You are presuming that the word "distraction" implies that men will be distracted by women wearing more revealing clothing without a dresscode.
I'm not really, that's literally what we told by school administration in elementary school (grade 6-8 mostly) when they talked about girls needing to wear shoulder straps that were at least 3cm wide and couldn't have bra straps showing and so on. At school dances they separated people dancing too close to "make room for Jesus". The whole thing had a clearly puritanical slut shaming undertone to it. It makes me feel pretty uneasy looking back on it, 40+ year old teachers were talking about 13 year old girls and being too sexualized. As if a 13 year old girl's
shoulder is something that's inherently sexual.
First, as I understand it, the purpose of dresscodes in Canadian schools is to keep the focus on learning and away from who is wearing the latest fashion trends, who has the most money to spend on clothes, who is the coolest etc.
What I was talking about was mostly about dress codes outside of school uniforms. Public schools where there isn't a uniform but there's a dress code based on how short your shorts/skirts can be etc etc. I went to a Catholic high school and we had a uniform, it was basically leather shoes, slacks/shorts/kilt, and a golf shirt, I didn't mind it because as you said it made it a lot easier that there was less worrying about brands and fashion at school.
Even within a uniform framework we still had problems with this stuff. There were a lot of (especially taller) girls who basically couldn't wear shorts even when it was 30 degrees out in June because there were literally no shorts available for them to buy from the uniform company that weren't too short without being too big for their waist. I never wore shorts because the only shorts that were big enough for my waist were long enough that they basically became capris. The girls pants didn't have pockets, even with a uniform there were still problems with this because it's really hard to do a one size fits all approach. Even the length thing, the rules was shorts had to be longer than your finger tips, and as I said above my arms are short as hell, I could basically wear the shorts from Bruno and be within the rules.
Second, teenage boys being distracted by sexy teenage girls is normal and vice versa. You can't change human nature, it is what it is, and from my high school experiences, the sexiest, best dressed girls got all the attention and the frumpy ones not so much.
Sure, teenagers will be attracted to each other is human nature and that's not something we can, would want to, or should want to change. But I don't agree that being so distracted you can't do your schoolwork is just human nature.
We can debate whether or not this is actually a distraction from learning or not of course, but the concept of boys being distracted by girls and vice versa isn't anything new or sexist either, nor is a policy that accepts that reality and attempts to deal with it.
The idea that boys and girls would be attracted to each other isn't sexist, but the way that idea is handled certainly can be. I really don't like the implications of it, boys being told that the onus isn't on them to stop ogling a girl's legs, and girls being told that it's their responsibility to keep boys from being distracted. It all comes back to a girl's body being seen as inherently sexual in a way that a boy's isn't. It really just makes me feel uneasy when you consider things like women being told they shouldn't have drank so much after they get sexually assaulted.
When it comes to schools the whole idea of a uniform makes sense to me. You are there to learn and socialize but you are only in school 30 out of 168 hours in a week, so you have plenty of time to show off your individuality outside of school.
I don't really like the idea of school uniforms in every public school, but I don't really mind the idea of Catholic or private schools having them. I don't really think Ontario should have publicly funded Catholic schools but that's a whole other can of worms
.
Well I Was responding to someone who did Well I certianly haven't seen any Feminists calling for Women to be part of the Draft or remove it entirely if it didn't allow both genders in the same conditions.
He didn't say he thinks it's OK, he said the same thing as me, that feminism isn't to blame for the draft targeting men and it's not an indictment of it.
Again missing the point, I understand it isn't however in todays modern world where Women are treated equal to men the question lies in how there isn't a Single country on this planet that subject Women to the same Draft standards as Men in Forced Constription
No I don't think I'm missing the point. You're coming back to this as a knock against feminism as if feminism is the reason why only men are drafted in some countries. As if it was feminist women that created the draft laws. There's plenty of countries around the world where neither men nor women are forced into conscription. I've lived in two of them. Why would we want an unjust and unfair policy like conscription to be even further extended?
You're wrong that feminists haven't tried to change it. In the
1980's feminists took it to the supreme court, and were voted down 9-0 (by 9 male justices).
Five times since 2003 there's been an attempt to make the draft equal and it's been rejected in Congress. Over the next few years women will be permitted to serve on the front lines in the US military. In Canada all military jobs have been open to both sexes since 1989. Doesn't sound like women are trying to shirk responsibility if they've campaigned to be allowed to
volunteer for direct combat roles.
And this is before we even get to the lowered physical Tests for Women performing the same Role earning the same money.
That's another discussion entirely. I don't agree that the physical requirements for combat troops should be different for men and women. I don't know enough of the specifics about other areas where women serve to say if the physical tests matter or not.
The argument lies in Feminism is Equal rights from a female perspective fighting for where Women are disadvantaged and rarely if ever Men who clearly have many themselves, in a previous responsibility based culture for one gender.
This doesn't mean that feminism is a bad thing or shouldn't exist. Are LGBT rights advocates bad because they aren't advocating to stop child abuse at the same time? Should we suspend welfare programs because there's children who don't have water in Africa? Are mental health advocates bad people because they're not raising money for cancer research? This just doesn't make sense as a criticism, of course feminists spend more time on women's issues, that's the whole point of the movement.
If Women want the Ability to Vote and do things exactly like men, they should also burden the Responsibilities men face as well such as the Draft and under the exact same conditions (which if I didn't already note lacks a single country on planet earth doing said thing).
I agree. If we're going to have a crappy thing like the draft it should at least be applied equally.
I don't know why you think it's a trump card to feminism though, or why you think feminists should have to campaign to be subjected to the same crappy system as a draft for the movement to be "true". Should whites have petitioned to be bought and sold as slaves, or should we abolish slavery?
