Dress Codes: A Theoretical Analysis

Every year more and more issues arise over the usage of dress codes in the United States. A more recent development over this would be, how dress codes affect transgender as well as gender nonconforming(gnc) students. The diverse argument has been brought up many distinct topics debated in several papers and reports. Two of those***Both articles have varying audiences. “Can a Boy Wear a Skirt?” by Jan Hoffman was published in The New York Times. Its main intent was meant more for school administrations and concerned individuals in the United States, as well as in other countries since it’s a rather well known and read newspaper. In contrast, the article By Mackenzie Mays titled, “Clovis Unified board keeps dress code unchanged despite legal

She uses quotes from a few people on both sides of the community’s decision on whether or not the high school in Clovis, California would change their dress codes. Mays writes in such a way to allow the audience to come around to Their own decision over if the board made the right choice or not. She uses quotes from people who have been living in the community for a while and who voted against the board changing the rules. One being a quotation from a concerned mother,” ‘- Because of them, I can have a male come into my daughter's bathroom," she said. "I'm so tired of my rights and my conservative values being trampled on because of this gender equality.’ "(Mays). She also used a quote from the school board president who voted for the change and who has been living in the area for a while; he expressed his concern for the future and how things will turnout. Mays quoted him in saying, “ ‘I think we have potentially left for ourselves some unfriendly future issues that might develop and I think that our obligation is protecting this district from unnecessary litigation and to follow the law’ ”. She uses such quotes to give the audience as much information as she can to let them come to a well developed opinion by themselves. Unlike Hoffman’s, the use of quotes in Mays’s article wasn’t necessary to persuade the audience to agree with her side, but more along the lines of just reporting the most relevant news for the paper she works for. Either way, both articles address school regulations that don’t necessarily work out well for gnc students and they try to awaken some time of emotion in the audience whether it be anger or pity. They both use this to their advantage and continuously play with certain emotional