Pants for Teachers
Regarding the Pomona school- teacher’s campaign to wear pants in the classroom, Feb. 26:
Female teachers will, in light of current laws, win the right to wear pants to school. Female students will, of course, be left on the sidelines, on the metaphorical as well as the actual playing field, legislated by their own dress code into fulfilling a Victorian ideal of “femininity.” That these are “fundamental” schools, organized along conservative principles, shows up the fundamental hypocrisy of conservatism today: For of course these dress codes represent a use of government power to enforce a uniformity of behavior upon a formerly free population. Furthermore, it constitutes an arrogation of power to the government that properly belongs in the family. Keep Big Brother--be he principal or boss--away from people’s bodies, which are their own property and no one else’s, at least since 1863.
Dress codes won’t stop gangs, either--gangs love dress codes and have more rigid ones than any school. They just buy baggy uniforms and laugh.
RICHARD RISEMBERG
Los Angeles
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