Ubiquitous dress code
Chennai colleges/universities have seen a spate of fiats from the principals/vice chancellors about dress code applicable to girls students.No jeans/t shirts/sleeveless tops/short tops.Only churdidar/sarees are permitted on the campus.One also comes across a college which has introduced uniform for its students; no this is not in chennai.Mobiles are also banned in class rooms.Filmi music,dance numbers are banned in the culturals of some colleges.
While this is definitely causing concern,one can see all this embargo as a backlash against permissiveness seen in campuses.But then the students argue,when atrocious and obsene dresses/scenes are being shown on the tv every day in and day out and being watched by impressionable minds,why ban those on the campus.What is being achieved by this measure?Why ban mobile phones,they may get an urgent message.Nobody would have resorted to banning mobiles,if it were not for their beeping with all sorts of music(?) throughout the classes and distracting everybody.And students were not playing games and smsing in the class on such a massive scale.
Actually violent and unreasonable backlash comes when freedom is misused consistently and pervasively.Freedom is not absolute.
There is a peculiar issue here in the Indian context.Colleges have to be seen to placate parents of students,because they are their customers as they are the ones paying the tuition fees.Parents feel comfortable being good to the children and not enforce any discipline(or are not able to and have given up trying)and hence look to colleges to impose restriction on their dress/behaviour/mobile usage.And colleges have to respond to this need.
We used to think parents transferred responsibility to teachers in school.Now it is getting extended to colleges.Colleges tout this as an usp to attract students from conservative families who want the children to pursue higher studies but with "due restrictions"
It is all commerce really;not any moral issue.
Students can fund their higher education,then they will call the shots!
posted by vasukumar @ 3:33 AM
8 Comments:
Reading your article is sort of a shock to me. I just could not believe it. I feel that restruction based on moral issues and dress code etc leads society to a step back ward. This is especially true when this happens specifically targeted to female students. This issue becomes a chanllenge to female students and their freedom. This is what is happening in West Asia where the restriction for female students and women in general is going to the extreme.
I feel any authority should not have any say in the way a person dresses unless it is completely indecent. That also is a relative term and can not be really defined. When the society it self is changing with such a tremendous influence from other cultures, especially western, it is absurd to say that kids should come to college wearing only salwar kameezs and sarees that too not wearing a sleeveless tops.
I think parents should not shift the responsibility completely to others and should understand that they have also gone thro' this lane when they were young when wearing a salwar kameez itself was a taboo. They should oppose this move to curb students/read female students freedom.
The use of mobile phone is another issue where the students inside class rooms should strictly switch off the mobile phone otherwise it should be conficicated. We should learn to live with the sounds of phones ringing in all odd places, including the corridor of colleges even though it is so irritating for us.
seeing the minimalist dress of women players in the US open disgusts me.They are serious players or models?When men can wear decent outfits and give seriousness to the game,why should women resort to such outrageous outfits?Kumar tells me it is the tyranny of the sponsors.dont know le
interesting, i have held rather strong views on the issue of female dress codes for a while. there was a time when it didn't bother me, but heck, what is with imposing it on women alone? the equalist(why call it feminism?)in me rebels against the idea.
has anyone ever thought of insisting on dhoti-kurtas or panchakaca veshti and khadi vests for boys going to college? or worse still, having a dress code that involves well-oiled centre parted hair for them? or is it less offensive for them to have pierced belly buttons or wear gangster rap t-shirts and cut offs?
though i understand that sometimes clothes border on the indecent, it isn't as if girls are the only 'offenders'. anyone who tells me that girls are more fashion conscious is clearly off their rocker.
this whole concept is ridiculous and is just male chauvinists clutching at straws to impose their will in an age where their authority as lords and masters is fast eroding.
the same way they oppose cloning because it removes their usefulness even in reproduction.
US open has formal wear from men but why such weird outfits from women?It is not even pleasing to the eye.
Men are imposing right,but the customers are the parents.What reaction to that.The men are doing what they feel are pandering to the customers needs.
how can we call the parents the customer. children are not born into the world out of their will. so the parents do all this only as a duty or pleasure or ego what ever you call. olden days when there were no extra money needed to spend on children apart from basic things, even then elders imposed rules.
All should understand that it is a nature's rule that each generation takes care of the next one as our parents did, and I should add with least interference but being a model and set an example to follow when they get over all weird ways as they age. I feel it is too much for the parents to interfere especially at college level , in ridiculous things like dress codes. As long as a child/adult is honest, not a criminal, and is not an addict and has strong values which has nothing to do with dress that is what is needed.
By the by I think only wibledon has a dress code and all other tennis tournments does not have any dress code. I am not sure.
as far as i know, i think it is only wimbledon with whites as dress code. US open is known for weird dresses. i think basically no one (like adidas or nike) wants to dress the guys up in funky clothes because no one is really interested in seeing them that way. whereas even a tennis illiterate would sit down to watch a women's match with steffi graf in a short skirt.
it may not help them to be taken seriously, but i guess it is just trp ratings and economics speaking here again
Oh, and as far as pandering to customer needs goes, i wonder if we are not over simplifying the issue. i doubt if there are enough irresponsible parents with a guilty conscience running about to warrant such a slew of dress code impositions across the city.
student federation of india,the communist party wing,is up in arms against the dress code.They have also taken up the issue of the role of vice chancellor in enforcing dress code.vice chancellor has no authority to issue such fiats; he has to first put it up to the senate and administrative council of the university.
Interesting twist in the tail.Yes, they have taken up the issue of private engineering colleges charging fine from students who are seen talking to students of the opposite sex!
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