Back to School - Tight Pants & Short Skirts

The start of the new school year has ushered in another loud and boisterous, for and against, discussion/argument about uniformity conformity; tight pants and short skirts. The Twitter sphere was abuzz with positions on every side of the issue. Here are just a two, in response to Dionne Jackson-Miller's tweeted question this past Thursday.

 

@djmillerJA 9/6/12 6:07 PM Hot topic; do you support schls sending home students for irregular uniforms - tight pants and short skirts - or are they going too far?

@AOneGong 9/6/12 6:21 PM @djmillerJA Tight/baggy pants &short skirts aren't even appropriate for work. Leave casual styles for casual occasions. School is not 1such
 @Chatimout 9/6/12 6:26 PM @AOneGong I suppose that's what I hate about uniforms. Kids aren't 'uniform' in their interests/personalities. Let them be individuals!



St. Hilda’s high school
girls circa 1973

In her article titled, A Week of Mixed Fortunes - Barbara Gloudon wrote in her usual style, "At another school gate, Yute-Man's sister's short skirt was not being made welcome. Her mother expressed the view that it was grudgeful the teacher grudgeful why she was sending home Tanisha-Alisha-Beyoncé-Rihanna. Just because her puffy bloomers were showing, ah nuh nutten." I must admit I laughed out loud at the vision of Tanisha-Alisha-Beyoncé-Rihanna and her mother, taking on the authorities, for as they say; mi tek bad tings mek joke.

 




PJ Patterson (left) and Michael Manley
arriving at Parliament in this
April 7, 1970
Gleaner photograph. – File

Across the way, the newly installed principal of Kingston College, Mr. Dave Myrie; who many know as the force behind the turnaround of Wolmer's Boys' School, was also firm on the issue.  He expressed that it was a matter of discipline and order and as the Gleaner reported on Saturday, September 8th; Mr. Myrie explained that, "it was about more than attire."

www.usainbolt.com image Usain Bolt in
formalwear very similar to that
worn in the 1970s.

The Gleaner in an editorial piece on Sunday, September 9th, opined - "The wearing of uniforms is associated with values such as social order and discipline. Students who are now refusing to conform to their school's dress code are giving a pretty good indication of the kind of citizens they are likely to become." I must declare that I do not agree with the second sentence; correlation and causation are not one and the same. The fact that I stopped eating pork in my twenties did not make me a Seventh Day Adventist or a Rastafarian later in life or, as implied by the statement; condemn me to a life of substandard citizenship.

 

I too share the view that it is about more than attire. It is about many things, of which attire is one obvious element. At its core, this age-old issue is about reducing the number of variables which may detract from the central objective of education. With the help of Google, I was pleasantly surprised and informed by the wealth of research papers and essays on the subject. More importantly, this issue is not unique to Jamaica nor is it new. Quite frankly, the nature of youth is that, regardless of the rule, some will pursue interpretations which the authorities will regard as inconsistent with the rule’s spirit and intent.



Google image of
Jamaican policemen

Uniforms are worn in a variety of circumstances for many reasons which include identity, tradition and even safety. Groups that must be uniformed in their attire or at least adhere to a prescribed dress code include; nurses, police and fire personnel, attorneys (yes them too, those bands/collarettes are required in open court), pilots and flight attendants, chefs, sports teams, laboratory workers (yes a lab coat counts), you get the picture. In some cases how you wear the uniform is as important as what you wear and how you are groomed forms part of the dress code.

Google image of
Jamaican attorneys
wearing bands/collarettes

 



I would guess that for most of us, school is the first place we really learn that not all rules are negotiable. As a teenager in high school, I can safely say that short uniforms were an issue then as they are now even though we were told where the hem should be above the knee. Hair was another issue; I had to choose between "cream hair" and a short Afro because locks-like plaits were not allowed. I was still called to the principal’s office to abide a lecture on being

 difficult because my afro was unusually short. Looking back at pictures of my older sister as a fifth former in the same school, I realise that the hem would be regarded as too high above the knees, by today's standards, although everyone wore them just as short precisely because short was in. The uniformity of the "short" meant that no one really stuck out.

Ricardo Makyn/Staff
Photographer Women's 4x400
Olympics 2012



The current reincarnation of the issue is about being able to draw a line in the sand, for to do so would be to explicitly state, what constitutes too tight; for young men. We would have to clearly state for example that, if your genitals are unusually obvious beneath your pants, then your pants are too tight. Oops, but that would mean as someone colourfully explained to me, “a bag a man a look pon di bwoy dem crotches”, and you know what that means. The majority of teachers are women so, women judging the visibility other women's lady parts is far less threatening or offensive to the wider society. Telling boys exactly what tight means, well that's another matter altogether.

 

Listen, I like school uniforms they make life easier and cheaper too. They remove one distraction from the typical adolescent with enough to challenge short attention spans. I believe that there must be minimum standards which parents must also support (or at least not decry) and help to enforce, for it is indeed about order and discipline. The same order and discipline which makes me insist on clean shoes, a regular haircut and doing homework every day.

 

Men’s Warehouse image

I have no prescription for policing beyond parents getting on board with the rules and schools doing what they must to maintain law and order. For me and mine, I choose to enforce the dress code so that neither teachers nor the principal will have to. Time brings change, let's face it not so long ago cricketers only white.