new thread
This new headline bothers me..........is the NAZI party alive and well?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=3&u=/ap/20040908/ap_on_re_us/wear_this
Well I'm British, so I'm much more accostomed to ridged dress codes than many. In our schools all the kids must wear identicle uniforms (OK different for guys vs gals).
In the work place its expected that Men wear a suit & tie for any Office based job and Women wear a blouse with a jacket, they are normally given the choice of trousers or a skirt to match. If you work for a large organisation, you'll be issued a uniform to wear.
I guess there is a general concensus in Britain that when we are at work we are representing our employer, not ourselves, so our freedom to express ourselves in the way we dress is deferred to our personal time.
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In schools I feel a uniform is a very good idea, primarily because kids cannot distinguish the "haves" from the "havenots" If everyone has to wear the same thing, then you won't get picked on because you haven't got the last fcuk T-shirt.
In the workplace I also think Uniform has a place where it serves to identify you from the customers. As for the dress codes of wearing a suit in the work place then I don't really see the merit, but I'm prepared to go along with it as a matter of custom as I can become myself again and dress how I like as soon as I get home.
Let me stress that I consider this totally different from Beards and Hairstyles. These are things that can't be changed within 5 minutes, so I don't believe an employer has a right to impose anything on you that will affect the way look after you have finished work.
As for piercings I put them in the same category as clothes, jewelry can be taken on or off as desired. I fail to see how this article or view-point is Nazi-like. Maybe a little old fashioned and perhaps an over reaction by conservative minds, but not Nazi.
Sorted
When I was in school back in South Africa, we had to wear school uniforms. This is still the case today. Apart from the school uniforms, girls and boys have different rules to follow.
For example: cleaniness when it comes to hair, nails and shoes and overall look of your uniform.
Girls aren't allowed to wear their hair loose, or colour their hair (unless it matched or enhanced their natural colour), nails had to be short and neat and of course no make-up or nail polish.
Boys aren't allowed to have long hair. It is not allowed to touch the collar of their shirt. And they have to shave once facial hair is noticable.
Yeah, I know, this must sound horrible, but it has been there since I can remember. I didn't really like all the rules and still don't, but to some degree it's understandable why they have them.
But the private schools are even worst. You're not even allowed to talk to boys if your a girl and vice versa.
They have a seperate school area for the boys and one for the girls.
But apparently, this is about to change in the future.
Thee Longhaired Gal
Visible piercings are a problems where dress codes are concerned, because (except for the earlobes) they tend to close up unless you wear jewelry all the time, and the rings are not so easy to remove and replace.
The reason for the rise in dress codes, especially in middle and high schools, is that an unfortunately high percentage of girls in this age range dress in a manner that's incredibly immodest. I'm amazed that parents let them out of the house with three (or more) inches of flesh showing below the waist, but that's common. It's hard to imagine that requiring girls to limit their visible cleavage or hipbones is suppressing free expression.
Fascism (Nazism is one form) exists on a scale (in our heads, somewhere). As one moves to the right away from personal freedom toward the control of one (individual, party) over another, one moves toward fascism. Likewise, as one moves from personal freedom toward the greater good of society (controlled by a party) one moves toward socialism.
So, the control of dress would be, if it is for the control of one (employer, school etc) a form, albeit slight, of fascism.
Robert
I dissagree, in this case control of dress code in the workplace isn't about restricting people's personal freedom, its about setting standards by which an employee represents his employer.
Bottom line its about the expectations of others. If an employer thought his clients would accept his sales staff making pitches for big orders dressed like they just came off the beach, then he would have no dress code regulation... On another point Uniform is a means of identification. How frustrated would you feel walking around WalMart or Tescos in need of a shop assitant and you couldn't tell who was a customer and who was an employee?
Dress code in the workplace is not usually about control, its about customers. And in schools, its about ensuring a level playing field and in many ways preparing kids for life in the workplace.
Incidentally for the record I'm small business owner and we employ 6 people, we having found it necessary to define a dress code as we have concluded that our staff are smart enough to adapt to their circumstances. Example: Our Project Co-ordinator normally dresses very casual, but today he is meeting a client and he has dressed-up for the occasion. I myself am wearing a horribly crumpled T-shirt because I won't be out of the office today. Common sense has largely been enough to see us through.
In business you have to accept that people expect you to be a certain way, you must adapt to their expectations as much as is humanly possible, naturally I won't adapt in such a way that compromises my personal life, but I will wear a suit and tie if the situation requires it, its a small price to pay to ensure you get the contracts you want and can put food on the table and pay a mortgage.
Sorted
Whilst I think some form of dress code may be necessary in some jobs, I think it would be a big mistake to think it's never about control.
Unfortunately, a lot of what happens in people's working lives is about just that, and not just in relation to dress codes. The other common problem is when an employee is doing their job in a satisfactory way, but their supervisor dictates that it has to be done differently. That is a control issue, and it's unfortunately all too common.
Similar things happen with dress codes. Someone may be dressed very smartly, but their supervisor may ob ject because what they are wearing doesn't meet the letter of the rules. Here we are principally talking about dumb stuff, i.e. wrong colour shoes, jacket and trousers don't match (hence not a 'suit'), tie too loud, shirt not an 'approved' colour, etc. Happens all the time in many workplaces.
Notice that I didn't even mention hair. IMHO, hair is not even a dress code issue, after all it's not clothing. The 'line in the sand' here is that IMO an employer should never have a right to control the worker's appearance outside the workplace. They may be in order to demand that hair be tied up or that a tatoo be covered, say, but not to demand that hair be cut or even, say, dyed back to a natural colour.
I am self-employed, but FWIW I would dress in a clown's suit if an employer insisted, but not cut my hair.
Our local school has just adopted a new uniform of black trousers and red polo shirt for both guys and gals, with no hair length restrictions. A great victory for common sense and freedom. I have also noticed that more offices have become less formal, but there are still quite a lot of unfortunate people enslaved in suits.
Everyone would be able to do, wear, hair anyway they want, and no one could do anything about it. I personally, like to see people on all extreems of society, it makes it more interesting. I know i am not realistic about how people are and behave, but I have allways wanted to stay to people who have discrimintaed against me, that there conservative dress is offensive to me, just to see the response.
Imagine if we all lived in the exact same house, same furnashings, same car, same cloths, ect. WOuldn't life be borring!
A society of mindless robots in which everyone looks the same. Okay, that may be a bit extreme but that's what will happen if we don't stand up for ourselves.
