While women are free to wear apparel with masculine accents in most countries, that is no longer the case in the Russian republic of Chechnya, where the government has banned apparel with “masculine elements.”
Gazyrs, which were traditionally used to store gunpowder for rifles, are now off-limits for designers per the Chechen Culture Ministry. They reportedly “contradict traditional customs and cultural values.” Separately, last month a Chechen Republic authority Amir Sugaipov used social media to advise women to wear head scarves. Those, who do not, will face “explanatory talks.” Sugaipov said, “From an aesthetic, religious, Chechen adat, tradition and customs perspective, a girl with a covered head looks much more dignified and beautiful.”
Stanford Law School professor Richard Thompson Ford described the restrictions as “appalling, but sadly not uncommon.”
Iran, for instance, has imposed similar restrictions, enforced by religious police, he said.
Ford, the author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History,” said: “Historically, demands for female modesty have been common to many religions. While these restrictions are justified by religion, in fact they are used to control women for the benefit of men. It’s one thing, when women choose religious dress for themselves. It’s quite another thing — indeed the opposite — when it is imposed on them with violence.”
Noting how fashion is a powerful form of communication, for both designers and wearers, The Fashion Law Institute’s founder Susan Scafidi said the latest Chechen restrictions on women’s dress are effectively a limitation on free speech and freedom of religion.
“Women cannot be erased from society itself or even from civil discourse, but progressively requiring more and more coverage in public is akin to throwing a blanket over a birdcage to silence the trapped creature within,” Scafidi said. “Defining certain sartorial details as masculine is also an expression of authority and a means of social control, a version of showing ‘who wears the pants.’”
Highlighting other political attempts to assert control over people via dress codes, Scafidi suggested that Donald Trump’s “suit-shaming” of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the “anti-drag laws” that have been proposed in certain U.S. states, and the Department of Transportation’s recent “dressing with respect” initiative for airplane travelers could be “short steps from mandatory burkas in Afghanistan or burka and ‘burkini’ bans in France, depending on the regime in charge.”
She added: “I’m going to add relative freedom of dress to the list of things for which I’m grateful this Thanksgiving, with the hope that this form of free expression gets the respect it deserves. Simply put, there’s more to fashion than fashion.”
Drexel University professor Joseph Hancock suggested that when women and men start shifting ideas of dress that appear to reflect the opposite gender: “That is a form of power because they are initiating change. And now that power is being taken away from these women.”
He suggested that this “horrible ideology” in what is a republic in southwestern Russia, reflects Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s “fear and discrimination, based on sexuality, gender expression and perpetuates homophobia in Russia.”
Restricting women and men in areas of dress is an abomination, Hancock said.
“However, while we have the losses, we do have to celebrate the wins like the ‘CROWN Act’ recently being signed into law in Pennsylvania by Governor Josh Shapiro,” Hankcock said. That marked the 28th state to enact the legislation that is formally known as “Creating a Respectful and Open World,” which prohibits discrimination based on hair.
