Dear Nyamewa:
Before anything else, I need to admit that I find your opinion piece enthralling. Oh yes!
It was enthralling, not because you made any particularly new arguments since this issue became a matter of public debate about a fortnight ago.
But rather, since your article was predicated on the obvious grammatical faux-pas in the SRC Women’s Commissioner’s release, one couldn’t help but gasp at the very many grammatical butchering ironically contained in your article. It was a classic case of the sick doctor trying to earn the trust of a patient.
A friend, Nana K. Gyasi, adequately addressed the grammatical issues contained in your article on his Facebook wall and I do not intend to repeat them here. For purposes of this rejoinder, however, I intend to dissect the various claims you made and subject them to basic facts and logic.
First of all, I noticed the very harsh adjectives you unleashed in describing the dress policy including “arbitrary”, “dangerous”, “stupid”, “daft”, “idiotic” and others. Incredulous!
You posited that “the problem with this ban isn’t that it is sexist, and very, very stupid but that instead concerning itself with what is needed to train journalists who tell compelling stories and speak truth to power, the GIJ management is focused on the clothes of students”(sic).
The basic assumption in the logic above is that GIJ management is less concerned about students’ training and only focused on the way they dress. I’m sorry but that is a very bogus and illogical claim. First of all, those concerns you listed are not mutually exclusive. They are all being addressed by management. If only you had taken the opportunity to read the Rector’s full matriculation speech instead of relying only on media reports to draw conclusions, you’d have known that he did not speak only about the school’s dress policy, but equally touched on the very issues you seem concerned about. For your education, the Rector, in his speech, was concerned about the performance of students. He touched on plans to accelerate the completion of lecture halls and hostel facilities for students at the university’s new sites, and the acquisition of new buses to facilitate movement of students to and from campus among other initiatives. So you see, the fact that the media chose to report on only the dress policy is not reason enough to conclude that management is focused only on students’ dressing.
Another ludicrous claim was to the effect that “the ban was made for men” and “is someone in management’s paternalistic plan to protect women students from all kinds of sexual harassment, rape, unsolicited touching and groping and sexual violence”. You continued to theorize that you “don’t believe that the school authorities meant to ban shorts for men”. That “what the school truly wanted to ban was miniskirts and whatever else the school administration deems indecent for women to wear.”
Seriously, one is at a loss as to how you came up with such farcical assertions. I take note of your attempts to pitch the policy as anti-modern; borne out of “Victorian ideas”. I think you need to appreciate the fact that GIJ, unlike any other university, is first of all a professional institution. The policy on dressing, as far as I can recollect, had always been part of the professional code of conduct of the Institute. To pitch the policy as a moral imposition from someone in management is not only misleading but imprudent.
You claimed there are better ways of ensuring decency, but failed to suggest any example. This leaves me with no option but to treat the claim as hot-air.
The policy, you assert, “sexualizes women students and strips them of their right to self-expression through their clothes.” Are you serious? Well, for your education, no right is absolute. The right to free expression is no trump card to wearing just anything to the classroom.
Also, the ban is not prescriptive so how can you claim that it strips anyone of their rights to self-expression? Your point can only stand had management prescribed a distinct dress code for students. As things stand now, students are very free to express themselves through any dress, except that they must be “respectably decent’ as contained in the students’ handbook.
Lastly, you rightfully asked that “what length of skirt will be considered appropriate and by whom? How does one determine what is short as the same length of skirts will look different on different body shapes and sizes? What does the university deem as vital body parts? How do they plan to enforce this ban?” Well, I have a simple answer for you: common sense rules.
By Isaac K. Batini