Dad strips down at school board meeting to make ‘clear argument’ about dress code

abobla@lemm.ee to Not The Onion@lemmy.world – 312 points –
Dad strips down at school board meeting to make ‘clear argument’ about dress code
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Not really no.

It comes from being distracting.

The point of school is learning, not fashion, not looking good.

Honestly this is why school uniforms are such a good idea. Cuts out the ambiguity of a dress code.

Point of school is learning, yes. And fashion and looking good is also a part of learning, and expressing yourself, and attracting like minded individuals to build friendships, etc.

Boys should be taught to control themselves if someone nearby is "distracting", hey another thing they can learn at school. Teach kids how to be adults, not just algebra.

The point is not about expressing yourself or looking good. Those are definitely positives.

The point is about dressing distractingly. Say for example the man in the picture takes class for you, are you telling me his outfit won't be distracting for you ?

It is distracting because it is out of place for where it is worn, school. This man could come like this for a party and he would be a hit.

The same applies for students, be it from any gender.

The counter argument I always see is "boys should be taught to control". While this is true and a certain amount of decency is expected from everyone even if they find someone attractive who is dressed non distractingly, the other side of the coin is that someone who is dressed inappropriately to the place (school) could distract "boys" even if they don't find the person attractive. This it is definitely the problem of the outfit.

In short the problem is the "everything goes" attitude

What happens outside of school when boys are faced with a much more relaxed dress code, you still going to victim blame and blame the outfit?

Eg, Imagine this anywhere else "I was driving, I saw someone wearing something showy, and I killed a pedestrian. I can't believe that lady was dressed hot, they made me kill a pedestrian." Does that seem right? No. Still the fault of the person looking.

Completely agree. The post is about the school dress code though.

And why is it any different?

Because outside world you are free to be who you want to be. But in the school you are meant to study and there is a decorum. Very similar to a library, you cannot speak in a library because it is distracting.

I have to be clear here, the problem lies in the subjectivity that "what is appropriate". To solve this we have uniforms. And If there is a better solution I'm in for that.

But as I stated before, one should not be one sided in their thought about this problem. Not everything can be dumped on the "boys should learn" phrase.

While boys should definitely learn, the outfit also should fit the decorum.

Dude I went to a catholic school with uniforms, it doesn't stop you getting distracted.

I think all it did was give me a low level thing for tights 😅

Also in the "outside world" you aren't truely free, there is public indecency laws at the very least.

Uniform is the solution we have at the moment. But as you said that's not the best one. If there is a better solution we should go for it.

Regarding outside world, agree there as well. But compared to school obviously there is more freedom.

Overall, my whole point was the two sidedness of the issue.

You misunderstand me. I don't think its not the best solution.

I think uniform is a solution you think we have to a problem you think exists.

For as long as we've had young people in general education we have anecdotes of them being distracted because the way we do education is boring, it's never going to be solved unless there is reform.

Being distracted by their peers clothes is not a real problem it's just a type of distraction and I've told you that uniform doesn't stop this distraction. The actual solution is to massively increase the education budgets and nearly do a historical tutorage system for each child where they advance at their own speed with expert teachers in very small class sizes of 1-3. But this will probably never happen.

I imagine the boys could just leave if they don’t feel comfortable, and aren’t — as they are in school — forced to be present.

Not sure if you really read my comment. I was talking ONLY in the context of school, which the post is about.

What happens outside school is a different conversation. Much more general in fact. We'd probably on the same page in that conv I believe.

I did but my problem is I, as many other think school should be prepare kids and young adults for life.

And if school is meant to prepare you for adult life, it should somewhat emulate adult life in a safe setting. In which case talking about life outside is relevant.

Alternatively you're advocating for school to be more like prison lite where we can take control away from kids and young adults. Where they can't decide for themselves what to wear and they need to be protected from their uges because we think they should be considered guilty before they do anything because we think they can't resist and we refuse to teach them.

If governments around the world can consider 16 old enough to enlist and learn how to use and be responsible for a firearm then schools should consider that age old enough and responsible enough to act appropriately around women no matter how they are dressed.

School is a prison and pretending that it’s a bridge to the real world is not only naive it is counterproductive.

The reason there are uniforms in prison is because there are some dangerous mofos with poor control in there. Kinda like in school. The uniforms decrease the energy level of the place.

Not sure why we’d put the responsibility of learning self control on children while adults are treated as the creatures of limited self control they are.

A homeless man’s a product of his environment but a fourteen year old boy who can’t concentrate on calculus because titties are bouncing in his face all day is responsible for suppressing his own sexuality in service to the mission. Is that about right?

Adults are children and children are adults? Is that pretty much the rubric here?

Should be called intensely_inhumane 🤣

School shouldn't be like prison and neither should prison tbh.

Prison is designed as a punishment, its pretty problematic to want children to go through a similar system in their formative years, nevermimd that there is so much evidence that prison doesn't even work and just causes worse outcomes.

Treat someone like a criminal they will act like a criminal.

Lol, you immediately took the thought to the extremes. How can what I said be remotely prison like 😂

School is obviously meant to prepare one for adult life. As an adult you can't be publicly indecent, so can you not be at school.

Also, I agree everyone should act appropriately around everyone no matter how they are dressed.

I didn't understand what you meant by the firearm licence, but just so you know it is at least 18-21 minimum age with necessary courses and qualifications, around the world.

It's not really the extremes, it's exactly what you were calling for. You called for uniforms which is taking agency away from young people and you said that it is the duty of schools to protect (I assume only the male) students from distractions which involves punishing the girls and assuming the boys are guaranteed to be guilty of this crime of distraction.

Not gun lisences, im talking about joiming the military. A lot of countries have 16 or younger as enlisting age as well as children younger than that in cadets organisations.

School is a massive fuck you to personal agency. Trying to argue for dress codes as an aspect of agency is putting lipstick on a pig.

If you’re going to force kids to be at a place all day, you should give them some accommodations. For the boys, that’s helping them out with the distractions.

You are definitely failing to see the two sided argument this other poster is making. It’s a really important point, and you don’t even seem to realize it’s been made.

There's no two sides here, the aguments about distractions and agency fall apart when you compare countries like Sweden and Denmark where they don't have uniforms and allow the students lot more agency, against countries like the US, UK and Ireland where they infantalise their students and in the UK's and Ireland's case uniforms are mandatory.

The Nordic countries have way better school performance scores.

Should we take it to extremes and have everyone wear a sheet with two holes for eyes so nobody is "distracted"? Otherwise how do you know that something won't be distracting? Oh no, one kid is wearing a somewhat shiny watch--distraction imminent! Doom!

By the time kids hit high school, they're capable of not being distracted by others' attire and on occasion if they are, there's fortunately a teacher there to remind them to focus.

I recall being distracted a few times but I also didn't want to get in trouble or, you know, fail. And I have ADHD that wasn't diagnosed at the time. If someone is so easily distracted many schools will help the kid out (not like when I was growing up).

For example, my kid was distracted by noise when younger so she wore sound cancelling headphones. Now she can focus well enough without them.

Nobody is advocating for "anything goes." Some guidelines around basic decency are fine if it applies equally to boys and girls.

For example, my kid was distracted by noise when younger so she wore sound cancelling headphones.

Did they also have rules about noise levels? Like were other kids allowed to sing and shout at her while she took tests?

In short the problem is the "everything goes" attitude

Who is promoting an "everything goes" attitude? Was the school proposing to have no dress code at all? What specific suggested change in the dress code is the issue here?

This whole "we can't let students come to class on their underwear" argument doesn't hold any water if the new rules wouldn't allow it either.

While they don’t specify the new rules, there are a few clues in the arguments made to defend it:

  • Teachers shouldn’t be measuring clothing. This implies the new rules are not based on any kind of measurement
  • That leaves binary states of whether X body part is covered
  • The article states that exposing the midriff is among the newly-allowed items
  • They also argue for leaving it to the parents to decide what’s appropriate. This actually seems to imply the new rule is “anything goes [so far as school enforcement is concerned]”
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Except anything can be distracting and there's a certainly a reason why the school girl outfit has so many sexy versions and lingerie. School uniforms are a terrible idea for many reasons. You generally can't buy then second hand, low income families now need two sets of clothing for their kids, and it is possible to buy "higher quality" ones from places like Macy's.

Obviously the schools should provide them.

On the other hand if there’s enough open market that you can buy them at Macy’s, there’s no reason you’d be any less able to buy second-hand uniforms than any other clothing.

So the options are:

  • You have to buy them from the school. That sucks.
  • They’re provided by the school. Now the poor kids are actually equal to the richer kids.
  • You can buy anything that adheres to the right dress code, and that’s your “uniform”. In this case there’s nothing stopping them from buying them second hand.

The only failure mode then is when you have to buy them from the school, at which point poor families are more put upon … assuming the uniforms are more expensive than other clothes. But it’s the same with textbooks, sports equipment, etc.

What do you think would be a sensible dress code? Or would you say that all dress codes are bad?

I'm just curious. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other.

You’re being downvoted because questions that might lead to a person changing their mind, if they honestly engaged with the question, are considered mind tricks by some people.

“Oh the earth is flat? Why do you suppose you’ve never seen a picture of the edge then?”

“Your jedi mind tricks won’t work on me!”

I tell you what would REALLY help me not get distracted at school, if the girls had to wear burqas.

Then us fellas don't need to worry about learning self control or mental discipline. It's win win! By which I mean, two wins for men.

If burkas were worn by everyone they’d be way less of an issue.

I only agree with you because I could stare at the ass of a girl I used to have in my class all day. And I know for a fact I wasn't the only one.

Uffff but yhe that's still my fault and my bad, I shouldn't be asking her to wear more clothes so I can focus

A uniform doesn't stop that through, someone who is distracted by girls will continue to be distracted by girls no matter what they are wearing. Same goes for the other way around.

And you failed as a result?

If so, or if not, was that due to the ass or you?

Naaah I'm fine homie I'm in uni rn, but still deam that was an ass

Right on man. Yeah most folks get a little distracted but keep it together.

For me, History class, the prettiest girl in the school and one of the sweetest. Green eyes like emeralds. Could've just started at her all day but she sat behind in the row over so it would've been kinda obvious lol. Also I wanted to pass lol. I still remember her from time to time.

Best wishes in school.

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