts I am ignoring in my face. A correlation between dress code and educational outcomes would be useful. You could start here except this report did not find a correlation.

maxdancona wrote:

If you hear about a school policy, and you make a judgement based on your narrative without having heard both sides of the story, I think your judgement is necessarily flawed because you don't have the facts.

It seems you are making a judgment about me. Again, show me the facts I am missing. I can assure you while looking up links for this discussion and reading things of interest, I did not ignore anything.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

You need to present facts to support your position and I can't find anywhere in this thread where you have done that. I can even just accept a logical argument with no facts rebutting my arguments if it is persuasive, but so far you haven't made that either. In fact you start with the premise with "the blatant display of sexuality as expressed through clothing happens in adolescent girls."

Sure Engineer. In previous discussions on similar topics I have "thrown facts in your face", you have responded with flippant dismissals and then disappeared. But I am a patient man. I will do so again here...

This particular topic is interesting... because conservatives and feminists seem to reach some common ground even though they come at it from different directions. I don't know if you have ever had a conversation with a teen-aged daughter about her clothing... many parents (both moms and dads) have had exactly this conversation. I don't think there are many mothers or fathers who have raised a daughter through adolescence without saying "You are not going out looking like that".

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/November-December-2008/Why-Do-Teen-Girls-Dress-the-Way-They-Do/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/parenting-is-contact-sport/201010/dealing-trashy-dressing-daughter

http://www.globalwomenconnected.com/2016/10/teenage-girls-dress-sexy/

https://www.livescience.com/19259-sexualized-childrens-clothing-perception.html

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

I have read your four articles and at the risk of being accused of providing "flippant dismissals", I'm not sure at all what point you are trying to make. One of these (number 2) is advice to parents if their daughter is "dressing trashy". One (number 3) sounds like a rant about how girls dress today. The quote in the first one from one mom on how her mini skirt was different from her daughter's mini skirt is humorous and it makes an interesting but unsubstantiated claim about 80's TV commercials. I agree that modern society seems to be sexualizing girls at younger ages, but I don't see where you want to go with it. How is this evidence that schools needs agressive dress codes for girls? Even your own parenting advice column advised parents not to go overboard, and the government is not a parent.

I provided you a link showing "inconclusive and mixed" effects of dress codes on educational outcomes. You and find a dozen more discussions by searching on Google. I read several of these and it is interesting how most proponents of dress codes focus on gang violence and safety, not sexuality. My position is that government restrictions on personal liberty must have significant value to society and school restrictions, often targeted at girls directing what and how much skin they can expose do not meet that standard. More often they have more to do with attempting to control a young woman's growing sexuality than providing any educational or safety benefit. What's the educational benefit of forbidding girls to expose their shoulders? How do the length of shorts impact SAT scores? Your articles show parents obsess over this stuff, they don't show that it actually matters in school.

Although related to school uniforms, this is an interesting read as well. Also this one.

1 Reply

@engineer,

Could you clarify you argument, Engineer.

Are you really arguing that no school should set any standards for appropriate dress that relate to sexuality (e.g. bare midriffs as in the Cambridge MA example)?

If this is an argument about intent, or about degree then I will make a different argument. If you are really making the absolute case that no standards are acceptable, then we can start with the experience of schools in progressive districts that have set such standards.

Please clarify your argument before we proceed. In either case, I will argue that the Cambridge MA standard is both acceptable and useful (I sent kids through the Cambridge system).

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

It is hard to find research on school policy on appropriate dress. The schools in question want students to dress appropriately and are trying to come up with guidelines that are appropriate for the local community.

This has nothing to do with uniforms.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Could you clarify you argument, Engineer.

Are you really arguing that no school should set any standards for appropriate dress that relate to sexuality (e.g. bare midriffs as in the Cambridge MA example)?

I'm saying school dress codes should be based on safety and improving educational outcomes.
- If you can wear it in the grocery store without drawing attention, you should be able to wear it in schools.
- Spending a lot of time policing clothing is not a valid use of educators' time.
- Standards should be posted well in advance with examples so the community at large can comment and push back on overly aggressive standards.

Additionally I've argued that society has a history of policing girls' sexuality and that should not be a factor in school dress codes.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

It is hard to find research on school policy on appropriate dress. The schools in question want students to dress appropriately and are trying to come up with guidelines that are appropriate for the local community.

This has nothing to do with uniforms.

Uniforms are the extreme response to dress codes. Make everyone dress the same. If that extreme response has no impact on educational results, that should indicate something about the rest of the spectrum.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

In previous discussions on similar topics I have "thrown facts in your face", you have responded with flippant dismissals and then disappeared.

I saw that and curiosity got to me. The last thread on a similar topic we debated was around Google and free speech in the workplace. I posted this, then you went silent, throwing insults around with Firefly. I don't demand you respond to my posts, but if you don't, I don't feel the need to keep trying to engage a thread with no substance.

0 Replies

@engineer,

You didn't answer the question. There are two points that I am making in this thread. The first is that; the policies on how to run a school should be made by school administrators responding to local communities and local governments.

You are setting a guideline based on your values and your experience which you seem to want to be applied to every school in every community.

Quote:

I'm saying school dress codes should be based on safety and improving educational outcomes.
- If you can wear it in the grocery store without drawing attention, you should be able to wear it in schools.
- Spending a lot of time policing clothing is not a valid use of educators' time.
- Standards should be posted well in advance with examples so the community at large can comment and push back on overly aggressive standards.

First of all, I like the grocery store standard Wink

. I don't think should be a legal standard, but it made me chuckle and it does fit the "local community" idea that I am promoting. However you are taking the ability to make policy away from school administrators.

I don't know if you are proposing a guideline that makes sense to you or a legal doctrine. That brings us to the real question.

Let's say that some school administrator working on behalf of her community (notices what I did there, because it is important to my next point) decides that there should be a rule about no bare midriffs.

Who polices this? Should the national government get involved (DOJ, EEOC)? Is Facebook shaming from public citizens from across the country who know nothing about the school or the community be engaged to punish wrongdoers.

The question is whether the ability to make school policy should be in the hands of local administrators responding to local communities, or whether these cases really should be made into national issues based on a political narrative.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The question is whether the ability to make school policy should be in the hands of local administrators responding to local communities, or whether these cases really should be made into national issues based on a political narrative.

I think there is a strong case for national policy on things like "creation science" otherwise Bible belt communities, or perhaps just a vocal minority in them, might force some schools to turn out a generation of ignoramuses.

1 Reply

@centrox,

I will argue that case. This should be another thread (it is dealing with curriculum, not administration). If you start the thread, I will be there to point out that in the Scopes trial (which decided on the teaching of evolution) the plaintiff was the State which wanted to enforce a curriculum on local schools.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You didn't answer the question. There are two points that I am making in this thread. The first is that; the policies on how to run a school should be made by school administrators responding to local communities and local governments.

Those are different concerns from the links you posted earlier, but let me address them directly.

The policies on how to run a school should be made by school administrators responding to local communities and local governments.
I'd agree with that but with the following additions.
- The rights of the students are real. Any curtailment of those rights must have an educational purpose and must be as minimal as possible to meet that purpose. That is a standard test for government infringement of civil rights.
- It is not the job of government to enforce "community standards", a term that is often used by the powerful to control the weak. Don't care if "community standards" forbids baggy shorts or rap music or exposed shoulders. The community can enforce community standards with dirty looks and shunning and all the ways that has been historically done, but the government should not. If parents do not have a concern with a student's dress, the government should be very leery of imposing it's judgment. School administrators are not parents, they are government officials. They do not have carte blanche to restrict students' rights.

maxdancona wrote:

You are setting a guideline based on your values and your experience which you seem to want to be applied to every school in every community.

I am proposing a standard that says that we are a nation of laws and rights and the "community", which is often not the community, just the most powerful group in it, cannot trump the rights of the minority. When Roy Moore said the laws of Alabama (and God!) overrule the Supreme Court, he was wrong. Community standards do not override citizen rights.

maxdancona wrote:

However you are taking the ability to make policy away from school administrators.

I'm more accurately defining their authority. No government official has unlimited power.

maxdancona wrote:

Let's say that some school administrator working on behalf of her community (notices what I did there, because it is important to my next point) decides that there should be a rule about no bare midriffs.

Who polices this? Should the national government get involved (DOJ, EEOC)?

Same as any other civil right violation - if the local community refuses to handle it, there should be recourse in the federal courts. This is probably the case already.

maxdancona wrote:

The question is whether the ability to make school policy should be in the hands of local administrators responding to local communities.

Local communities have always been sketchy on civil rights. They shouldn't be. I went through a suburban school system in an area with a significant minority population that freaked out about desegregation. In order to "protect" innocent white women from black men they segregated the high schools by gender. In the middle schools, shorts were forbidden (in a place where the temperature for nine months of the year would routinely stay in the 90's and the humidity was often 100%). Of course the girls' high schools did not have the same resources as the boys' and eventually the school system was sued to sexually integrate the school system. Did everyone support the lawsuit in the community? No. Was "community standards" a sufficient reason to restrict the opportunities of a group of students. No.

2 Replies

@engineer,

I will nit-pick on some of the points you are making in a bit. But, I want to keep the focus on the big question... who has the power to judge? Is it the school administrator, the local community, the federal government, public outrage on Facebook?

The are two sides to each of these issues. They aren't simple... if you think that one side is clearly right and the other is absolutely wrong then you haven't really understood the issue. Generally one side says "this policy is important for creating a respectful environment in our learning community" and another person says "this policy violates the rights of a group of students".

I am very wary of one-size-fits-all simplistic solutions, especially when they come from one political side. People who live in local communities, on both sides of the political aisle, care about these issues on a local level. These are no longer issues of political outrage, they are real life.

Before you decide that there should be some national standards, think about this. Right now Betsy DeVos is secretary of Education and Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan run the House. Be careful what you wish for.

Now for the nit picking.

- I think you are stretching the idea of student rights. High School Students have some rights, but they are limited (see Morse V. Frederick). When a students rights are curtailed, they have the burden of proof, the presumption is that the school community does have the ability to enact policy for running the school. I don't believe in simple answers, students have some rights. They don't have the same rights that adults have in society in general. http://education.findlaw.com/student-rights/school-dress-codes.html

0 Replies

@engineer,

I have no problem with lawsuits. In a lawsuit both sides are heard and there are people whose job it is to impartially listen to all of the facts without prejudice.

Here is the thing about lawsuits. Sometimes your side wins, and other times your side loses (I am sure that everyone here has been disappointed by a court ruling on an issue they care about). These issues often involve competing rights, for anyone who can step outside their political bubble, there are almost always valid points to be made on both sides of an issue.

Progressives sometimes seem to forget that the power they give to the federal government to push their ideals can then come back to bite them when the political power swings the other way. You should think twice before wishing that schools were controlled from central source of policy.

I don't like the current trend of Facebook Outrage. People skim a short article written by a political activist on a topic and then go ballistic. They don't care about the local community. They don't take time to hear the other side of the story. What is important is that these stories of outrage fit a narrative. The facts don't matter.

1 Reply

Short shorts too school

Quick Links

My Account

able2know