Zimbabwe teachers told to dress up!

Zimbabwe teachers told to dress up!

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By Showbiz Reporter

ZIMBABWEAN female teachers have been told to at “all times wear decent clothing, avoiding any dressing which may attract disapproval from the communities they serve."

A recent circular from the Ministry of Education warned tachers against dressing that "conflicts with cultural norms and values”.

Feminists said they believed the new regulations related to mini skirts, slacks, tight fitting dresses and dresses with slits.

Tatenda Mufudze is scornful of the “cultural” argument.

“This is a personal agenda confined to a certain section of society which can only survive through the perpetration or, rather, consolidation of partriachy . . . and this is just one way to do it, to keep the women under control! It’s about getting personal and into her wardrobe. Basically it means even our partners or husbands have been disempowered in determining how their partners dress,” she told Africa Woman magazine.

Activist Nancy Kachingwe was just as candid: “In what other cases are we issuing regulations on the basis of culture? For example, it is ‘our culture’ to pay lobola when women get married, but the state has not legislated over this matter, so why should they do so in this one, if indeed we accept that ‘Zimbabwean culture’ says women must dress in a certain way?”

Kachingwe argues that men's public morals need a great deal more working on than women's. “Unfortunately, patriarchy is never sufficiently concerned about women's public and private safety to actually put restrictions on some of men's anti-social habits,” she adds.

Lawyer Gerald Chihota supports the idea of a dress code: “I think the starting point should be to consider whether teachers should be allowed to wear whatever they want. I think a fair-minded consideration of this leads to an answer in the negative. It is commonly accepted that certain professions/environments require a higher degree of ‘dignity’ than others.”

He adds that while he would not mind being served in a hotel lounge by a waitress in a rather short dress, he would be offended if an undertaker sent a female attendant to his grandmother’s funeral wearing a bright coloured floral mini-skirt with a male companion in a yellow shirt and Mick Jagger leather pants.“I would not feel comfortable being attended to by a nurse in tight fitting hipsters, dangling earrings and chewing gum or a doctor in Bermuda shorts a muscle hugger,” says Chihota.

University student Wishart Mushape speaks of a difference between the ideal and the situation on the ground. “The ideal situation is the poor kids go to school and concentrate on nothing but their books, without taking notice of the ’wonderfully and fearfully made’ teacher in front of class. The real situation is by the time the guys get to Form One they are sexually active and curious, and their hormones are highly flammable. Why play with fire by bringing Miss Sexy Thang to class in a mini?”

While opinions differ on this touchy subject, all commentators agree that there are more serious issues to consider. “It would be commendable if those responsible for these restrictions would solve fundamental issues first, that is increase teachers pay and recognise the major role they play in society, ” says Mufudze.

“What I care about is real values which we are losing in society — solidarity, respect, honesty, humility and tolerance,” says Kachingwe. “Instead, as a society, we are becoming more greedy, corrupt, intolerant, abusive, arrogant, vindictive. These are the values that are in our culture that we should be worrying about, not whether women are wearing dreadlocks or mini-skirts to school.”

But artist Ramai Murusi, who argues that there is nothing new about dress codes in the professions, urges caution. “Let’s not create a myopic seeding of doubt and cynicism by use of extremist language, because we have a very serious task of shaping an inclusive future,” she says.

Recently, Vice President Joice Mujuru was forced to make a public denial over claims that she had proposed a nationwide ban on mini-skirts.
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