Feminist AIBU - to object slightly to the term 'genderqueer' to describe me?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I'm working out my thoughts on this, so bear with me. The article that sparked this off is here:

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/29/oxford-university-dress-code-transgender-students

Basically, the university used to insist that men and women wore different formal clothes for formal occasions. I was really fed up when I found out I was expected to wear a skirt, tights, and a ribbon around my neck. I just felt it made a mockery of women (WTF is the ribbon about? Am I a cat?).

Now, I know this isn't serious in the scheme of things, but I did hate seeing all these women feeling uncomfortable, not smart, when the men wore an ordinary black suit and looked both normal, and smart. To me, it really reinforced the fact that women were visibly the exception to the norm.

Anyway: the rules recently changed and now women students can wear ordinary suits too (and men can wear skirts and stockings if they so wish, and so on). Great! But I'm not sure how I feel about the comment that this is for the benefit, not of ordinary women students who, in their normal lives, might wear a trouser suit, but of 'genderqueer' students.

I'm actually a bit fed up, and I can quite articulate why. I just feel I didn't need or want a word like 'genderqueer' to describe me wanting to wear what seem perfectly normal clothes, and to mark me out as equal to a male student.

Small issue, I know, but what do you think?

Perhaps it is different now from when I did Oxford finals, but as I remember it the dress rules were pretty much as awkward and uncomfortable for men as they were for women, in that the main elements were the silly hats and the gowns (different silly hats for men and for women, but equally silly). The only respect in which it was slightly more silly for women was the little ribbon, which just seemed like someone had thought "Oh, no! Examinees have to wear ties but laydees don't wear ties!" and then panicked slightly.

I suspect the reason that the change in dress regulations is presented in terms of making life easier for genderqueer examinees is that their interests were the ones that prompted the change.

I agree that the best solution would be to drop dress rules for exams. They are a bit of a distraction. (Although, god knows, you need a distraction when you are on your way to finals. As I recall it felt like going off voluntarily to the scaffold.)

I'm not sure I've noticed hats, oaty, but I've never done an exam there, I've just seen the students wearing things. Maybe they put the hats on inside?

I am aware it'll be the genderqueer and transgender students in whose interests it's being done. That's kinda my point - women have been asking for this to be changed, to the best of my knowledge, since at least the 1970s. I'm thrilled it has been changed but cross about the way it's happened. Why wasn't what women wanted important? Why is this article assuming that the only people who're affected are genderqueer or transgender?

That's disrespectful to women - because we're invisible - and disrespectful IMO to transgender and genderqueer people in that they're still being singled out and told 'here are the norms but you can ignore them and be different' instead of 'wear what you like, you are entitled to feel normal doing that'.

Do the men have to wear white bow ties and those little bits of extra random white material at Oxford? They do at Cambridge (but only for graduation, not for exams, you can wear anything you like for exams)

I've got a feeling (might have misremembered) that men had to wear white bow ties back then, so the dafty ribbon would be a nod at that -- and rather less hideous than a dafty bow tie. The offensive thing, of course, was that the ribbon was a gesture at finding a "female equivalent" of the male tie, which was a particular instance of women having to be inducted into a male world, instead of that world becoming no longer male. I do also remember though that my male friends felt utterly uncomfortable in a formal suit, and they were barely recognisable as their normal slobbish selves. We were all wrongfotted by the dress code.

DH says not the white material, trills, just the ties.

The ribbon isn't a bow tie, though - it is something a cat would wear. You are totally right that the 'equivalent' idea is the offensive thing.

I could also say academic gowns are a bugger to attach to a blouse rather than a suit or suit jacket.

My experience has been that a few men felt uncomfortable being in formal dress, but most were used to wearing it for interviews for jobs by the time we graduated. Women are not accustomed to wearing what we wore, and virtually all of us ended up going out to buy a black skirt.

When I graduated first off I was really annoyed that the rules banned both pairs of black shoes I owned - one were peep-toe and the others had coloured soles. I suppose what I find annoying is that most blokes seemed to already own stuff because the dress code was similar to what they needed for normal work life, whereas women who could dress perfectly smartly and appropriately for interviews or formal occasions, were instead having to wear stuff they'd cobbled together or bought for the occasion.

But this is by the bye a little ...

I didn't have to wear the hat - I think they made me carry it, from memory.

I quite liked sub-fusc: it gave me something to worry about the night before my Finals that wasn't whether I'd read enough about 18th-century politics. But I agree the code just ought to specify that you can wear a dark suit, skirt or trousers, with a white shirt and white bow tie or black ribbon (I did dislike the black ribbon: it made me feel like Fifi the French poodle), without specifying which sex can wear what.

Trills, Oxford men have to wear the bow ties but not the bands.

I just think if Cameron had gone to university where they wore jeans and maybe a decent suit for smart, and the women wore the same, he might not be quite such a tit about women.

LRD, I don't think you can blame Oxford for Cameron! The worst that can be said is that it didn't do as much to knock that crap out of him as another university might - but there were a lot of tough women and very active feminists there when I was up. He chose not to have anything to do with them, and he could have made the same choice somewhere else.

I can try!

No, you're right down, I'm sure he was a twit to begin with.

I do think making women wear this stupid stuff does set them up for a certain kind of wankerish bloke, who's been brought up to think sexism is funny, to continue seeing and treating them as second-sex. It's really nasty. And women have been saying this for quite a long time.

university where they wore jeans

They do the rest of the time.

trills, I know they (some of them) do the rest of the time. I live here. I am not under the impression we're in a Harry Potter set. I am talking about sub fusc.

I am not under the impression we're in a Harry Potter set.

Even those had jeans and hoodies by film #3 :o

True.

I suppose I would look at the outcome as the most important thing, not the rationale for it.

When I was a student nurse over 20 years ago, they'd got rid of hats for qualified nurses, but insisted that students continue to wear them (only the women of course) because they needed to "tell" what year of training you were in - number of stripes on your hat.

I amassed evidence that they posed a risk of cross infection and contributed to back injuries when they got in the way when lifting. I raised it every chance I got, but it wasn't until my final year that someone in the hospital decided it was an unnecessary expense and issued students with epaulettes we could sew to our shoulders (like the men had on their uniforms) and wear red rings to show our "rank."

I didn't care why they decided to scrap them. I was just glad they did!

Incidentally, where I live, men where skirts all the time. :)

I sort of take your point ... but the analogy doesn't quite fit, to my mind. You had emperical evidence of something serious - spread of illness. Whereas this whole issue is really to do with symbolism and identity, so the symbolism of how it's resolved must matter that much more, I think.

It's not a huge issue, just it made me upset that women were so invisible.

While we're on the subject, why are schools allowed to insist that girls and boys wear different clothes? Mine go to an ordinary state primary. Although girls can wear trousers, they can't wear shorts. So in hot weather those girls who aren't "girlie girls", have to either go against their own preference and wear a summer dress, or wear trousers and get hot. Boys have to wear grey socks, girls have to wear white. Boys can't wear skirts, dresses or cardis. Whilst I don't know of any boys who would want to wear any of the "girls' clothes", wouldn't it be better if there was a list of acceptable items for all genders. One thing I did notice recently when they updated the uniform list was that they now allow say "girls and boys with long hair" whereas it used to be just "girls with long hair", so I guess they are trying to move with the times, just doing it very slowly!

That's really daft! Yes, it'd be much better to have a list for all of them. Especially since shorts are so practical. Making them either suffer in hot trousers or wear a dress is effectiely putting pressure on to make them avoid active stuff, isn't it? Either they'll worry about showing their knickers or they'll just be too hot.

Daft.

Eh? What is the logic of allowing trousers but not shorts?

LRD, apologies if this seems a bit of a tangent, but the requirement for nurses to wear hats (and ridiculously impractical uniforms as well, but I started with the hats,) was symbolic and was very much about identity. Nurses and nursing managers at the time were willing to ignore research about the risks of cross-infection and injuries to nurses in favour of preserving the symbolism and identity conferred by the hat. That would be similar to women students having to wear impractical and silly-looking garments because this is "traditional."

Plenty of nurses bemoaned (and probably still do!) the loss of their hats because they experienced it as a loss of identity, status and tradition. I'm guessing there are probably some students who are unhappy that the unattractive and uncomfortable traditional attire for women students is no longer mandatory for the same reasons.

As mentioned before, when hats were abolished for "budget reasons," I rejoiced because the damned things were gone. Sure, I wished they'd listened to the clinical, safety and the sexism arguments that I put forward, but I was happy that the goal was achieved in the end (and eventually, they moved to unisex polo shirts and trousers and ditching the hats was a step towards that.)

Is your concern primarily that they did the right thing in relaxing the "uniform code," but you think they did it for the wrong reasons? Personally, I wouldn't sweat that.

No, tangent away!

I was discussing, not dismissing. I think the whole issue about gendered clothing is interesting.

I suppose what I meant is, women students didn't have such a good reason as you to feel 'oh, I don't care how the change happened, just thank god it did!'. Because you'd have to be pretty callous to be aware your uniform was spreading disease and still gripe about how the change happened. There's nothing quite so life-or-death about skirts and ribbons.

My concern is that, instead of saying 'everyone may now wear what they like from this selection of clothes', they're saying 'men typically wear this, and women typically wear this', but some people - special, different people (subtext, for those who are unpleasant, being 'point and sneer') - may decide to cross the gender boundary.

Why does the gender boundary need to exist at all?

It sounds like this is a similar concern to that ali has, that instead of just saying 'girls and boys can all wear from this list', they've insisted on doing a pick-and-choose so girls are only allowed some 'male' clothes and boys no 'female' clothes.

LRD, you'd be surprised by what nurses did in the name of tradition, and in the face of evidence that practices were either ineffective or actually harmful. That was 20 years ago, so I'm hopeful that things have changed, particularly now that there is more theoretical, evidence-based input into the course. It's always been quite a small c conservative profession though, and I'm not sure how much the fact it's a predominately female profession, particularly at the lower "ranks" impacts on this, but now that IS starting to digress! :-)

I agree, there is no purpose for gender boundaries in clothing other than where there are anatomical differences (but you also get anatomical differences related to different body sizes and shapes as well,) but these exist because of tradition and social "expectations." Alot of those expectations seem to be down to being able to easily identify someone's "status," which may also be a part of gender demarcation in clothing.

I was just thinking, although there seems to be less rigidity in "professional" dress with regard to gender and status demarcations (e.g. nursing, fire service, police, academia, etc.) there seems to be a corresponding increase in gender demarcation in non-uniform clothing, particularly for children with the blue and green stuff. No idea why this might be or if there is even any connection. I suspect the former is to do with progress and the latter to do with intensive marketing by a value-less market.

I'm sure they did kritiq ... it sounds a bit scary.

The military, of course, is also conservative, I guess?

I wasn't suggesting nurses weren't following tradition or prioritizing symbolism over real need.

I think you're right about the decrease/increase. And about the reasons. To be cynical, I suppose it's much more successful if you can persuade society to police itself into gender demarcation, than if you insist on it with rules? There seem to be lots of things where, yes, maybe 50 years ago the situation for women was more unequal - but that inequality was also more out in the open. Whereas now, some big inequalities have been reduced, but there's also less acceptance of the idea that any inequalities still exist. Maybe that is a cause or effect of this sort of thing?

I think the increasing gender demarcation in clothing has to do with the consumer-capitalist need to create differentiation and new felt-needs. If you split what is essentially one product into several different products (like eg all the myriad cleaning products offered in apparent competition with one another but all churned out by P&G) you maximise the overall sell for your company. You can sell one t-shirt to a parent who has a son and then a daughter; two t-shirts to a parent who has a son and then a daughter and believes that her daughter shouldn't wear blue; and ten t-shirts and a my-first-mascara, etc. to a parent that buys into the clothing conventions for females. In other words, I don't think it is the patriarchy policing people into gender demarcation for reasons connected with the need to dominate women; I think it is capitalism policing people into retail dependency, with gender functioning as a helpful tool that they are more than willing to exploit. It nonetheless has the effect of reinforcing and magnifying gender roles and it is very reactionary, but I think the primary explanation is economic rather than entirely within the field of gender. It is very depressing. So much of "post-feminist" faux-empowerment has capitalism's need to sell stuff as its underlying dynamic.

I'm a woman who graduated from Oxford in 1991 and I never wore a ribbon.

When I was there many of the colleges required students to regularly wear 'sub fusc' outfits for formal dinners, but my college was relatively informal so I only ever had to wear the formal dress for the university exams. When I sat my exams I wore a white shirt and black trousers, together with a black tie (ie the kind typically worn by men) that had previously belonged to my father. I'm pretty sure that was permitted by the official policy at that time.

I agree that the best policy for any kind of uniform, in any institution, is to have a list of permitted dress items, with no distinctions made as to gender.

Friends who went to Oxford tell me that whenever Oxford students are asked about ditching sub fusc for exams, the vast majority say they want to keep it because it's one of those wierd things that make Oxford 'so special', not to mention appealing to the tourists.

Though I suspect most of them wouldn't oppose making it gender neutral, with a gown, black lower half and white top and some silly white neck thingy for everyone.