Social Dislocation

Dress Code and the Challenge of Social Dislocation
By
Rev. Fr. George Ehusani,

Introduction

In recent times indecent dressing among many young people in our society and the widespread advocacy for the application of dress codes especially in our institutions of higher learning have received a lot of media attention and generated quite an amount of debate amidst a cross-section of Nigerians. I have followed the debate closely and I have observed that the war on indecent dressing is being waged in many circles as if indecent dressing is the primary pathology that is plaguing the Nigerian socio-cultural and moral environment. Those who are spare-heading this war, including University Administrators, Leaders of Religious Organisations and even Legislators, are responding to the very serious challenge of a major dislocation in our corporate existence with an inverted, passionate prescription of dressing.

Indecent dressing or immodesty in dressing, though a moral aberration, is in my view among the least of the many social, cultural and moral problems that are threatening to destroy this nation and its people. In fact, what we see today as widespread indecent dressing (as well as indiscipline) among the youths of our country is only indicative and symptomatic of the system collapse that is inevitable in a society run aground, where as it were, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are on edge.

Quite apart from the overarching factors ruling the country 's social pandemic, a good part of the debate on the subject of indecent dressing has often been devoted to treating the symptoms rather than the causes of the opprobrium that it has thrown up. To fully appreciate the contribution of dressing to today 's social predicament and its implications for youth development, it is important not to concentrate on the linear and vertical considerations alone, but with a bit of lateral thinking to examine the wider socio-cultural dimensions of the problem.

Dress habits and its evolution in human societies

It is attested to by human experience all through the ages that dress is not just a symbiotic identification of a people with their environment but is also an evolutionary expression of their uniqueness. Before the boundaries of the world 's communities became obfuscated with expedition, conquest and the overlap of cultures, dressing was closely linked to the habitat and reflected nature and the environment. Whereas the Eskimos fashioned their heavily laden dressing for maximum protection from the bitterly cold elements of their environment, the hot climatic conditions in our part of Africa under the tropical sun largely indicated a scanty dress code. The bare covering of the midsection would prove adequate for everyone including adults, and the sight of a young mother thus openly suckling her baby would hardly elicit any emotions of shame, arousal or indignation. It was a normal, natural sight.

However, as new cultures and values found their way into our society with the advent of modern civilisation, dress seemed to have changed from being essentially a natural expression and identification with one’s environment and became a symbol of acquired values, sometimes adorned for status or affectation and at other times for one to be seen to identify with the Joneses. Events have developed to a point in Nigeria where society has set formal and informal codes of dressing for virtually all occasions. Consequently such professionals as lawyers and bankers are obliged to dress in suits sometimes under the most inappropriate weather conditions. For most social events, Nigerians are often heavily padded with layers of clothing even when the hot whether conditions and the incessant power failure clearly indicate light or scanty clothing. Anyone lightly (but otherwise appropriately) dressed in such situations could be greeted with condescending disapproval.

Every society is said to be self-regulatory - setting standards, providing basic social and economic infrastructures, rewarding exemplary demonstration of group values and imposing sanctions against deviants from societal expectations. In formative years in this country, uniform dressing in schools and colleges remains the code. Early in life this uniformity emphasizes discipline, orderliness and identity. Later in life this dress regimen for minors is supposed to give way to maturity and freedom of choice and expression, the extent of which is now manifested in tertiary institutions where unbridled freedom is given flesh in unbridled dressing.

Nigerian Youth: Victims of a general systems collapse

Not much has been heard from the youth camp since the debate broke and so not all of the story can be told from the critical commentaries issuing from the older generation of Nigerians, some of who may be under the illusion that once our youth change their dress code our moral transformation is complete. The widespread disorientation, disillusionment and loss of the sense of values and meaning among the younger generation of this country must first be fully understood and appreciated in the context of the enveloping decadence in the nation. The social pressures at play in the national environment contribute in no small way to the behaviour of young people.

If all that is evident is the oppressive and limiting conditions of today, if all that is ringing out of today 's leadership is the hollow message of perseverance without end, if all that our young people hear is the cacophony of misrule and discontent, if all that they feel are the pangs of hunger and the pains of poverty, if all they can hope for is a life of misery, of insecurity, of joblessness and frustration, and if all they can perceive is a nation wallowing in economic stagnation, in a jungle of political misdirection, corruption and immorality in high and low places, a nation more or less permanently in decline on many fronts, if that is all that is in store for them in a land of such promise and potential, what do they care what anybody thinks about the way they dress?

In Nigeria 's convoluted social environment of today, dressing to please the crowd or to play to the gallery would come a poor second to other social imperatives in the minds of young people who form the vital majority in a country yet to find its bearing after decades of floundering. Whichever way we look at our nation, whether in its institutions, its organisation, its politics and economy, its religious structures, its cultural and ethnic interactions, in its social and administrative infrastructures and orientation, the question must be asked, in all sincerity and honesty, are we "properly dressed" as a people and as a nation? It just so happens that physical dressing is a tangible identity of human beings but beyond that there are these other 'dressings ' that portray who and what we really are. So before we begin at all to enter the argument concerning our dress code, and before we reduce the debate on indecent dressing vis-à-vis the pandemic moral decadence to a chicken-and-egg situation, we must address this all-embracing global question.

True, our physical appearance is often perceived as the most visible evidence of our sense of modesty and decency. True, our young people, notably in tertiary institutions and especially many of the female members, are evidently often more guilty of running afoul of public morality in dressing. But out there in the wider society, there is another group whose legal status and social recognition are contentious and controversial but who nonetheless enjoy widespread patronage as they ply their trade in skimpy dresses. They are to be found in their thousands outside the best of hotels in cities across the nation, in sleazy joints in urban centres and smaller communities, and in the most unlikely holes in society. They are prostitutes who are given some respectability with the appellation of commercial sex workers. With HIV/AIDS ravaging many families and neighbourhoods, this class of people put theirs and the society 's health and well-being at risk in more deadly ways than their dressing alone could ever do. Society can certainly not deal with the menace of prostitution only by dressing prostitutes in flowing robes. But are we targeting them for any kind of social reform?

In a country where youth orientation and development get perfunctory attention of the nation 's leadership across the board, we have bred a multitude of victims rather than a pack of rebels. In a situation of hopelessness and helplessness, young people are left to grow and mature in a state of abandonment. They are therefore easy recruits for pornography and prostitution, for drug abuse and violent cults, and for other social vices and negative tendencies. With no committed assistance and support, they seek understanding and acceptance from their peers rather than from parents, leaders or government. Trends in globalisation have deepened the distress for many and at the same time offered avenues to seek individual relevance in a socially dysfunctional environment. So for some, dressing becomes a means of attracting attention, of making a statement of rebellion and of provoking a dialogue with the adult society. And when confronted with a stare of righteous indignation, it is easy for them to retort in kind and with sublime abandon, "So what!"

On the domestic front, family values have become so degraded that our young people have lost touch with the traditional influence of parents and the immediate community. With little attention given by many parents who are preoccupied with the rat race of living and surviving in this country, what the child does with his or her time, and least of all, what they choose to wear no longer holds much concern for the parents. And of course morality is not an albatross on the conscience of young people alone. The adults are perhaps more deeply entrapped, which is why some have no qualms equipping the wardrobes of flimsy dresses that some young people have.

The moral bankruptcy by which some parents go to any length to aid and abet the corrupt and immoral passage of their wards through educational institutions is an example and an open licence for drifting into delinquency and portends difficult times for future leadership. Overwhelming social and economic decline has impacted heavily on many a family, practically consigning them to a lower status and standard of living. A consequence of this is the psychological stress that young people respond to by a reckless and lackadaisical approach to life - including the way they look, and from which promoters of crazy contemporary fashion trends gain a curious class of youth clientele.

Poor parenting may not be solely responsible for today 's culture of loose dressing but is contributory to its taking root. Before society embarks on the wholesale condemnation of a vital segment of its population we must look closely at the genesis of our moral decline and how the pollution of our values crept on us. For indeed we could be confronted with the classic case of the children 's teeth being on edge, the parents having eaten sour grapes. Today 's manifestations of degenerate sub-cultures among the youth could be the partial outcome of yesterday 's culture of indiscipline among the parents.

New cultural traits and how they impact on us

On the surface, what we see on our streets and on our campuses are indeed condemnable. The evidence of licentiousness and permissiveness is multi-dimensional in a society that has come under multiple attacks from prevailing global influences and foreign cultures. The clash of cultures that globalisation has brought about is partially evident in our changing dress habits. Elements of globalisation undermine cultural purity and freedom while promoting the integration and fusion of various cultural traits. With unrestrained access to television, the Internet, foreign magazines and other media, globalisation is homogenizing the avid interests of a large youth following, but often with invasive negative impact. Consequently there are today those who would seek the right to being nudist or such other forms of sub-social behaviour. Young people are particularly vulnerable to a predilection for pornography and subliminal sexploitation. In Nigeria, marketing jobs in banks with subtle dress codes attached are a regular form of bait for female jobseekers. Young people come under an assault of modern fashion represented by the catwalk displays of designers who sometimes use local fabrics for what some consider provocative dress designs.

We pride ourselves on being very religious people, the vast majority of us pitching our tents in the numerous religious camps in Nigeria. In our multi-religious national mosaic we often witness the demonstration of extremism in the perceptions and practices of our beliefs - from the very traditional to the very liberal. And so even in the most intolerable weather condition we find advocates of a gender discriminatory dress code that seek to turn the human person into a near robotic masquerade. At the other extreme are those who are wont to give free reign to individual sartorial expression, pleading that the human spirit is a free spirit, that the human body is a gift of the Creator, and that freedom of expression extends to the way one chooses to dress.

But the traditional Christian position argues on the side of modesty in dressing and comportment. (See Matt.5:27,28; Mark 9:42-50; Luke17:1-3; Rom.14,15; 1Cor.11:2-16; 1Tim.2:9-15). And that is why Christian religious leaders joined the fray in the virulent vituperations of critics against indecent dressing. Some of them have even gone further to prescribe punitive sanctions that strike at the very core of the offender 's spirituality. We must however note that not all who dress poorly or scantily in our society necessarily dress to kill. Not all who affect today 's fashion because of its currency necessary do so for immoral reasons. There are some, including students, for whom a clean T-shirt of any size, or a threadbare dress is the best available for Sunday worship! They include those whose social standing and economic well-being are low; those whose survival preoccupation is far removed from the aesthetic considerations of a dress code, but who nonetheless want to cling to a tenuous hope in a compassionate God and therefore would want to be welcome in Church.

These count among those who come seeking solace in the soothing words of the pastor. But what does the pastor do about the other very serious social vices of those who harbour in countless churches across the land, those whose 'peccadilloes ' are not as evident as the sea of dresses in any church gathering? These would include 419ers, crooked contractors, dubious business tycoons, dealers in fake and substandard goods, corrupt officials, election riggers, and others. Would there be a motive to turn a deaf ear or a blind eye on these classes of worshippers? Or would the struggle not continue to win them over from their ungodly disposition to life? What would be the rationale for denying the believer succour in the sacraments and church processes when Christ himself would dine with sinners and tax collectors? (Matt.9:10-13; Luke 19:1-10). Pleading harassment of a kind in these circumstances, quite a number would opt to vacate their membership of one church, one parish or the other, in search of understanding, compassion and perhaps salvation elsewhere.

The legal dimension of the dress debate suggests that those who pontificate and moralize sanctimoniously on the question of an acceptable dress code may not have too firm a ground to stand on. It would appear that there is no law moderating dressing or setting for Nigerians any dress codes, but what are to be found are criminal provisions against illegal soliciting and prostitution. As it is, it would be difficult to defend successfully an action in court that challenges the enforcement of a dress code in the adult public domain. It would be seen as an encroachment and a constitutional infringement on the basic rights of a free citizen. It would rather be more productive to seek other means of appealing to the moral judgement of the individual.

There is a tendency for the self-righteous to categorise obscene dressing as the extraordinary mortal sin of society. Who indeed is the moralist rightly motivated and justified to set and enforce dress codes for society? Would the pastor abandon the primary duty of winning souls, including the souls of the offensively dressed? Or would it be parents whose failings have contributed to hatching the present generation of social deviants? Is it the institutional leadership which is saddled everywhere with a baggage of problems in campuses, problems of cultism, exams and admissions fraud, gang murder, vandalism, etc.? No study has located indecent dressing as the repository of these problems. Is it government which itself can hardly stand on any moral high ground? Society too is overwhelmed and overrun by prevalent decadence. For example, in the absence of viable public facilities and devoid of any coordinated control, the national environment is heavily polluted by a wayward garbage culture that includes the indiscriminate generation of human waste.

How does society prosecute a cleanup process and to what extent would that be impeded by a 'crisis ' in today 's dressing culture? It would seem then that making a scapegoat of dressing bases our social predicament on a faulty prioritization of our national engagements. The impression is not here being given that negative tendencies are to be condoned or glamorised, but we must situate the problem in context. The emphasis must be made here that the problem of dressing cannot be the causative factor to the ills of society. Our society is multi-cultural and pluralistic. Those who are in the business say that dressing is in a constant state of flux, but that our dressing responds to culture as well as fashion trends. Dress codes are dynamic, and like music, they are subject to constant change of variable duration. How long will male hairdo or earring last? How long will tattoos remain in vogue? The odd pieces of frilly female dresses may survive for only as long as they hold any attraction for those who use them. And perhaps for as long as there appear to be enough critics to accord them the attention they do not deserve.

The human person is created in God’s image and endowed with high faculties. Part of God 's gifts to the human person is a capacity to control emotions, and particularly with maturity, the adult human person learns to keep his or her instincts and passions in check. The sight of a stark naked mad person on the street often evokes quiet revulsion. The observer’s perceptions are often tempered by the ability to suppress emotions of eroticism or arousal, often making the choice to look the other way. In the same way various levels of nudity may excite no more than controllable outrage in one who is imbued with enough maturity and self control.

As no empirical studies have proven otherwise, it is fallacious to claim that seductive dressing is the reason behind rape incidents. The perpetrator of rape would be more likely to need psychological or psychiatric evaluation and treatment, since most rape victims are not attacked on the basis of their dress. The randy university don or the sexual harasser is not enticed only by an inappropriately dressed female but is motivated by his sexual perversion. It is difficult for anyone to draw a neat line to determining the shapes and sizes of individual wardrobes. The moral strength of the human person as a superior species and one who has a working knowledge of the demands of the God of creation on the one hand, and sensitivity to the feelings of other members of the particularly society on the other, can play down the tendency towards the idolatry of the human body. As we mature through life, we should normally become more appreciative of the beauty, innocence and purity of creation, and be less focused on the sensual, erotic dimensions. That way we would be better able to handle and control our sexual faculties.

Conclusion

A small segment of society cannot be an island unto itself, insulated from the environment. It would be an illusion to expect that our institutions can be oases of morality in a sea of moral degeneracy. Curbing the prevalent irresponsible dress habit should not be about prescribing solutions that would create fresh sociological problems. Society must aim at conscientizing its members using the social instruments and institutions available. Any attempt at enforcing dress codes as a means of compelling religious adherence or as an excuse for the restoration of values could be counterproductive. The challenge before society can be addressed on several fronts. At the family level parents need to pay closer attention to the values the children are imbibing. Friendly interactions with, and good examples shown to children by parents, would be far more beneficial than any orders handed down. The sentiments of love, mutual respect and responsibility can be effectively engaged. The home as the first school of life and parents as the first teachers, remain the primary source of moral development for children as they advance through life.

While religious organisations can be moral custodians and guardians for our youths, care must be taken to ensure that those who lead in the religious field do not wear the label of running a tyranny in religious habit. Religious leaders constructively engaging their youth organisations and blending the peer group activism in a positive way can turn the morality crusade into a vibrant youth initiative. A properly organised counselling network that places emphasis on persuasion rather than coercion would yield far more positive and durable results than enforcing ultimatums.

Government on its part must have a coherent development agenda for the nation, a segment of which will take in its stride the issue of moral and ethical behaviour of citizens, including the appreciation of an appropriate dress sense. This would mean taking into account the poverty dimension that demands adequate focus and vision. While they complement the role of the family in character moulding, government and leaders are key in the challenge of channelling a credible course for society.

The challenge that faces all manner of leaders at all levels in our country today is in my view one of pervasive social dislocation, where, due to years of abuse and neglect, many young people have lost all sense of values and meaning in life. Faced with such a crisis at the deeper and more profound level of life’s meaning and values, an undue preoccupation with the dress habits of the youth population, or an obsession with dress codes, will amount to chasing rats when one’s house in on fire. Let us not forget the truism that dress, like other ingredients of culture such as language, music and artefacts, reflect the generational transmission of values of identity in a society. Let us not forget too that inspired leadership can catalyse behaviour change in those being led. With all sectors of society playing their part in the project of moral regeneration, the proclamation of a dress code for any segment would be an idle exercise.

References

Henry Olayode, Dressing, The Christian Standard, Ibadan, Daily Graphics, 2004.

B.B.C. Documentary, “What is an African Dress Code,” http://news.bbc.co.uk, March 1, 2004.

Crispin Oduobuk, “A matter of will and wrong priorities,” The Nigerian Village Square, www.nigerianvillagesquare.com, Sunday January 30, 2005.

R. Olaniyan, “Nigerian History and Culture,” in Encyclopaedia-Nigeria, 1984.

Wale Adebanwi, “In Defence of Indecent Dressing,” published on the Internet Site, The Nigerian Village Square, Tuesday August 17, 2004.

Tunde Ajibike, “Dress Code, a good step in the right direction,” in Saturday Punch, August 7, 2004.

Folake Ebun-Sowemimo, “The Guardian Editorial on dress code,” an article published in The Guardian on Monday July 26, 2004, pg. 65.

Maduabuchi Agbe, “The naked truth about dressing on campuses,” in The Guardian, July 4, 2004, pg. 20.

Okwaraoha Sabastian Livinus, “Dangers of Modern Civilised Nakedness, in The Guardian, Sunday June 27, 2004, pg. 36.

Ebenezer Obadare, “The freedom to (un)dress,” in The Guardian, Tuesday, June 15, 2004, pg. 63.

February 2005

References: Henry Olayode, Dressing, The Christian Standard, Ibadan, Daily Graphics, 2004. B.B.C. Documentary, “What is an African Dress Code,” http://news.bbc.co.uk, March 1, 2004. Crispin Oduobuk, “A matter of will and wrong priorities,” The Nigerian Village Square, www.nigerianvillagesquare.com, Sunday January 30, 2005. R. Olaniyan, “Nigerian History and Culture,” in Encyclopaedia-Nigeria, 1984. Wale Adebanwi, “In Defence of Indecent Dressing,” published on the Internet Site, The Nigerian Village Square, Tuesday August 17, 2004. Tunde Ajibike, “Dress Code, a good step in the right direction,” in Saturday Punch, August 7, 2004. Folake Ebun-Sowemimo, “The Guardian Editorial on dress code,” an article published in The Guardian on Monday July 26, 2004, pg. 65. Maduabuchi Agbe, “The naked truth about dressing on campuses,” in The Guardian, July 4, 2004, pg. 20. Okwaraoha Sabastian Livinus, “Dangers of Modern Civilised Nakedness, in The Guardian, Sunday June 27, 2004, pg. 36. Ebenezer Obadare, “The freedom to (un)dress,” in The Guardian, Tuesday, June 15, 2004, pg. 63.