Indecency on campus: should the universities impose a dress code?

by Eche Sicancu

In Iowa (and some states), April is a great month because it suggests the cold season’s demise.

It’s also an open secret that winter season can be deeply depressing: the loneliness, freezing temperatures, icy roads, and fiery snow storms. With no family, no money and no sex, life can get pretty delusional for most international students. (especially those who are single)

So it is not surprising that spring-and subsequently summer is looked forward to with bated breath. But one bad thing about warm weather is that it tends to pave way for unrestrained body exposure. This is simply objectionable.

Let’s face it: while there are certain things in life that must be kept “short and sweet” a lady’s shorts is not one of them.

You may disagree but I think few things in this world are more tempting than a woman’s exposed body. Even if your mind doesn’t want to see, your eyes will look. Some people think they can get away with it by stealing quick glances back and forth. But the truth of the matter is that girls notice when you look elsewhere.

Do you know how my high school science teacher Mr. Bentum would have put it? “All female bodies are composed of tiny molecular magnets which have the force of pulling adjacent male pupils inadvertently towards them.”

There’s no denying that females are entitled to their own sense of fashion. In this era of unlimited freedoms, some people call it freedom of dressing. Not bad. What about freedom of watching? Looking doesn’t really hurt, does it? To me, our ladies must take as good as they give or better still, as good as they reveal.

The truth is that in many countries people see dressing in short clothes as a sign of modernity, sophistication or westernization. In Ghana and other developing countries for instance wearing skimpy clothes has become the rites de passage to maturity. “She’s not a small girl” they will say.

However by revealing too much in their dressing, some students hold the rest of the community to a standard of discipline that they fall short of themselves. I mean, most guys would prefer not to look but with an assortment of thigh-baring shorts, tank tops, exposed cleavages and low slung jeans, this is becoming increasingly difficult. Part of the problem may be due to the fact that the word sexy has become synonymous to lose dressing.

So the question is: can’t people dress fashionably without necessarily baring?

To be sure, I'm not saying people should go around dressed in long, frumpy, billowing dresses as if they were timeless advocates of the Virgin Guadalupe. However, it is simply unfair to be unnecessarily plagued with the greatest of temptations that a man or woman could ever deal with - the sexual impulse.

One more question: should the universities impose a dress code in order to address this trend? I think so. If the university has the right to impose a code of conduct, it also has the right to impose a code of dressing. Indeed some schools such as Central University in Ghana and University of Lagos in Nigeria have already done this.

One of the most brilliant arguments I have heard in support of a university dress code is a suggestion from a discussant who said, once enrolled in a university, we must subject ourselves to a trade-off that includes depriving ourselves of our freedoms for the benefit of the larger group. It is the modern-day concept of Rousseau's Social Contract. Those who object can withdraw if such impositions seem onerous.

Indeed, the arguments for decent dressing should transcend the sexy, fashionable or so-called sophisticated concepts. Rather it must stretch to one that encompasses gracefulness and rigid self-control by all sides. In the end, the culture of exaggerated dressing and the crime of discreet glances can be solved with moderation and self discipline.