Open Forum: Dressing for Different Sensibilities in the Classroom

Last week, this email popped into our inbox here at Fashionable Academics:

Dear fashionable academics:

Over the last few years, we have seen an increase of students from the Middle East, with Muslim background, coming to our university.  As a female professor in a predominately male field, I have always dressed conservatively.  But, now I find myself wondering if I should only wear pants and long sleeves when lecturing.  After all, it is a culture shock for these young men to see a woman in a authority, let alone dressed in a way they would never see at home.

What do you think?  In order to communicate, do we need to dress for our student’s sensibilities as well as our own?  How far does this go?

-Engineering and Technology Professor

After some discussion, Ann Underfunded Humanity and I wrote back to Engineering and Technology Professor and said: 

Dear Engineering and Technology Professor,

Thanks so much for your email.  A couple of us have talked it over and our immediate response to your first question is that you should not feel compelled to only wear pants and long sleeves while lecturing.  We at Fashionable Academics are feminists, who believe that women have the right to dictate their own individual dress and personal appearances.  While it's admirable that you want to take your students' cultural backgrounds into consideration, there are no doubt also impressionable young men and women in your classroom who should see a smart, capable woman in a position of authority who dresses according to her own personal preferences.  After all, these men have chosen to come to the US and have no doubt also been bombarded with media images of western women.  I don't doubt that they experience culture shock, but I don't think we should dress according to the standards of their culture....

Best wishes,
Ann Underfunded Humanity and La Historiadora de Moda

We also asked Engineering and Technology Professor if she would mind if we opened up her larger question of dressing for students' sensibilities here on the blog.  Since she did not mind, I pose the same question to you, dear readers.  To what extent should we be dressing for our students' cultural and social backgrounds and sensibilities and how far does this go?

Personally, as I've gotten a bit older and as I've spent more and more time teaching, I dress more and more for myself (although I do think about how students might perceive me because of the way I dress, especially during the first few weeks of a term).  I don't like to show too much thigh in the classroom because I don't want my students thinking about how long my legs are.  I don't like to dress too casually because I do want to set some boundaries between them and me, and that is one of the easiest ways.  However, I don't worry about taking my nose or tongue piercings out for class.  I might dress more authoritatively if I'm discussing something especially provocative, but I wear sleeveless blouses and dresses, pencil skirts, funky Fluevogs, and colorful tights.  I also tell my students on the first day of class that if they have a problem with a female faculty or with reading then my class is probably not the class for them.

Most of my students at Big State School come from the Midwest, but every term I have taught there I have had several students who are ESL students coming from the Middle East, India, East Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.  I respect that they may have different points of view about historical sources and historical narrative, and that they may have different expectations about the way that teachers and professors dress (as well as how women dress).  Then again students from rural areas often have different expectations and sensiblities than do students from urban areas about dress, as do students who are fundamentalist Christians from those who are agnostic humanists.  There are a myriad of student identities, cultures, subcultures, sensibilities, and expectations in any given college classroom.  It would be impossible to dress so as to make them all happy.  So for me the bottom line is that I dress so that I respect myself, so that I am confident in the classroom, and I can feel that way in an outfit like either of these:

I'm curious as to where each of you draws your own personal line between dressing for yourself and dressing for your students, though.  So, again, to what extent do you think we should dress for our students' cultural and social backgrounds and sensibilities and how far does this go?   Please do share your thoughts!