No Uniform Body
Those of us with a long digital memory bank will remember “Teacher Bae”. Patrice Brown was teacher’s aide in Georgia when she went viral (although she currently holds a Master’s in Education, yes ma’am!) when photos from her instagram made their way around social media.
Lots of folks had things to say about her, mainly about her body and whether her clothing was appropriate for a teacher. As I was thinking this week about clothing and professionalism, I was taken back to Teacher Bae. I remember feeling so bad that her body had become so central to public discourse about what was and wasn’t appropriate, and it felt like everyone knew but no one was willing to acknowledge what the conversation was really about.
I’m about as thick as cold grits — I know this type of dog whistle because I have heard it before. I was 10-11 when people first started policing my body and what other children wore was no longer appropriate for me. Dress codes in schools, and the informal ones that we regulate professionalism by, are discriminatory as hell. They target folks with certain body types over others, making it almost impossible for thick people — but especially fat people — to conform to the tenets of professionalism. Either you have to dress sloppily or you’re asking for too much attention because clothes that fit accentuate your ass and not your efficiency at your job.
This particular forum — made up of “concerned” parents and social media onlookers — weren’t discussing the appropriateness of Ms. Brown’s clothing, they were discussing if her body was appropriate for children to see. No matter what she wears, she can’t take off her ass and leave it at home. Effectively, this discourse bars folks of a certain size/shape from “professionalism” and their bodies cannot be considered appropriate — and I’m not just talking about teachers. We live in a world where school dress codes overwhelmingly target female students’ in an attempt to curtail male attention. Thankfully, girls are starting to question this and fight back, protesting school dress codes that make the attention span of adolescent boys their responsibility.
Apparently, in the aftermath of the “Teacher Bae” fiasco, the Atlanta Public School district reprimanded Ms. Brown and gave her some advice on what would be more in line with the school’s dress code. The Essence article that I linked above talked about ways that Patrice Brown should have been working to camouflage her body — that Black women had been doing it forever and that it was necessary for professional advancement. I don’t disagree that for the time being that is the most practical advice, but I do believe that conforming to that narrow (unattainable) image of professionalism without critique sets a standard for future generations to grow into that is too tight for comfort.
Children of a certain age grow into their bodies and our fixation with what is and isn’t appropriate because someone has a certain type of body is harming our kids and ourselves. We should all be allowed to enjoy clothing that makes us feel good and the body we’ve been given without judgement and without unnecessary restrictions.
