Lucy's Law for Princesses

A blog by a Feminist Law Teacher.

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Vidal-Hall v Google (2015)

Earlier today, one of my Facebook friends was talking about how she was struggling with studying EU law at University. Her post, and the imminent referendum on remaining in the EU, got me thinking about all of the EU Regulations that I’m very bloody thankful for. Before people get all overexcited, and start banging the Parliamentary Supremacy drum... I’d like to point out that the EU influence on UK law is only about 13%. But one such influence that I’m delighted about, is the fact that we’re on the brink of a new dawn for Data Protection claims, which is likely to hit unscrupulous employers and their little CCTV cameras, hard. 

The landmark judgment in Vidal-Hall v Google (2015) raises many important questions on privacy rights and data protection law, and substantially advances the enforcement of those rights and that law in the UK. This comes at a time when the European General Data Protection Regulation is already set to replace the Data Protection Act in the UK, to further strengthen our rights. These are rights that we should all be very interested in, particularly given that in 2013, the UK was dubbed ‘the surveillance state’ after the British Security Industry revealed that the UK has one CCTV camera for every eleven citizens, notwithstanding the evidence that suggests Big Brother is about as efficient at stopping crime as a chocolate teapot is at holding tea. Last November, a report revealed that Queen Ethelburga’s College in Yorkshire had one CCTV camera for every three pupils in their Early Years provision. Unless Ethelburga’s doubles as a young offender’s institute for toddlers, staff and pupils’ privacy rights are clearly being infringed. The politics of this unsolicited gaze intrigues me, as does the legal recourse for distress caused by such infringements. And, since I’ve been quizzed about it, I’ll explain why Vidal spells the turn of the tide for data controllers that have, until recently, incurred little civil liability for their malpractice in this regard.

There are many laws and policies which exist on paper that cannot easily be enforced practically, much to the delight of the unscrupulous. For a long time, Data Protection was one such area of law that was notoriously difficult to enforce. The EU’s Data Protection Directive provides that any person who has suffered damage due to breach of the Directive can receive compensation from the data controller for that breach. The UK Data Protection Act implements that European rule by providing (in s.13) for separate claims for damages and distress, imposing conditions (a link to damages, or data processing for special purposes) upon any claim for distress. UK courts have interpreted s. 13 of the Act to mean that ‘damages’ can only refer to economic loss, with non-economic loss subject to the more restrictive rules relating to ‘distress’. In a nutshell, this means that in order to incur civil liability under the Data Protection Act, you had to establish at least some form of pecuniary damage (unless the processing related to journalism, art or literature). The wording of section 13(2) appeared unequivocal on this point and it’s been a nightmare hurdle for employees, and a powerful shield employers. In the past, your pervy employer could covertly film you on CCTV cameras going to the loo (as Tesco once did) and you wouldn’t have a claim for civil compensation because you hadn’t lost any money as a result of the misuse of images. Your distress, resulting depression, fear of public toilets… well that was all tough luck in terms of data protection. There was little point in bringing civil proceedings against your employer, and the infringing company had fewer constraints upon its breach of the law.

A second problem, is that the UK relies heavily on the Information Commissioners Office, or the ‘ICO’ for enforcement. The ICO is the UK’s independent authority that upholds information rights in the public interest, promotes openness by public bodies, and data privacy for individuals. They have a huge workload because a lot of public bodies are naughty, and don’t respect data privacy for individuals. The ICO holds a register of data controllers, which outlines the ways in which public bodies are entitled to process your personal data. For instance, a company that uses CCTV cameras will register their cameras with the ICO for maintaining security, and preventing and investigating crime. This would mean that the company couldn’t then use the cameras to spy on employees to decide whether they spent too much time chatting, like the manager of House of Fraser did to his beauty department staff in April of last year; or monitoring staff toilets to catch workers spending too long on their breaks as Tesco did in 2009; or having a bit of a perv at the length of an employee’s skirt, for instance.

The ICO has gradually gown more teeth, and now has the power to issue fines of up to half a million pounds for information breaches ranging from accidental disclosure of personal data; misuse of CCTV surveillance systems; failing to redact personal data sufficiently; Freedom of Information complaints; and subject access complaints.  Only last month it fined the CPS £200, 000 for failing to keep recorded police interviews with victims and witnesses secure. Somebody left an unencrypted laptop on a bus. This is almost as surprising as the employer who intended to send out CCTV images of an employee, but instead sent personal family photographs of his personal assistant by mistake. In October 2013 Europa facility Services Ltd were fined £38,000 for wrongly using CCTV to spy on an employee, who, it turns out, was not actually doing anything wrong. Similarly in 2015, the ICO found that education chiefs had breached the Data Protection Act when they used CCTV to spy on a teacher while shopping after she had gone on sick leave with stress. Kim Shaw was followed ‘like the Stasi’, and the only observation that her employer made was that she was wearing ‘flamboyant kitten heeled shoes with flowers on the front’. Apparently her boss found these shoes titillating. Further across the globe, in Australia, a security firm called ‘SecureCorp’ have been discovered to have been employing security guards who were stalking women in a shopping mall using CCTV cameras, and were storing these images in a so called ‘sleaze file’. Unfortunately, employers have been known to keep similar files of CCTV images of ‘short skirted’ female employees on their personal desk tops, R on the Application of A v B (2010) being a case in point. The defendant here was dubbed a danger to women by police; and I could not agree more. Incidentally, if an employee gets nowhere with a civil suit using the ICO, they should consider taking criminal action instead. The National Stalking helpline offers sound advice for employees who believe that they might be being stalked by their bosses, with or without the assistance of CCTV cameras.

As well as issuing fines, the ICO also issues enforcement notices for institutions to improve their practices. In July this year, an undertaking to comply with the DPA was signed by the Principal of King’s College London, after a spreadsheet containing personal data of 1831 students was sent in error to 22 students after his text redactions failed. Last month concerns were raised over the surveillance at Queen Ethelburga’s College after 501 CCTV cameras were allegedly being used to catch children kissing and queue jumping. Incidentally, the extensive use of CCTV surveillance in education beyond usual security practice is an approach which I am very interested in, and it is causing increasing concern, and an increasing number of complaints to the ICO. The Teacher’s Union, NASUWT has recently published a report: ‘Monitoring of teachers – a shocking catalogue of professional disrespect and intrusion’ after completing a snapshot survey of 7,500 teachers. The NASUWT alleges that that CCTV cameras introduced in schools as a safety measure are now being used to spy on teachers. They also concluded that cameras were ‘open to misuse by senior management’ who were using it ‘to form negative views about staff.’ The NASUWT accuses education chiefs of using CCTV in ‘Big Brother’ tactics to catch staff out. It claims ‘lab rats have more privacy than teachers’. This sentiment was echoed by Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers: ‘of great concern is the potential for covert surveillance of pupils and staff.’ Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said they were surprised by the results of the investigation and stressed that ‘some schools tell us they do this to prevent crime or for security. But there is no evidence that suggests putting up CCTV improves the security of schools.’ This was certainly case for George Stingas, a teacher who complained that the Principal of the high school in which he worked was using CCTV not for security purposes, but for organisational bullying. The unlawful pupose for accessing the footage was to ‘check whether he was completing his yard duty or not’. Definitely a good reason for contravening the basic human right to privacy, then.

Seemingly, in a world dominated by social media, a lot of employers fail to realise that as data controllers, they do not have the same rights over personal data, as the data subject himself does. In July of last year, the ICO began an investigation into a CCTV helicopter image taken of Michael McIntyre which was posted to the National Police Air Service London Twitter account, run by the Metropolitan police with 121, 000 followers. It was denounced by human rights campaigners who said it was ‘highly inappropriate’ and showed a ‘complete disregard for the surveillance and data protection laws that are there to protect privacy.’ The growth in surveillance over recent years, and the potential for abuse of this, is putting extra strain on the ICO. Even where the ICO issues a fine, the victim of the information breach doesn’t get that money, the ICO does. The victim does get a bit of paper which proves that the defendant is in breach of the law though; and now they can do something exciting with it in the civil courts, thanks to Vidal Hall.

Ms Vidal & Co were three individuals who alleged that Google had been collecting private information about their internet usage from their Safari browser without their knowledge or consent. Vidal et al brought claims under the tort of misuse of private information and under s.13 of the DPA, even though there was no claim for pecuniary loss. The Court of Appeal had to address four issues. Firstly, is there a tort of ‘misuse of private information’; Secondly, whether it was possible to sue for non-economic damage; thirdly, whether the information involved was ‘personal data’ for the purposes of data protection law; and finally, whether there was an arguable case in tort and data protection law.

Most of that isn’t all that interesting to me. The case clarified that the misuse of private information is a tort for the purposes of service out of the jurisdiction. The information was ‘personal data’ for the purposes of data protection law, and there was an arguable case in tort and data protection law. The best bit though, is that the case established that there is now no need to establish pecuniary damage to bring a claim under the Data Protection Act. Distress alone is sufficient. Are you listening employers? The Court of Appeal disapplied the clear wording of domestic legislation (something which would be appalling to Lord Esher) on the grounds that the UK Act could not be interpreted compatibly with Article 23 of the EU Directive, and Articles 7, 8 and 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Court held that the wording of the Data Protection Act, which required financial loss in order to bring a claim, was inconsistent with the European Data Protection Directive because the main purpose of the Directive was to protect privacy rather than economic rights.  It said it would be “strange” if it could not compensate those individuals who had suffered emotional distress but no pecuniary damage, when distress was the most likely result of a data protection breach. Indeed, the poor Tesco employees being watched going to the lav aren’t upset because they’ve lost a fiver. They’ve lost their right to be treated with dignity and respect, which deserves to be compensated.

My fellow EU law lovers will also be chuffed that Vidal-Hall also shows how important the Charter of Fundamental Rights is in overcoming the lack of ‘horizontal direct effect’ of Directives. The alternative option of bringing a Francovich damages action against the state for its breach of EU law would be pants by comparison. Disapplying the Act of Parliament in the main litigation is fine by me. The Court of Appeal rejected the possibility of using the Marleasing principle of indirect effect, to strike down s. 13(2) of the UK Act. The principle of indirect effect is a rule of interpretation, requiring national courts to stretch the interpretation of national law as far as possible to ensure that it implements EU law correctly. That principle reaches its limits when national law cannot be interpreted consistently with EU law, as was the case here. Interestingly though, the court was applying Article 47 of the Charter to disapply UK law, not Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter, which set out the substantive rights to privacy and data protection. I’d be intrigued to know whether Articles 7 and 8 can be enforced by this route too. But sorry, I’ll have to leave you hanging on the edge of your seats with that one.

Even with that cheeky little cliff-hanger, the judgment leaves much food for thought, particularly on the wider knock-on effect as other Member States might question their own requirements of pecuniary damage as opposed to allowing pure distress claims. In February of this year, the Paris Court of Appeal followed Vidal-Hall in issuing criminal sanctions both against a restaurant ‘La Closerie Des Lilas’ and it’s manager, for misuse of a CCTV system which had been put in place for security purposes and not to monitor employees. It also awarded compensation to the employee for moral damages. The court ruled that use of CCTV images to provide evidence of the employee’s behaviour, was against the initial security purpose for which the cameras were registered with Paris’ equivalent of the ICO. In so doing, Paris recognised that privacy harm can result in moral damages for the employee whose pictures were misused, in addition to criminal sanctions. I do hope employers are listening up. If they breach the Data Protection Act, and the ICO says that they have, they should be expecting to pay out for the distress that they’ve caused, in addition to the ICO penalties and their potential liability in criminal law. Now for once, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

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Love this.

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Apparently only women need additional advice. We need to avoid being provocative and distracting.

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She was wearing a bra, so it was her fault.

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Think modesty, girls.

Since publishing my last blog, I have been stunned to receive the school dress codes from young girls in six different states in America. I have been left flabbergasted at teachers telling young girls that they should “think modesty” and that their outfit “should draw attention to your achievements, not your body.” One girl was told that she should “choose an outfit that is pretty enough to show you’re a woman and covered enough to show you’re a lady”; whilst another was informed that: “shirts should draw attention to your face, not your chest.” And don’t even get me started on the infamous graduation dress code from Biglerville High School in Pennsylvania, which told girls to cover up their “sausage rolls” and added: “don’t try and force ten pounds of mud into a five pound sack.”

The consequences for not thinking modesty; or forcing too much mud into the sack; was highlighted by Florida high school student Miranda Larkin last year. Miranda was forced to wear a ‘shame suit’ consisting of a neon yellow t-shirt with “Dress Code Violation” printed across the front in big block letters and a pair of red jogging bottoms with the same message running down the leg because she wore a skirt that didn’t reach her knees. A teacher from Oakleaf High School explained that it was for Miranda’s own protection from the boys, and to “embarrass her into not shaming herself again.” I think the only person Miranda needed protection from was this teacher, who ought to be ashamed for bullying a child into a suit, which, rather ironically, would surely have been more of a distraction to the boys.

The girls who sent me these disgraceful dress codes asked me two questions. Firstly, what is a feminist? And is it a bad thing to be one? They also asked for my thoughts on their schools using biblical concepts of modesty to shame them for showing shoulders and leg. Ok, strap yourselves in…

Being asked by young girls if feminism is a bad thing cuts me to the quick. In writing feminist blogs; and requesting a zero tolerance policy on all the patriarchal bullshit; I am well aware that the armies of the status quo will mock me. I’m clearly some hairy; bra-burning; lesbian, right? But so what if I am? Some feminists are hairy. Some feminists don’t like bras. Some are lesbians. But that shouldn’t invalidate anything they’re saying. If everybody believed that women’s sexual usefulness to men was irrelevant to the conversation about women’s basic human rights, there wouldn’t be any misogynists, and this would be a moot point. It’s therefore no surprise then, that people have told me that I don’t ‘look like a feminist’. I clearly wasn’t wearing my sandwich board that day. This conforms to the ridiculous  #HowToSpotAFeminist hashtag from last year. The point is, that you can’t spot one. We’re all different. And different is good.

I wear skirts and killer heels because I’m a feminist. I happen to share Bibesco’s view that lace knickers won’t hasten the holocaust, and you can ban the bomb in a feather boa just as well as without. To me, being a feminist means expressing yourself however you want, and allowing others to do the same. As Yasin points out, wearing a hijab isn’t inherently liberating, but neither is baring one’s breasts. What is liberating is being able to choose either of these things. It’s pretty ludicrous to think that oppression is somehow proportional to how covered or uncovered someone’s body is. Both sides of this argument present a shallow understanding of women’s empowerment, which only drowns out the substantive challenges facing all women, issues that cannot be encapsulated in a debate about a piece of fabric.  Rebecca West once said that she was not able to find out precisely what feminism is; but knows that she was called a feminist whenever she expressed sentiments that differentiated her from a doormat.

 So I do hope, that my own sex will excuse me, if I treat them like rational, autonomous adults, rather than viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, requiring protection from men, and sometimes themselves. Excuse me girls for believing that your bodies are not democracies; but empires, and you alone are their dictators. In believing these things, I embrace the label of Roxane Gay’s ‘bad feminist’ because I’m not saying I’m right. I’m not trying to be an example to anybody. There isn’t one 'right’ way to be a woman, nor is there one right way to be a feminist. I’m simply trying to support what I believe in. I want to be the generation of parents who tell their sons to behave rather then tell their daughters to beware.

We need to reclaim the word ‘feminism’. Young girls should not be asking me if it’s a bad thing, but I’m not surprised they’re wondering. Start typing "feminism" and "feminists" into Google search, and see what disturbing results come up. ‘Feminists must die’ and ‘feminists have daddy issues’ came up for me. This problem was highlighted by the powerful viral UN Women Google auto-complete campaign in October 2015. Perhaps these negative stereotypes go some way to explaining why only 42% of British women and 29% of American women see themselves as feminists. I’d like to ask the missing percentages the following: What part of liberation for women isn’t for you? Are you offended by your own anatomy? Do you not want to vote? Do you want to be owned by your husband? Do you think marital rape is ok? Are you happy to be paid less than a man for the same job? Is your voice not as important as your brother’s? Feminism is the radical notion that women are equal to men. Equality should not be a concept. It’s a necessity. To those who say that we already have equality, they just can’t see the glass ceiling because it’s virtually invisible. Moran suggested that what we need is for more birds to fly above it and shit all over it, so we can see it properly. I’m more than happy to oblige. Using the bible to shame young girls, is one load of crap that certainly needs exposing.

 Whilst in the UK we like to use the term ‘provocative’ to shame our young women through dress codes, in America they go a step further and use the word 'modesty'. The dress codes that I was sent, attempt to use the Bible as justification for shaming girls on the length of their skirts. I was appalled by the use of the word ‘modesty’ in this context for a number of reasons. Firstly, it highlights the impossible position that women face in trying to reconcile themselves with the mutually exclusive demands of popular, versus modesty culture. On the one hand we're told, 'if you've got it flaunt it', and on the other, we're told to cover it up. We are told that it is our fault if a man ignores us on the one hand, or objectifies us on the other.

Secondly, it represents the clear double standards that we have for boys and girls within society. The word ‘modesty’ was only used in relation to the girls at the school. Seemingly, boys can be 'immodest' (whatever that even means) in their dress. Although this is not surprising given that men’s fashion decisions, are not carefully teased apart to read layers of meaning into them, like women’s are. Thirdly, it represents the perpetuation of rape culture through victim blaming. Girls are being taught to cover up their bewitching body parts, to prevent boys from giving in to their unavoidable animal urges. This is upsetting. The real message we need to give young girls is that it is not a lack of female modesty, but a sense of male entitlement that leads to sexual violence. Telling girls to cover up and be modest as puberty hits, teaches them that their bodies are inappropriate and subject to constant scrutiny and judgment, including by the adults that they trust the most. Finally, it represents the misunderstanding of the references to 'modesty' in the Bible, by modesty culture.

 Popular culture demands that women are flawless. Woe-betide a female celebrity looking less than camera-ready on her own doorstep. She'll be torn to shreds by the media. Luckily for women, fillers for buttocks, lips, and breasts are available to help them attain this flawless look, and to get curves in 'all the right places', as Meghan Trainor explains. Later, these women will be expected to hide these curves, but for now, at the weekend, they must flaunt them. There’s a predictable social media formula for what women’s pictures online should look like. Applications like Facetune and Instgram filters help to this end. Perky breasts in bikinis are good, but breastfeeding pictures will be reported and removed. Instagram removed a self-portrait from artist Rupi Kaur that showed a small amount of her menstrual blood, because having a period violated the site’s Terms of Service. Volenti pointed out that the broader message to women couldn’t be clearer: sexy images are appropriate, but images of women’s bodies doing natural things are not. Women wearing next to nothing is commonplace, but not if you’re fat. Or old. Only last week I posted about the backlash Susan Sarandon received for daring to reveal her bra beneath a Max Mara white suit. Piers Morgan and others on Twitter complained about having to see ‘old’ cleavage. These twits missed the irony that Sarandon’s speech opened with a reference to her friend David Bowie. Less than a month prior, tweets were flooding in celebrating Bowie’s rejection of the status quo, and unconventional dress. He was a bloke though, so that’s ok. This is popular culture disempowering women by telling them that their worth is based upon whether men (and other women) find them attractive or not. This isn't great. But modesty culture isn't any better.

Modesty culture tends to disempower women by telling them they must dress to keep men from looking at them. In both cases, the woman is expected to accommodate her appearance to the (varied and culturally relative) expectations of men. In both cases, it becomes the woman’s job to manage the sexual desires of men. It is contradictory, and confusing. On the one hand, women must get men to look at them. On the other, they must actively prevent it. The general message seems to be: 'be beautiful and confident in your own time, and a modest frump at school or work.' Pretty clothes for the weekend, and a sack for the day job. Women are being taught to be ashamed of their bodies, as they try fit in with the conflicting and ever-changing demands of popular and modesty culture.

The dress codes that I read today, made reference to the Bible when explaining that girls should dress 'modestly'. This is where I think that modesty culture has got a little confused. The Greek word 'kosmios' has been translated to mean 'modesty'. But it's roots are not how we understand the word. 'Kosmios' comes from 'kosmos' meaning universe. It actually signifies orderliness, self-control and appropriateness. On this basis, it surely would be a more appropriate word to be bandied about at the boys who are apparently distracted by the shoulders of their female peers? Indeed, it appears only twice in the New Testament, and interestingly, its second usage refers specifically to men (1 Timothy 3:2). I have looked at references to women dressing modestly, and in particular at the passage where the apostle Paul says: “I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” (Timothy 2:9). This isn't about sexuality. It's about materialism. All of the Bible’s instructions regarding modest clothing are actually about not flaunting your wealth, not about not flaunting your skin (Isaiah 3:16-23, 1 Timothy 2:9-12, 1 Peter 3:3). Girls are being told to keep their legs, cleavage, and shoulders hidden, but no mention is being made about not flaunting a mobile phone, or ensuring that jewellery was justly acquired, which is actually what the Bible is saying.

Modesty culture is confused. Biblical modesty isn’t about managing the sexual impulses of other people. I find it very disappointing that the real message is being lost, and the Bible is being used as a justification to bring shame on young girls. If boys are looking at the girls with lust, the problem lies with the boys. Girls cannot, and should not be held accountable for any inappropriate reactions to their bodies from boys. Nor does the Bible say this, quite the contrary in fact. Jesus placed the responsibility for lust on the man doing the lusting in the New Testament: “if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away!” There is no suggestion here that the woman he was lusting over should hide herself away in shame, or that she should be dressed in a yellow ‘shame suit’ in order to ‘embarrass her into not shaming herself again.’  

 I also believe that schools are also taking great liberties in implying that their dress code accords with the Bible, when there is of course, no universal standard on what is 'modest'. This is a culturally defined concept, it changes over time. In the Victorian era, it was considered immodest for women to show their ankles. In 1938, Helen Hulick was held in contempt of court and imprisoned for five days for refusing to wear a skirt to testify as a witness in court. Seemingly, she wasn’t showing enough flesh, and didn’t look like a lady in her trousers. Hulick explained: “Listen, I’ve worn slacks since I was 15. I’ll come back in slacks and if he puts me in jail I hope it will help to free women forever of anti-slackism.” Unfortunately, this anti-slackism continued into 2016. Just ten days ago, female British Airways cabin crew won a legal battle against their company dress code, so that they’re now allowed to wear trousers (rather than a skirt) if they choose to. The crew’s union, Unite, said BA was “joining the 21st century” by making the change. Erm, a few decades too late, if you ask me and Helen Hulick.

The concept of modesty is also different from one country to the next. A nice example of this is seen in Caroline Latteier’s piece on America’s obsession with breasts.  Latteier described interviewing a young anthropologist working with women in Mali, a country in Africa where women go around with bare breasts in order to breastfeed. When the anthropolisist told these women that in our culture men are fascinated with breasts there was an instant of shock. The women burst out laughing. They laughed so hard, they fell on the floor. They said, “You mean, men act like babies?” Touché, ladies, touché. And for those of you thinking that African culture is too different to draw valid comparisons; in some parts of France, wearing what our society would class as a ‘modest’ long skirt is now a problem. In April 2015 a 15-year-old Muslim girl was banned from class twice for wearing a skirt that was deemed to be too long. Her story was trending on Twitter with the hashtag #JePorteMaJupeCommeJeVeux, which translates to mean ‘I wear my skirt how I please’. One Twitter user commented “If it’s worn by a ‘white’ person, it’s hippy chic, if it’s a Muslim, it becomes conspicuous,” illustrating a further problem that what is ‘appropriate’ is not just dependent upon the country, but that it also changes from woman to woman.

Perhaps it would be preferable to just concern ourselves with whether women clothe themselves in 'strength and dignity' (Proverbs 31) rather than long sleeved shirts? We should not be teaching young girls that a woman's body will cause men to sin. This is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible should not be used to perpetuate rape culture. Victims of rape are not responsible for their abuse, regardless of whether they were dressed 'immodestly' or not. Rape pre-dates the mini-skirt, and men wearing trousers also get raped.

 So... where does this leave us, girls? Fumbling about between 'immodest' popular culture, and 'modest' modesty culture, I suppose. Trying to get the perfect outfit to please everybody, on the right day. Dressing for other people is exhausting, so just dress for yourself. I suggest clothing yourself in strength and dignity, and holding your head up high. As Klein points out, clothes aren’t going to change the world, but the women who wear them will. So put on whatever makes you feel like you can change the world, and go do it. Don't let the teachers dressing you in dress code violation shame shirts, tell you that it's what Jesus would have wanted. He wouldn't. He'd have told that gross fifteen year old to rip his own eyes out.

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Last week, Clovis Unified trustees voted 4-3 to keep the district's controversial, decades-old dress code.

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I think they look ace, too.

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The comparison with David Bowie being idolised for dressing 'differently' is great here. Sick of the double standards.

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Eve was framed, and her skirt submitted as evidence.

I’ve never written a blog before, but anyone who knows me (and some who don’t) will testify to the fact that I love a strongly worded letter. Since my grievance on this occasion is with how women’s dress code embodies internalised misogyny within our society, I’m struggling to find an addressee. So, I’m addressing you all, in order that maybe we can redress the situation. And, if you’ve stumbled onto this blog looking for puns and humour, I’m afraid that’s the closest you’re going to get on this occasion. It’s straight up feminism from here on in. And just like how I choose to dress, I make no apologies for it.

I first noticed the issue of sexual discrimination and dress code at school. You didn’t have to be Helena Kennedy to notice that the way our school uniform rules were enforced were misogynistic. Boys could look messy, but girls couldn’t look ‘slutty’. Even as a teenager, I didn’t appreciate the symbolism of kneeling on the floor so that a teacher could inspect whether our skirts were knee length or not. I didn’t think I should have to grovel on my knees for approval of my appearance, particularly since I didn’t want to wear that ugly grey polyester skirt anyway. We were forced to wear these pig-ugly skirts, and then policed when wearing them. It didn’t seem fair that only the girls’ bodies were in need of judgment and ‘fixing’. Plenty of boys turned up at school looking like Nobody’s Child, but that was overlooked.

I think the school was teaching us two worrying lessons here. Firstly, showing any area of flesh above the knee is ‘provocative’ and wrong. My school found the objectification and sexualisation of school girls less disturbing than an inch of thigh. Secondly, that we, as very young girls, were already responsible for the actions of our male peers. The message was that our female bodies are sinful and impure, and must be covered to protect the boys from being distracted. Give boys the right visual stimulus, and they simply won’t be able to help themselves because ‘boys will be boys’.

Rather than telling these boys to get their minds out of the gutter, the solution is to tell the girls to cover it up. Follow this theory to it’s natural conclusion, and it’s the victim’s fault if she is the victim of a sexual assault, because she was ‘asking for it’. Her clothing was such that she was inherently deserving of rape. And if you’re reading this thinking that it’s a woman’s issue, it isn’t. Women are sluts, and men are dogs. That’s the message here. If I was a bloke, I’d be pretty miffed at the suggestion that I was distracted by an inch of thigh, or I was a potential rapist.

I left school determined to leave those two worrying lessons, and trigonometry, behind me. I was safe in the knowledge that once you went to college, there was no uniform, and no maths. In short, you could be whoever you wanted to be. It was here that I learned worrying lesson number three, that not having a dress code can be just as bad as having one. In school we were just judged by our skirt lengths. In college, free from the shackles of uniform, I discovered that there isn’t any outfit that a woman can wear without being judged. Everything is open to scrutiny, from skirt length; to the tightness of jeans; to the amount of visible cleavage; to make-up choices; to hair colour; to heel height.

And before you say it, no, I’m not just blaming men here. It’s not just other genders that are responsible for sexism. In fact, the worst sexism that I have ever experienced has not been from men, it’s been from other women. Nobody is a harsher critic of a woman, than another woman. The recent Facebook post by Lauren Stardust #fuckedbyaunicorn is a case in point. And I’m not exonerating myself here, either. I’m guilty of criticising women for how they look too. I’ve used the generic insults such as ‘slut’, ‘whore’, ‘fat cow’, ‘slag’, ‘bitch’ that focus on appearance and/or promiscuity, yet I struggle to think of male equivalents. The reason being, that if you want to insult a man, just tell him to ‘strap a pair on’, or stop being such a ‘pussy’. As Jessica Valenti points out, the worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman, and looking like a woman is the ultimate insult.

So basically, I’m ashamed to say that I’m complicit in my own oppression, and that’s part of the reason I want to challenge it. It’s far too easy to succumb to the pressures of patriarchal society, and I have. We all have. We are socialised to hold misogynistic attitudes and beliefs from school. The school skirt debate continues into adulthood. The artist, Rosea Lake challenges exactly that in her photograph titled ‘Judgments’ to her Tumblr account. The image shows a woman from behind with ten words up her left leg indicating various hemlines, with ‘matronly’ scrawled at the bottom of her calf and ‘whore’ seen just below her buttocks. A similar campaign has been produced by Terres Des Femmes, which also shows words of judgment scrawled on a woman’s body. This campaign also draws attention to judgments drawn on visible cleavage and heel height. These images resonate with me, because essentially, as a woman, I don’t think you can win. The images show how women are disempowered by both popular, and modesty culture. Popular culture disempowers women by telling them that their worth is based upon whether men (and other women) find them attractive or not. Modesty culture tends to disempower women by telling them they must dress to keep men from looking at them. In both cases, the woman is expected to accommodate her appearance to the (varied and culturally relative) expectations of men. In both cases, it becomes the woman’s job to manage the sexual desires of men. It is contradictory, and confusing. We live in a society that produces clothes that are inherently more revealing than men’s, and then shame the women for wearing clothes sold to them. On the one hand, women must get men to look at them. On the other, they must actively prevent it.

At college, I realized that I was falling into what Rosea classifies as the ‘flirty’ and ‘cheeky’ hemlines, and slipping into ‘provocative’ at weekends. The message here isn’t just that more ‘revealing’ clothes are wrong. It’s that our female bodies are wrong. That by having breasts and hips and legs and exposing them, we are less.  We are shaming other women based on how much flesh is showing because we have been raised in a society that teaches that women wearing less clothing  makes them “impure” and deserving of less respect. We police their appearance, get them groveling on their knees, label them as sluts, and look upon them as if they are stupid or broken.

Whilst society says that short skirts demean women, I take the opposite view. Mary Quant introduced the mini-skirt during a period of renewed optimism for women. It was part of the sexual revolution, women being liberated from the kitchen sink. I feel great in a skirt and heels, but I’m saddened that although once strongly associated with emancipation and prosperity, a short skirt now seems to be associated with taken-for-granted sexual availability. The problem is that society now sees fashion not as “what women like to wear”, but as “what men like to see women wear.”

The more I noticed the sexism, the more seduced I became by the law. It promised blind justice, equality, cold hard logic. And so it was, I was going to pursue it. I naively thought I was going to be the next Helena Kennedy, or Brenda Hale, and change the world one case at a time. I laughed off my nickname from Legally Blonde, which incidentally was released as soon as I started university. I was going to find proper legal lacunas, I wouldn’t need knowledge of perms to win a case. I would never do the ‘bend and snap.’ Or not unless really up against it, anyway.

To cut a long yarn shorter, I loved law and fell head over heels with feminist jurisprudence in particular. But before I knew it, I was staring at the frankly disgusting attrition rate in rape cases, and presented with rape myths as an explanation for this. In my head, I was back in school, kneeling on the floor. The policing of skirt length in school is part and parcel of the perpetuation of rape culture. The onus on girls not to distract the boys is no different from victim blaming when it comes to rape – if a woman is attractive and dressed ‘provocatively’, men cannot resist them. The onus is on women not to walk alone at night, not to get too drunk, not to wear a short skirt. Rapists, as you were. Instead of trying to prevent rape by covering women from head to toe, we should be teaching people not to rape. School would be a damn good place to start.

Incidentally, school is where I went back to. Or a sixth form college, to be exact. I decided I wanted to teach law rather than to practice it. Lots of people think I’m bonkers for this, and I’m starting to think they’re right! But I did it for two main reasons. Firstly, the holidays. Obviously. Secondly, to be totally honest, I was scared of the glass ceiling for female lawyers. I knew I wanted a family, and I wasn’t sure how easily I could have both. I was scared of the sexism. But I couldn’t think of anything better than talking about what I loved everyday, and of empowering the next generation of young lawyers to be braver than me. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I thought I was escaping the worst of the sexism, I thought teaching was a fairly safe profession in this regard, at least until recently.

A teacher friend of mine has recently been the victim of sexual discrimination and victimisation in the workplace because of her appearance. A member of the management team in the school in which she works, told her that her physical appearance (not her clothing), was such that it would inevitably lead to false allegations by male students. Let that sink in for a minute. A senior manager said that my friend’s appearance would lead to a sexually motivated crime. She said that she was acting in my friend’s best interests. This is unpalatable to me for several reasons. Firstly, it reinforces the patriarchy by requiring women to preemptively compensate for male failings. This manager is labouring under the misapprehension that a woman’s clothing is powerful enough to put them in danger, or shield them from it. It is precisely this belief that perpetuates rape culture. The idea that women can change men’s behavior by changing their clothing, is not only disconcerting, it has been debunked. As Anne Ream points out, nobody ever avoided a rape by wearing a longer skirt. It’s a pity that this manager’s misogynistic attitude cannot be deemed totally inappropriate for her role, as easily as a piece of fabric can. Indeed, I think it’s better to look like a ‘slut’, than think like a rapist.

Secondly, this manager clearly holds a worryingly low opinion of men. Despite male students being human beings with the ability to rationalise and control their actions, she is encouraging the convenient excuse that shifting hemlines are a siren call no male can ignore.

When challenged on the legality of what she had said under The Equality Act 2010 and The Protection From Harassment Act 1997, this member of staff attempted to say that it was my friend’s skirt lengths that were ‘totally inappropriate’ for her role. But is this really any better? I don’t think so. In my opinion, we’re back on our knees, perpetuating rape culture. My friend’s skirts were knee length. But even if a glimpse of flesh above her knee could be seen, so what? Her dress code does not specify a required length, nor is there anything inherently wrong with showing flesh above the knee. After all, a leg is just a limb that every human being has. It is simply that our culture chooses to sexualise that.

This is dress code allowing sexual discrimination in the work place. It is very easy for a female member of staff to breach my friend’s work dress code because of the inclusion of the sexist, agesist, and culturally dependent term ‘provocative’ within it. A word whose synonyms include: ‘sexy’, ‘arousing’, ‘tantalising’ and ‘titilating’ have no place in a professional dress code. Moreover, I suspect my friend’s boss might have found her titillating in a potato sack in any event, since it transpires he was keeping CCTV images of her (taken from the security cameras without her knowledge and consent) for over seven months on his personal desktop computer, apparently in order to ascertain how much of her thighs he could see… but that’s really another (very perverted) story. I’m already working on: ‘CCTV: The politics of the unsolicited, illegal, and perverted eye.’

The truth of the matter is that women are objectified and sexualised whatever they wear. The use of the word ‘provocative’ exemplifies sexual discrimination and  internalised misogyny, since it is difficult to imagine how a male member of staff could fall foul of this word. Perhaps we should start measuring the tightness of men’s trousers to determine whether they are provocative or not? But, even if the unthinkable happens, and a male colleague was called in for a meeting like my friend was, it is hard to imagine them receiving a similar dressing down. It is also difficult to think of words that would cut and humiliate him to the same extent as being ‘totally inappropriate’ for his role. The adjective ‘inappropriate’ drips with subtext, even without the addition of the redundant word ‘totally’. This phrase suggests that my friend’s body is unfitting for the workplace, and that she should not be around children. If one acts ‘totally inappropriately’ around children, that has connotations of sexual abuse. Incidentally, this senior manager also referred my friend to the LADO on grounds of her personal suitability to work with children, because of her skirt. For those of you not in the know, the implications of this are not pleasant because the LADO deals with child abuse. If you’re wondering why they were contacted here, your guess is as good as mine, since they have absolutely nothing to do with dress code. Moreover, common sense tells you that nobody can possibly adjudicate over the length of a skirt that is described to them over the telephone. What this manager did was the equivalent of calling 999 because she had a spider in the bath. To be clear, my friend was not knowingly inviting boys (not much older than her own son), to lust after her by wearing a skirt. She was not inviting sexually motivated crimes. The fact that a senior manager suggested this, is what is abhorrent, not my friend’s skirt length. And, the truth of the matter is that students can choose to objectify a woman whether she’s wearing a bikini or a bin bag. Rather than trying to stop lustful thoughts by covering women’s bodies, we should teach boys to treat women as human beings worthy of respect.

My friend’s outfit was called into question; her career put in jeopardy; and her civil rights to privacy were abused despite her qualifications; despite her unfaltering work ethic; despite her passion for the job; despite her good results; and despite the excellent rapport that she has with her students; none of whom have anything other than complete respect for her, and she them. The management team at her school lost sight of my friend’s triumphs, and their mission and ethos, and became fixated on her appearance. Their actions left the school liable to a fine of up to half a million pounds by the ICO for the actions with the CCTV; and vulnerable to civil and criminal claims relating to sexual harassment. This management team has recontexualised my friend, and she now exists through the male gaze. In so doing, they have shown a lack of respect for women teachers, and a low opinion of male students.

And all of this comes at a time when there is much debate about whether women wearing burqas are oppressed. There seems to be a general consensus in this country, that women here have more freedom. I’m very sorry to say, I disagree entirely with this. We might not call it a burqa, but we are still prescribing clothing that is classified as ‘modest’ or ‘appropriate’, so that we are respected and we don’t cause men to sin. The burqa is just one nuanced example in one culture of how women all over the world are policed through their appearance. The “burqa” in my friend’s life is the suggestion that she should change her appearance, her posture, her hair colour so that she might be respected. She has been painted as a lust-drunk witch, and her body is a siren call for the devil.  Yet if she converted, and wore a burqa this wouldn’t be satisfactory either, people would say she was oppressed.

Our culture still has too much internalised misogyny. There is no quick fix to this. I don’t have a solution. But I do know that telling a woman that her clothes are inappropriate and shaming her for wearing them is unacceptable, at any age, in any work place. I would love to live in a society where we empowered women to wear what they liked, be who they liked, without worrying about how anyone was going to react. As Wolf explains, A woman wins by giving herself and other women permission- to eat; to be sexual; to age; to wear overalls, a tiara, a Balenciaga gown, a second-hand opera cloak, or combat boots; to cover up or go practically naked; to do whatever she chooses in following-or ignoring- her own aesthetic. A woman wins when she feels that what each woman does with her own body- unforced, uncoerced- is her own business. A lovely ideal. But until some awesome lawyer challenges these misogynistic dress codes which are holding us all back, I’m going to have to continue to be on my knees, because I refuse to stop wearing a skirt. But I’m going to do what I can, by trying really hard to stop judging people on their appearance, and hope that they’ll be kind enough to do the same for me. After all, the enemy is not a piece of fabric, or a tall pair of heels, or red lipstick. I am entitled, like many millions of women before me, to wear a skirt to my own revolution.

[lucyslawforprincesses]

[lucyslawforprincesses]

Appalling.

[lucyslawforprincesses]

[lucyslawforprincesses]

[lucyslawforprincesses]

I'm not supposed to be bare legged at work because I'm 'asking for it', but black tights are apparently chavy. What's left?!