WOMENS DRESS AND

DISCRIMINATION

By Carly Gardipe, Tai Harper, Kathleen

Carroll, Josiel Carvalho, and Melany
Gonzalez

Why This Topic?

When discussing what our topic would be, we knew we
wanted to talk about body image. As we narrowed down our
options, we realized that the area that had affected us all
personally was our clothing.
All of us at some point in our lives have felt judged based on
what we wore, particularly because we were women.

Where have we felt/seen this?

-Schools
-Churches
-Work
-In dress-codes
-With controversy over wearing hijab

Schools
- Dress codes in schools for girls in particular give power to school
authorities to regulate student identity ultimately establishing
discriminatory standards as the norm
- Over half of public schools in the U.S. have a dress code, which
frequently outline gender-specific policies
- Showing off shoulders, showing too much leg, wearing deeply cut
shirts, and wearing spandex material such as yoga pants or leggings
are the most recent cases being debated in public schools
- Many schools respond to criticism of dress codes by citing the
importance of maintaining a distraction free learning environment

Churches
-In churches womens dress is given particular attention. Oftentimes
only women who adhere to strict dress codes are accepted into a
church community.
-This relates to womens adherence to biblical standards, or worries
that women are distracting men from focusing on worship.
-In some countries, women can be arrested for indecent dressing in
churches.
-Some in our group have felt the pressure to dress a certain way in
church personally.

Workplace
One-third of women have been subject to some kind of workplace
discrimination.
-Many women feel they are seen as objects in the workplace,
especially when it comes to dress code standards.
-Women tend to be either told to look a certain way to appeal to men,
or to avoid distracting them.
-Men and women are often held to different dress-code standards in
the workplace, which plays into a culture of inequality.

Hijab
-It is illegal to discriminate against a woman for wearing hijab, and
yet women face infringement on their rights in many circumstances,
such as:
1. Fired from jobs
2. Denied access to public places
3. Harrassment
-According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 69% of Muslim
women reported discrimination. Compare this to the 29% for women
who do not wear hijab.
-According to one study done, 63.6% of women wearing hijab felt
they were a member of a discriminated against group in the US,
particularly.

Our Project
For our project we will:
-Create a web comic featuring three characters who are
facing the issues we have discussed.
-Create and distribute flyers asking people to go to the
website and read the comic.
-Track traffic to the website

Sources
- http://www.overcomingchurch.org/content.cfm?id=151&blog_id=86
- http://www.religionnews.com/2015/07/13/sudan-detains-10-women-wearing-miniskirts-trou
sers-church/
- http://www.summer.harvard.edu/blog-news-events/gender-inequality-women-workplace
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_kbm1bCYJwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=women+and+discrimination&ots=yYaUWqgiMN&sig
=zRLt2lBL9R9Arc6f63suftLDpaw#v=onepage&q=women%20and
%20discrimination&f=false
-http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/08/22/2510031/rape-culture-at-work/
-http://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1784&context=jiws
-http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/8431206
-https://www.aclu.org/discrimination-against-muslim-women-fact-sheet
- http://time.com/3892965/everydaysexism-school-dress-codes-rape-culture/