Dress Norms Research Articles

Ayo, Bisexual Check

Ayo, Bisexual Check

Review: Banning Black Gods: Law and Religions of the African Diaspora, by Danielle N. Boaz

This book provides a global perspective on the legal challenges for, and rights violations against, African diasporic religions in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Danielle Boaz uses the appellation “religious racism” to refer to the racializing effects of religious freedom laws and the worldwide restrictions of practitioners’ rights and abilities to practice African diaspora religions. She borrows this term from practitioners of African diaspora religions in Brazil, and uses it to draw out the intersections between racism and religious discrimination. With religious racism, Boaz brings together the ways in which systemic discrimination against African-identified religions has qualities similar to and connections with institutional racism. She shows how it has complex historical roots in racial slavery and colonialism, revealing the connections and parallels between forms of discrimination today and the kinds of regulation and oppression faced by Afro-diasporic traditions after emancipation. Some of the cases of religious racism Boaz examines, in places like the Caribbean and southern Africa, also show that white supremacy can continue even without White folks in immediate positions of power.The book is divided into three parts. Each section focuses on a set of African diasporic traditions and a set of legal and rights issues. An introduction to each section provides an unfamiliar reader with basic background on the particular Afro-Atlantic religions under examination. Section one focuses on examples of religious racism against Lucumí, Palo Mayombe, Vodou, Candomblé, and Umbanda from the United States, Haiti, Brazil, and Venezuela. These cases include physical violence against practitioners and places of worship, the restriction and outlawing of animal sacrifice, arrests for exhumations of human remains, and disputes over child and family services taking custody of the children of practitioners because of their religion. Chapter 3 is particularly noteworthy for its focus on the stigma and arrests for the disinterring of bodies against practitioners of Palo Mayombe in the United States, an important and challenging subject that has received little scholarly attention.Section two focuses primarily on Islam and Rastafari and issues of denial of freedoms due to discrimination based on headwear and hairstyles, like scarves and dreadlocks. This section looks at examples from Western Europe, East and Southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States. Forms of religious racism under examination include expulsion from school, denial of access to courtrooms, and employment discrimination, among others. This section takes up issues of the sustaining of global white supremacy through Eurocentric norms of dress and hairstyle that also adversely affect access to religious freedom by practitioners of Afro-diasporic religions.Finally, section three focuses on practices that have often been excluded entirely from the category of religion, specifically voodoo and obeah, the latter of which is still illegal in parts of the Caribbean. Boaz points the reader to the irony that while the persecution and criminalization of the practices of (largely White) Neopagan witches have greatly declined, persecution and lack of recognition have continued to plague practitioners of so-called witchcraft identified as African-derived, including in purported bastions of liberalism and religious freedom like Canada and the United States.I did have a few questions after reading Banning Black Gods. The book does not directly engage with conversations within the critical study of religion or the anthropology of law, and Boaz explicitly admits that these are outside the scope of the book. Nevertheless, while she does not overtly engage with religious studies theory, her approach and examples could serve as the basis for a strong argument for the role of redescription and the rectification of categories as steps in processes of racial justice making. This could demonstrate the importance and relevance of religious studies theory and extend the definition of religion beyond the classroom walls. Further questions I had concern conflicting claims to religious freedom coming from multiple sides. For example, how should friction over the exhumation of human remains be resolved between practitioners of Palo Mayombe and the living relatives of the deceased from whose graves Palo practitioners take human remains for ritual purposes? With potentially clashing claims about ethical relations with the dead, how should legal scholars, scholars of religion, and practitioners handle such conflicts?Boaz has formal training and expertise in both law and the histories of Afro-Atlantic religions, but she does not assume a high level of expertise on the part of the reader in either the legal issues or African diaspora traditions under examination. With each section beginning with basic information and background context for the particular rights issues and African diasporic traditions under consideration, this book would be very good for undergraduate students. Provocative, timely, and accessibly written, this book makes important contributions to the study of religion and law and African diasporic religions that will also be of interest to scholars beyond those fields.

IRAN: PROBLEMS AND PROTESTS

This paper analyzes the causes, course, driving forces, modus operandi, and goals of the September-November 2022 protest movement in Iran following the death of a girl detained by the patrol guidance police for wearing an inappropriate hijab. A comparison is made between the ongoing protests and the opposition movements of previous years. The article begins with a brief analysis of the economic situation in the country during the first year of President Raisi's government, and reveals the main problems of economic development. The authors proceed from the fact that the economic crisis as a result of the imposition of sanctions has not been overcome, despite the positive growth of the country's GDP in the last two years. The problems in the social and cultural sphere are exacerbated as a result of generational changes, and the limitations of political life as a result of the consolidation of power in the hands of radical conservative forces. Their attempts to increase control over the observance of Islamic norms of dress and behavior, bans on cultural events lead to increased discontent in Iranian society. Young generations are actively fighting for freedom of choice and the right to make their own decisions. Society's conflict potential is increasing, which threatens the existence of the Islamic Republic. The government's efforts to suppress the movements by force do not lead to their extinguishment, and the forms of protest are changing. While radical forces call for harsher reprisals against protesters, many politicians of both moderate conservative and liberal orientations call for public dialogue and reforms in order to solve the most serious problems and preserve the Islamic regime.

IMPACT OF FEMALE SCHOOL TEACHERS’ DRESS CODE ON JOB PERFORMANCES: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY IN SAGA CITY, JAPAN

The dress is an integral part of a profession. The research focuses on the dress codes of school teachers in Japan. Japan has relaxed the dress norms of school teachers over the years from a traditional/formal dress to a casual dress. We intended to examine if this change has a significant effect on the self-perceived job performance among school teachers in Japan with the purpose of seeking recommendations for many Asian countries like Sri Lanka in which traditional dress norms applied to teachers have not changed much or at all. A combined qualitative and quantitative study was conducted with three chosen prefectural schools in the Saga city, Japan. The qualitative study was a thematic analysis based on in-depth interviews with five selected school teachers. The quantitative study (n=30) was a descriptive cross-sectional study. A culturally validated, self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data on socio- demographic characteristics and dress code from the study sample. Self-perceived comfort level and effect of the dress code on performing their jobs were assessed on a set of given scenarios related to their profession. The responses were recorded on a five-point Likert scale. The subjects aged from 26 to 61 years old (mean =44±8 years). Wilcoxon Signed- Rank test indicated that the self-reported mean comfort score for casual dress of 25.75 is significantly higher than that of Kimono (mean score =10.77, p=.000). Most respondents believed that their job performance could be affected by the way they dress. According to the in-depth interviews, it was revealed that, compared to the traditional Kimono, the casual dress is convenient and comfortable for the duties they perform. Thus, the study reveals that Japan sets an example for the countries that are more concerned about embodying cultural symbols in the appearance of teachers rather than their convenience and efficiency: Japan has been successful in relaxing dress norms while sustaining the quality of education and cultural values. 

The Natural Hair Bias in Job Recruitment

Across four studies, we demonstrate a bias against Black women with natural hairstyles in job recruitment. In Study 1, participants evaluated profiles of Black and White female job applicants across a variety of hairstyles. We found that Black women with natural hairstyles were perceived to be less professional, less competent, and less likely to be recommended for a job interview than Black women with straightened hairstyles and White women with either curly or straight hairstyles. We replicated these findings in a controlled experiment in Study 2. In Study 3A and 3B, we found Black women with natural hairstyles received more negative evaluations when they applied for a job in an industry with strong dress norms. Taken together, this article advances the research on biases in the labor market in the age of social media use and highlights the importance of taking an intersectional approach when studying inequity in the workplace.

PERSPEKTIF ISLAM TENTANG TABARRUJ DALAM PENAFSIRAN PARA ULAMA

The source of religious unrest, especially Islam, regarding the development of women's movements in the world is concerning the norms of appearance, especially the norms of dress. In reality now, almost all women's movements, commonly called the feminism movement, always voiced the right for women to have a career outside the home. Islam does not forbid it, but the impact of the appeal is the fading culture of the Indonesian Islamic community which does not justify women leaving the house without their husband's permission, and without urgent needs. The purpose of this research is to find out how the understanding of tabarruj in the hadith, examine the quality of the hadith, and to find out how the understanding of the hadith in the book of shari?ah about the adab dress for women.
 The results of the study explained that the tabarruj in the hadith is a style of dress or attitude of women who deliberately attract the attention of others when he comes out of his house, showing the beauty of his face, body and jewelry, using fragrances to get praise from others. Among the traditions about tabarruj, there are those who are sa?i?, ,asan, ?a?f and even want their quality because one of their sanad is considered to be a lying lie, such as Jabir bin Yazid who is considered a scholar of hadith as someone who falsified this tradition. In terms of matan sa?i? because it does not contradict the Koran, a more sound tradition, reason and history. Understanding the Tabarruj Hadith in the Shariah Hadith book is the Shari?ah forbidding the wearing of Syuhrah (fame) clothing which makes the wearer arrogant, not wearing thin and tight clothing so as to form a body curve that makes people interested when they see it, not opening a part of the genitals, using clothes that resemble women?s clothing or conversely, and do not use excessive fragrance whose intention is to seek the attention of others.

Geeks vs grandees: A transnational comparison of dress codes in American and British federal technology agencies

This comparative transnational history informed by discourse analysis examines the US and UK news coverage of two new ‘federal startups’ created in the early 2010s: The United States Digital Service and Government Digital Service. These agencies were designed to renovate federal infrastructures and institutions by integrating technologies and technologists into the federal government. Early coverage of these agencies in both countries focused on the integration of casual dress norms common in technology industries into federal offices dominated by suits. In the United States, those norms were embraced, often with amusement. But in the United Kingdom, they were met with hostility. This article explains why dress code was a focus in both countries and why it was covered differently in each. Ultimately, this study argues workplace attire is emblematic of the differing ways in which industry and government partnerships function in these countries. Dress code norm differences offer a window into how nationally specific cultural values remained about technology and government in each country. Ultimately, these findings suggest the extent to which values prioritized by technology industries became those prioritized by the US government, and the extent to which the United Kingdom retained separation between those arenas.

Political discourses in fashion: the collective Estileras, a semiotic analysis

Fashion is a place of production of meaning in which social values are concretized plastically, enabling the transmission of the most varied and often antagonistic discourses. In this way several social groups are c onstituted with contesting narratives or reaffirming hegemonic values and tendencies, confirmed plastically in the adopted dress systems. In the wake of this thought we aim to analyze the discursive resources used by the collective Estileras on its page in a social media. This collective is positioned as a “place” for experimentation and transgression of dress norms sanctioned by contemporary society. The theoretical framework of Discursive Semiotics, developments in sociosemiotics and Michel Foucault's not ions of power will be adopted in order to account for the complexity of the verb - visual discourses exposed by the collective.

Expressive Wearables

Self-expression is a vital practice for a functioning social life. Wearables have become expressive everyday products, while studies showed how physical collocation can be an opportunity for social technology. This article identifies a perspective for future design of wearables as an extension of the body in its social context: designing for diversity in expression with respect to social boundaries. The collected literature demonstrates the development of new forms of expressive wearables that challenges norms of dress and three groups of participatory methods enable re-search into everyday life practices. The two initial studies—inquiring into everyday life and exploring the wearable design for new practices—exemplify these methods and point a way forward with a focus for design on distinct practices of self-expression.

Rationales and Norms for Teacher Dress Codes: A Review of Employee Handbooks

The research question was “What dress norms and related rationales are found in teacher dress policies?” Data were 102 school employee handbooks. Eighty-two handbooks (80.4%) provided one or more rationale, most frequently being “To project a positive image in the community” ( n = 56). Dress norms, categorized as broad and itemized, were determined to positively and negatively affect the learning environment. Findings can provide school administrations with the components of a clear teacher dress code policy.

Popular Constitutionalism and the Rule of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?

law within each legal system is a function of the practices of some social group. In short, law is a kind of socially grounded norm. H.L.A Hart famously developed this view in his book, The Concept of Law, by arguing that law derives from a social rule, the so-called rule of recognition. But the proposition that social facts play a foundational role in producing law is a point of consensus for all modern jurisprudents in the Anglo-American tradition: not just Hart and his followers in the positivist school, most prominently Joseph Raz and Jules Coleman, but also the anti-positivist Ronald Dworkin, who argues that law necessarily synthesizes moral considerations with social facts.But which group's practices ground each legal system? In particular, which group's practices undergird U.S. law? Positivists since Hart have universally pointed to either officials or judges as the recognitional community (my term): the group whose rules, conventions, cooperative activities, or practices in some other sense are the social facts from which the law of a given legal system derives. So Hart and all other positivists would identify either U.S. officials or U.S. judges as the recognitional community for U.S. law.This Article grapples with the tension between the positivist's official- or judge-centered account of the recognitional community and the popular constitutionalism now so widely defended by constitutional scholars such as Larry Kramer, Robert Post, Reva Siegel, Mark Tushnet, Jeremy Waldron, and many others. Surely the popular constitutionalist would want to claim that U.S. citizens, not judges or officials, are the recognitional community for U.S. law. I term this position deep popular constitutionalism.Indeed, it turns out that Dworkin's account of law, in its ambition to generate associative moral obligations for the citizenry as a whole, implies deep popular constitutionalism. Here there is a disagreement, hitherto unnoticed, between Dworkin and the positivists. My solution to this disagreement - to the debate between deep popular constitutionalists and deep official or judicial supremacists - is to dissolve it by providing a group-relative account of law. Social norms, such as norms of dress or eating, are clearly group-relative. A particular dressing or eating behavior may be socially appropriate relative to one group's norms, yet socially inappropriate relative to another's. This Article extends the group-relative view from social norms to law itself, with a particular focus on U.S. law and constitutionalism.Part I surveys the jurisprudential literature. It shows how Hart and successor positivists identify the rule of recognition as a social practice engaged in by officials or some subset of officials (judges), rather than citizens generally, and argues that Dworkin by contrast sees the citizenry as a whole as his-recognitional community. Parts II and III defend a group-relative account of law. Part II argues, with reference to the U.S. experience, that multiple groups can simultaneously instantiate the kind of social fact that undergirds law, be it a convention, a social norm, a shared cooperative activity (SCA), or something else. At many points in U.S. constitutional history, multiple official or citizen groups, defined along departmental, partisan, regional, state-federal, religious, or other lines, have accepted competing rules of recognition for U.S. law. Part III argues that law functions, primarily, as either an explanatory or a normative construct, and that insisting on a single recognitional community for each legal system would be arbitrary, both for explanatory purposes and for normative purposes. Part IV considers the many implications of the group-relative account for U.S. constitutional theory - in particular, for popular constitutionalism.

Wearing gender and sexuality “On your sleeve”: Dress norms and the importance of occupational and organizational culture at work

Gender scholars have long argued that workplace culture is an important key to understanding how informal norms create, maintain, and sometimes undermine gender and sexual inequality at work. Although most studies have defined workplace culture as occupational culture, less emphasis has been placed on the importance of organizational culture. This article addresses the importance of both aspects of workplace culture by examining the occupational and organizational dress and appearance norms of men and women who work as editors and accountants at a heterosexual men's pornographic magazine and at a feminist magazine. This comparative case study demonstrates that workers face different expectations about the appropriate split between “personal” and work identities, depending on what they do and where they work. These informal, unwritten occupational and organizational norms play a large part in workers' definitions of appropriate and inappropriate expressions of gender and sexuality at work and should be attended to more carefully in attempts to achieve equality for men and women in all workplaces.

The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul: Women's dress, mobility and Islamic knowledge

The issue of veiling marks an ideological fault line in urban Turkey. Based on focus groups conducted with migrant women to Istanbul in the spring of 1999, this article aims to show how veiling, as a form of dress, is a spatial practice that gains its significance through women's urban mobility and their construction of Islamic understandings in the city. At the same time, both urban mobility and Islamic knowledge are structured by wider relations of power, such as the struggle between the secular state and resurgent Islamic politics. In order to situate the practice of veiling within these structures, the author argues that Istanbul is marked by a pattern of shifting 'regimes of veiling,' and that these spatialized norms of dress affect the meaning and enactment of women's veiling choices. This concept is particularly useful to draw out the ways in which veiling, despite providing some protection from urban harassment, may actually constrain women's urban mobility in the context of Istanbul. The focus group analysis illustrates these points and demonstrates how women's views on Islam provide a basis for their attitudes towards veiling, mobility and space. The author suggests that among the participants, two main trends in Islamic understandings related to veiling can be observed: one towards the 'privatization' of religion along secularist lines, accompanied by a flexible attitude towards veiling, and another towards the public contestation of formal anti-veiling regimes justified in terms of knowledge gleaned through direct, textual engagement with Islam. In this way, this study aims to link veiling, as a socio-spatial practice, to the local, gendered production of Islamic knowledge in Istanbul.

The Genesis of Shame

L'A. propose une conception de la honte qui explique la prise de conscience de leur nudite par Adam et Eve. Examinant l'histoire de l'arbre de la connaissance du bien et du mal au chapitre 3 de la Genese, ainsi que le mythe de la nudite naturelle des ancetres, l'A. montre que la honte depasse la sphere privee pour alimenter le debat public sur l'auto-presentation sociale et le debat moral sur le rapport culturel au corps et a la sexualite.

Part II: Testing the Expanded Definition of A Normative Order

The purpose of Part II was to test the empirical applicability of an expanded definition of normative order by demonstrating how a process of social control operates to regulate compliance with the normative order for dress. Researchers examined daily newspapers to identify attempts at social control manifested in overt behavior involving dress in late twentieth century U.S. society. Steps two through six in Schwartz and Ewald's (1968) six-phase model of the process of social control provided the framework for the investigation. An observational procedure was used to identify norms, violations of norms, and sanctions. Reasons for violations of norms were documented and illustrated. Sanctions associated with violations of dress norms were enumerated and classified by their interrelated dimensions. The expanded definition is more robust and more powerful than the original definition because it suggests avenues of inquiry that have not yet been explored and offers a technique to explore them. The technique provided empirical data which begins to alleviate a deficiency in empirical evidence of the operation of social control of a normative order for dress. The expanded definition in conjunction with the process of social control offers a parsimonious paradigm for framing and determining voids in existing research.

Part I: Expanding the Definition of the Normative Order to Include Dress Norms

The purpose of this study was to present a current sociological definition of the normative order and then use reported deficiencies in the definition as a basis for proposing an expanded definition. The proposed expansion of Blake and Davis's (1964) definition is as follows: The normative order consists of shared standards or rules which specify what human beings should or should not think, say, or do, and how human beings should or should not look under given circumstances. Additionally, in Part I, we demonstrated how the expanded definition allows identification of the shared norms that comprise a normative order for dress and the eight dimensions along which they vary. This paper provides evidence from late twentieth century newspapers that there is a normative order for dress in our society that can be identified and documented using the expanded definition. The expanded definition of the normative order does not solve all the deficiencies in the current definition but does address some and suggests ways of addressing others.

Dress and Gender in Kalabari Women's Societies

This paper provides an analysis of dress in Kalabari women's societies of Nigeria Dress is examined as a form of non-verbal communication symbolizing changing gender roles among Kalabari women. Dress in this context also acts as a visual form of social control related to status, gender, and ethnic identity. The development and proliferation of Kalabari women's societies from the late 1960s is shown to be linked to political and socioeconomic developments within Nigeria. As roles for many Kalabari women are moving in the direction of increased social and political achievement, so too, does their dress reflect this change. As women redefine their norms of dress with women's societies, they visually reinforce their ability to ascend politically and economically in Kalabari society.

Clothing factors in energy conservation

The disadvantages of hermetically sealed office buildings have become apparent with the rise in energy prices. One solution being proposed is the development of climate‐responsive architecture. This paper reports on the need for dress standards which would enhance the effectiveness of climate‐responsive architecture. In a multi‐method study among office employers and workers, scant awareness of the connection between dress codes and energy conservation was found. Energy policy could be aimed towards increasing awareness on how dress norms can be modified for increased climate‐responsiveness, considering social as well as technological factors.