Don't get mad; get plaid!

I was going to write a short comment in response to the post about mandated high school attire in Nashville over on Jon's blog, but I got going in my comment window and realized I have more to say here than I thought.


The truth is, I don't really have a strong enough opinion about this to really offer anything terribly interesting here but I can say this: having gone to a high school where uniforms--not the khaki pants and polo shirt, but plaid skirts and saddle oxfords--were required, I really found the uniform rather empowering. I mean, the Catholic schoolgirl image is an American pornographic icon-- and because we weren't religiously affiliated, we got to hem our skirts so short as to blur the line between "skirt" and "belt." The sexual heritage of that uniform is a really rich ground from which a young hyper-sexual girl such as my high school self could draw a certain variety of self-affirmation. In retrospect, of course, I realize that those uniforms were really not terribly flattering-- the skirts were too high-waisted, the blobby sweatshirts we all wore all winter long were pretty damn hideous, and a yellow oxford-cloth shirt (2 sizes too big-- to hide your over-developed/under-developed boobs--I had the latter) just doesn't look that good on anyone.

But, now, the most common complaint from the other girls was that the uniform "prevented us from expressing ourselves." And while I do agree that clothing is one way in which kids can and do "express themselves," wearing a uniform provided an opportunity for me to decide that no matter what I wore, I was really very dissimilar to the other Harpeth Hall girls. And even now that I'm an adult, I tend to dress somewhere more on the conservative side, with a little too much cleavage now and again (oh, and, well, with liberal applications of various pairs of fuck-me shoes). And while my clothing, I'm sure, engenders opinions from other folks, it's certainly not the last word on my personality. Really, once I open my mouth, people generally appreciate my relative freakishness with great speed. So what I'm saying is, the self-expression argument doesn't hold much water with me.

There is, however, one of Jon's points that does, in fact, hold plenty of water for me. That argument being the cost thing. I went to a fancy-pants private school. I mean, quite literally, I'd bump into a cranky first-thing-in-the-morning Reese Witherspoon with her big black horn-rimmed glasses and her stringy-from-the-shower hair every morning by the lockers. Harpeth Hall, with its rolling lawns and big white-pillared buildings and state-of-the-art Fine Arts building is like another planet when compared to your average Nashville public school. My parents could afford two or three high-waisted plaid skirts. Joe Schoolboy from Stratford High in East Nashville? Maybe, maybe not... the point is, he shouldn't be required to publicize his parents' socio-economic status via the conduit of his clothing. I doubt that would be the sort of self-expression some of these kids are arguing for, right? Of course, the argument here is that dressing all the kids in the same clothes will help erase class strata in the classroom... but you just know there are plenty of kids who get by wearing hand-me-downs.. and those are the ones who'll be having the hardest time dressing within the confines of the dress code every morning. And aren't they the ones proponents argue will be helped the most? I'm skeptical.

And, truthfully, khaki pants and tucked-in shirts are a whole lot more Orwell and a whole lot less Jenna Jamison. Had I been forced to wear nothing but khaki for the duration of my early education, I might not have been so complacent as I was in my plaid. And, I know, I know... staid grown-up that I am, I supposed to think it's bad when kids look too sexy. But-- and I've made this argument plenty of times before--teenagers have sexual agency! And, within reason, what the hell is so wrong with enjoying your pre-spare-tire body?

So maybe this is the thing: if we ban khaki and institute an all-plaid clothing policy... and help the kids parse out the cultural mythologizing of what the plaid has come to mean... maybe everyone-- dirty old men included-- will be just thrilled with the whatever dress codes Metro Nashville decides to put in place.