The Missouri House tightens its dress code for women, requiring covered arms | Hacker News Reader

The Missouri House tightens its dress code for women, requiring covered arms

npr.org

20 pointsmetadat13 comments

The relevant text of the bill (as far as I can tell with minimal effort, as I am not a woman working in the Missouri House but was merely curious if the outrage was remotely justified):

> Rule 98. At all times when the House is seated, proper attire for gentlemen shall be business attire, including coat, tie, dress trousers, and dress shoes or boots. Proper attire for women shall be business attire, including jackets worn with dresses, skirts, or slacks, and dress shoes or boots. For the purposes of this rule, "jacket" shall include blazers, cardigans, and knit blazers. This rule shall apply to all members and staff on the floor of the House and lower gallery.

[0] https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills231/hlrbillspdf/0785H... (pages unnumbered)

Frustrating to see NPR going to clickbait and such silly dramatic reporting.

I'll save you a click - a female representative proposed an update to the dress code, to bring the women's dress code more in line with the men's. The men's dress code wasn't updated because it was already more restrictive. That's it. That's the news.

There's a saying they like to throw around: When you're used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

> Women hold less than a third of seats in the Missouri House, according to the Post-Dispatch.

But the majority of Missouri voters are women. https://stacker.com/missouri/47-million-votes-see-demographi.... And I suspect given that it’s Missouri the majority of them think that both men and women should wear clothes with long sleeves in the legislature.

Then why does the legislation need to be women specific?

Why is it not "all members must wear long sleeved shirts, and a jacket or blazer"?

Surely if bare arms are offensive, then the gender of those bare arms isn't relevant.

@ultrarunner posted the reference language above.

You make a great point, but it seems like the drafting accomplishes your proposal and they want some attire norms (guys on ties.) It reads more restrictive on men.

I suppose you could also argue that guys should be allowed to wear dresses, but it seems reasonable to bet against that being challenged.

The rule says “business attire” for both men and women. For men, it specifically requires a “coat” but the previous rule did not require a coat for women. In this country the term “business attire” requires covered arms for men, but it can be more nebulous for women. The new rule clarifies that women must wear a jacket or cardigan: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article2...

You’re correct that the gender of the bear arms shouldn’t matter, and the Missouri rule applies the same standard to both men and women. You’re assuming the standard is different because NPR wrote a clickbait article that made you jump to that conclusion.

So the men’s dress code requires covered arms as well, since it requires business attire, including coat & tie.

Seems like flamebait. As an independent, Dems should stop overreacting to such meaningless and benign measures. How many women does this actually affect?

American Taliban.

No offense to Americans generally, of course.

Advice from a European woman in a liberal magazine about how MEPs should dress: https://www.politico.eu/article/what-to-wear-at-the-european... (“For the most part, bare arms just look unprofessional.”).

She's giving fashion advice, not creating legislation. I'm sure you understand the difference.

In any case, the fact that you tried to turn this around and make it american vs european suggests to me you missed my point. I wasn't suggesting that American culture is similar to Taliban culture. I was suggesting that the specific individuals who created this legislation are similar to talibans, they just happen to be American. I'm sure if you search you can also find Europeans who are culturally like Taliban (just not the specifically instance you linked, for the reason I pointed out).

> She's giving fashion advice, not creating legislation. I'm sure you understand the difference.

There is no “legislation.” It’s the Missouri legislature’s rules for what its members wear in the legislature while doing official business.

The distinction between “fashion advice” and dress codes in a government body isn’t significant here. If it is uncontroversial in the US and most other places that a government institution can have a dress code that requires “professional” attire when doing business inside that body. Nobody doubts that the Missouri House can have some sort of dress code.

So I took your comment to mean that only people like the Taliban think that bare arms is unprofessional. But from the article it seems to be the case that Europeans also consider bare arms to be unprofessional.

If you meant to attack the concept of mandatory dress codes generally, well then you’re tilting at windmills. It’s not just the Taliban that believe that a government body can tell its members what to wear during official business.

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