skirtcafe.org

Maybe some of our members would care to comment here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/30/ce ... l#comments

I am of a number of opinions on the article, some of which I'll share here and some of which I won't.

First off, if the thrust is about this youngster's sexuality, then the topic is at best tangential to SkirtCafe. The clothes we wear do not define who we are inside: it's the other way 'round -- and it's irrespective of our sexuality. Conflating one's sense of style with what one's sexual preference is is a waste of time or worse.

Secondly, much of the thrust in schools is to "prepare one for the life ahead". Unfortunately, this means stripping every last bit of individuality from kids to make them conform to the bland vanilla stereotypical roles expected of them in their "adult years" much as military "basic training" is all about the same thing to ensure that the individuals involved will be good obedient little 'droids who won't ask why they're getting shot at. If I had decided to wear a skirt to my then-girlfriend's proms (I ignored my own as a colossal waste of time) there would have been a massive stink -- a stink from the school department, a stink from my family, a stink from her family, a stink from her, and, in any event, I would not have had the guts to even try it then because of the browbeating that's involved in the years spent in the school system ("the service of the state").

"Society" expects^W demands certain things of us, and to flaunt those expectations is tantamount to poking a stick in society's eye. To do so takes confidence, it takes courage, and it takes a willingness to take a lump or two if things go wrong. Most children or teenagers don't have that; their surroundings demand a mind-numbing conformity -- and those that go against that conformity are dealt with both "officially" (suspensions, detention, letters to parents, &c) and "unofficially" (bullying, both physical and mental). Those demands for exact conformity (you must look, act, and think precisely the same as your peers) encountered during one's youth continue to have influence for years afterward. Some folks never overcome them -- they're a comfortable framework, after all -- but some, with time and confidence, do. Without those who question the status-quo, I'd posit that we'd be a poorer species than we are; but, those who stick out during their school years suffer the same fate as the nail that sticks up -- it gets hammered down.

The link in the original post is to a blog article on the story; I don't know enough about "boing boing" to know if it's worth even posting a comment there, or how much trouble they go to to get their facts straight.

Here's a link to the newspaper story, which includes some corrections.

It appears from the story that what the school was objecting to was what she was wearing in the photo. As usual, all participants are mixing up gender (or, more correctly, gender conformity) with sexual preference. There are utterly heterosexual women who have hated dresses and skirts all their lives, whereas there are plenty of lesbian women who love dresses, skirts, and other feminine stuff (the usual term for them is "femme.") There is no mention in the news story that she was particularly harrassed for being lesbian, so either the school officials preferred to be unaware of it (don't ask, don't tell) or didn't care.

My own attitude toward this sort of thing is that she may learn to see being rejected this way as actually a good thing, however painful it may be now. High School is a lot like prison: in the long run, you are better off if you don't adapt well to the environment, because adapting to it means learning ways of living and thinking that put you at a disadvantage on the outside. She appears to have been fairly successful, by high school standards, so maybe this experience will be a wake-up call as to how much use being "successful" in high school really is.


BTW, there was a similar sort of issue, in Mississippi, of a lesbian girl who wanted to bring her girlfriend to Teh Prom; the connection is that she wanted to wear a tuxedo. In that case, it appears that the school (and the town) were offended both by her choice of dress and her desire to bring someone of the same sex.