It’s not just pop stars. Just look at how young women consider school uniforms — an invention of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. In Common Threads: A Cultural History of Clothing in American Catholicism, author Sally Dwyer-McNulty argues that uniforms provided women with their experiences of restriction: “Uniforms gave female students, in particular, a taste of the routine and sacrifice that came with religious life.” Girls’ dress codes were designed to bemore strict than boys’, because “girls are considered more prone to sins of vanity.” Small acts of subversion — rolling up the waistbands of pleated skirts, untucking blouses, wearing loud socks, adding buttons and pins — help young women assert their individuality, sexuality, and self-worth.
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