Comments on: Naidu, “Glaring invisibility: Dressing the body of the female cleaner”

By: Madden, “Reflections on Teaching in a For-Profit College” – Academography

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 20:44:18 +0000

By: Davydd Greenwood

Tue, 22 May 2018 19:42:55 +0000

When I was a kid, Levis were a uniform for working class and farmhands and for school kids. Never worn to church or to any formal occasions. In college, we wore a sport coat and tie to dinner and in graduate school, slacks and a sport coat and tie. Shifting to jeans in those contexts was supposedly a big expression of radicalism. At Cornell until at least 1980, we wore sport coats and ties to teach, though we could show our political colors by wearing jeans or cords. Dress codes are just as coercive now but the clothes involved have changed. I am not sure I could remember how to tie a necktie at this point. Does that answer your question?

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By: Eli Thorkelson

Tue, 22 May 2018 16:00:04 +0000

Thanks for the interesting reflections, Davydd. What exactly did the “radicality of blue jeans” consist of, actually? I think this must have been years before my time.

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By: Davydd Greenwood

Sun, 20 May 2018 12:19:58 +0000

A very interesting review of what clearly in a great piece of critical ethnography. Thanks. As suggested, this could be extended in all kinds of ways. Being in academia in one way or another since 1960, I have seen all kinds of dress and uniform trends come and go. Sport coat and tie to attend graduate seminars, to lecture to undergrads, to meet friends for dinner and then the radicality of blue jeans… Class, status, and gender markers galore.

One student years ago in an introductory ethnography took on an observational prompt to observe someone else and try to figure out how much you can learn by looking without talking. She wrote a description of how a particular female student in a coffee bar was dressed. It took 2 pages laced with brand names, models, prices and left me dizzy. Cleary the clothing was intentional but the observer was also in the know. I would have noticed next to nothing had I been the observer. Now I at least know that I am missing alot, sitting here in my old Levis and house slippers.

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