Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.

 

19 September 2014

Stretching good taste with yoga leggings

Updated with further thoughts.

Montana Cowgirl has an interesting post on Skyview High School’s new policy on yoga leggings, those body hugging elastic coverings that show, and are intended to show, every curve and crevice:

Leggings, jeggings, and tights ARE NOT pants and must be worn with dress code appropriate shorts, skirts, dresses, or pants.

The official rationale for the leggings ban? It distracts young men from teacher’s lessons. The unofficial rationale? Same as the official. It’s a biology based policy.

One young woman thinks the ban discriminates against women:

“It’s completely sexist and misogynistic,” she said. “This tells women that our bodies are something that needs to be hidden.” [Billings Gazette.]

She’s on the debate team, challenging authority (almost always a good thing), and having fun. But she needs better facts and arguments to win this issue.

I’m no fan of dress codes, but I’m also no fan of students’ wearing costumes that are intended to win, well, the agitated attention of the opposite sex. There’s a place for that, but it’s not in school. And those leggings clad lasses and their defenders know it.

The situation may resolve itself temporarily when the mercury drops and the cool hot leggings look becomes the uncool ice maiden look; when wolf whistles are replaced with derisive snorts of “ she must be freezing her butt off.” That’s when the girls of Skyview will put their pants back on, even if they still intend to study something besides algebra.

Further thoughts, 20 September 2014

If enough hell is raised by students and parents in Billings, the school board and administrators just might modify the ban on yoga tights that’s outraged advocates of the alleged right of young women to wear what they please where they please. Perhaps the trustees and administrators will stand their ground, defending their policy with wit and grit, but I would’t count on it. School officials sometimes hate adverse publicity so much they make foolish decisions.

Meanwhile, some critics of the yoga tights ban are making foolish arguments that rest on false premises, and are conflating Skyview High’s dress code with rape defenses that blame the victim.

The dress code is actually a fairly narrow issue. Schools exist to educate students. They have legal and moral obligations to provide an environment that fosters learning and minimizes distractions. Cold classrooms are a distraction. Young women dressed too hotly are another.

Critics of Skyview’ dress code argue it doesn’t matter whether young women clad in yoga tights are dressed too hotly because (a) dressing too hotly is their right, and (b) young men are in a constant condition of sexual arousal so it doesn’t matter what young women wear.

Commenting at Montana Cowgirl, Montanafesto said:

Who are we kidding? High school boys are aroused by a mild breeze. To blame women’s clothing for this is absurd.

And at Pink Sky Serendipity, a young woman with attitude, Ashley, wrote:

Boys are going to think about sex during class NO MATTER WHAT THE GIRLS ARE WEARING. They are going to think about sex EVEN IF THERE ARE NO GIRLS IN THE ROOM. Guess what? That’s part of life.

Actually, it’s a planted axiom; an article of faith among feminists; and a false premise. Young men are not always thinking about the opposite sex. That’s why some young women dress hotly: they want young men to always think about the opposite sex.

Which is fine — outside of school. But not in the classroom. There, every student has the right to an environment where distractions from the subject being taught are minimized. It’s that right that Skyview’s overseers are trying to honor.

Those administrators and trustees were neither born old fogies nor yesterday. All once were young and full of mischief. They know from personal experience what classroom distractions are. They know why some young women come to school dressed as though they’re making money working on street corners. And they know they can’t let Skyview’s classrooms become the piano parlor in a house of purchased pleasures.