Rules of supermarket deportment
A brief frivolous interlude to consider one small aspect of daily life.
A Tesco store has asked customers not to shop in their pyjamas or barefoot…A spokesman said Tesco did not have a strict dress code but it does not want people shopping in their nightwear in case it offends other customers.
Or not so much offends them as makes them feel sick. That’s how it affects me. The sight of people outside in the world in their bedroom slippers, or with bed hair, or in their pyjamas, makes me feel very queasy indeed. It’s much the same if I see people flossing their teeth or cutting their toenails in public; or picking their noses, or applying unguents to a suppurating wound, or peeling a scab, or searching around in their hair in case there are any lice or ticks or fleas lurking up there. There are things people shouldn’t do in public, and those are some of them. I applaud Tesco’s attempt to maintain a vestige of dignity and seemliness in modern life.
Elaine Carmody, 24, a full-time mother of two young boys, described the ban as “ridiculous” and “pathetic”. She said she had regularly gone shopping at the store in her pyjamas until about a week ago when she was turned away when she went to buy cigarettes. She said she had been “popping in for a pack of fags,” but if she had been doing a full shop “then we obviously would have gone in clothed. But we only wanted fags and they still refused us to go in for a pack of cigarettes,” she added.
Ah isn’t that nice – Elaine Carmody is so frantically busy being the mother of two young boys that she can’t manage to put real clothes on before she goes to Tesco, so she regularly went shopping there in her unsightly pyjamas. Of course, she assures us, with her unerring grasp of the niceties, if she had been doing “a full shop” then obviously – obviously! – she would have put actual clothes on, but they ‘only wanted fags’ – she and her two young boys. Well of course they did, and what a cozy family group they do sound, running into Tesco in their jammies for a packet of fags and then running back home to smoke them. Yet Tesco didn’t find them appealing! It’s astonishing, isn’t it?
Elaine Carmody says quite a lot more; the BBC pretty obviously finds her hilarious. They thoughtfully provide a picture of her in her pyjamas, too, so that we can get an idea. We get one.
You’d have thought it would be too cold for people to go outside in their nighty. What is the world coming to?
Yes I must say – that T shirt looked awfully skimpy for January in Wales.
Yay for Tesco! Basic decorum is not optional, people! Ms. Carmody, even though you are only popping in for some fags, we still have to look at you.
About the only place it’s acceptable to where pajamas in public, in my view, is on a college campus.
Irish Independent Journalist, Larissa Nolan had this to say about the bananas in pyjamas BIP in Sept 2005
“THEY can be seen at the school gates on weekdays, dropping the children offand walking home – in their pyjamas. As late as dinner-time on a Saturday they’re in the chip-shop, ordering one and ones while clad only in a pair of flannel PJs. There they are in Tesco, wheeling their trolleys, dressed in sleepwear, oblivious to the bemused stares of fellow shoppers.”
“Designer Jen Kelly, whose studio is in the heart of pyjama country on North Great George’s Street, is no fan of the trend, describing it as “vile”.
“It certainly will not be influencing any of my work,” said Jen. “I think it’s awful, it’s vile, desperate and bizarre. You wonder if they are wearing any underwear under those things. OR is it even worse if they are? If it was fancy lingerie with sexy feathery high-heeled slippers you could understand it. But’s it’s big baggy pyjamas, sometimes with a bomber jacket thrown over if it’s cold.” He believes the trend has its roots in apathy and laziness.”
I recently noticed, in town, extremely trendy inner-city younsters dolled up in fancy flannel PJ’s and fleecy boots. They were surely made up to the ninties with their make-up and stylish beehives.
I remember in days gone by when it was very common to see people go to shops in dressing gowns, slippers and curlers — just like Hilda Ogden, they too never batted their eyelids, as they went about their daily chores. Little children too were to be seen out playing with white sheet/newspaper strings in their hair, they suffered terrible pain because of having to sleep in these rags every Saturday night, in preparation for the holy sacrifice of mass the following day.
Clarissa Nolan, in her article, mentioned about the trend being specifically a working-class inner- city Dublin one. From my observation of the past and present, I would fully agree with her.
Hm, I’ve seen a lot of American college kids coming to classes in what looked like pajamas to me (but was really called “lounge wear”, as I soon learned).
Generally, it took me quite a while to get used to people in America going to their jobs and classes with wet hair, greasy hair, no make up, inappropriate (for whatever reason) clothing etc. After a while I started to see it as liberating, and I miss it every time I have to do my hair and put on some make up and “nice clothes” just so I can go to the supermarket.
I meant, I miss it now, when I’m back in Europe.
The ‘too busy’ excuse is clearly just bollocks. It takes literally 30 seconds to throw on some casual clothes; laziness and an unspoken contempt for basic standards are the problem.
Not to get carried away but it is the milder end of the spectrum on which one finds people who spit in the street, or drop litter, or raise their voices; it’s just effortless, basic manners to avoid these things and it makes public spaces just that bit more civilised.
What Tea said – I remember my mother telling me, when I was a child, two or three centuries ago, that it was simply not possible to go out on the streets of New York if you weren’t in full regalia – high heels, stockings, makeup, the whole thing. I was both incredulous and horrified. I knew she meant socially impossible, not literally physically impossible – but knowing that I knew everything; I simply refused to accept it, and by the time I was old enough to act on it independently, it was no longer true, if it ever had been.
But I have my limits. I wear jeans and a sweater – not a ball gown, and not pyjamas.
Hear hear about spitting, by the way – another pet hate. In Moscow after the Revolution people used to say ‘Nyet kulturni’ to people who spat on the metro. Quite right.
Drat. I think I deleted a comment by accident while deleting spam. Sorry if so.
Although I personally do not go out anywhere in PJ’s and I choose not to associate with people who tend to do that, I don’t think the issue warrants much print space. Is it really all that much different than coarse, illiterate, and intolerant speech, which most of us would support the speaker’s right to use?
What is wrong people? I know we don’t have much truck with the term around here, but where is their sense of dignity ? Why are so many so utterly unconcerned about forcing other people to see them in the kinds of get-ups most of us only want to see (and not always even them) our most intimate partners in?
As ridiculous as the 1950s standard for public dress was (for women, especially), I don’t mind saying I find watching old newsreels refreshing. No one’s thong is showing above just below her ass crack (wait, why is THAT showing at all?). No one’s 3-sizes-too-large jeans are under the cheeks of his ass so I can see his damned underwear – all of it. No one is leaning over the meat cooler to pick up a packet of chicken in front of me, with her ass up in my face with the words JUICY PINK emblazoned across it (yes, that happened to me yesterday at the market).
People are disgusting. There’s such a thing as too-restrictive etiquette, and there’s such a thing as not enough shame . The pendulum hasn’t swung, it’s broken off and sunk to the bottom of the marsh, and we’re wallowing in it.
No one is talking about the government depriving people of the right to speak and act like trash. We are discussing the use (or attempted use) of private store policies and social disapproval to encourage the bare minimum of civility necessary to make life just a little more pleasant.
You see the difference, yes?
Generally, it took me quite a while to get used to people in America going to their jobs and classes with wet hair, greasy hair, no make up, inappropriate (for whatever reason) clothing etc.
Sounds – just like the Irish — tea, where everything goes and hangs out.
I remember (yonks ago) when living in Switzerland, cleanliness was considered to be the next best thing to godliness-it was seriously something else to have to contend, a complete culture shock. Every Sunday after mass, for example, my clothing had to be hung out on the veranda to air. There were so many different towels one had to use all at the same time and they had to be folded in a certain way. The preciseness of the Swiss people with everything to do with personal habits was a real eye opener and I know for sure from whence tea is coming when she says “I have to do my hair and put on some make up and “nice clothes” just so I can go to the supermarket.” One would end up in the nearest looney bin if one was seen then in their pyjamas roaming about Migro’s.
Tea and Marie-Therese –
It’s funny you should say that; there are pockets of America where getting all dressed up is still required. It’s rather pathetic, though.
Years ago when I lived in rural Virginia (extremely conservative, Christian, working class area), people used to tell me they were “going out to WalMart on Saturday night.” “Going out” as in “making a social appearance, the equivalent of a cocktail party, or at least a cocktail lounge.” They said this with no irony.
Hoping to observe this (lekking?) behavior for myself, I “went out” to WalMart one Saturday. Oh. My. God. The place was filled with women bearing Perma-Smiles(TM) under three layers of pancake makeup, hair teased out to Kingdom come, in tight-fitting, ironed denim jeans and heels.
The men-folk were all duded up in their best Western-style button-down shirts, tucked into Wrangler jeans, cinched under their bellies with sparkling silver belt buckles. Many wore cowboy hats. All wore cowboy boots.
Dignity is an excellent thing, especially when it inspires people to put on proper clothes.
It’s not like we live in an era where “proper clothes” must include corsets, or even panty hose. If the standard is not pajamas (plus basic hygiene) then I can’t really excuse people for not following it.
Josh: in many parts of the American south, you can’t even go to a basketball game without make-up (if you’re female). That’s why it makes me laugh to hear people talk of New York as some oppressive fashion-fascist lair. In my experience, New Yorkers dress neatly, but you can go out in jeans and a clean t-shirt and blend in quite nicely.
Beautifully put! I mean, really, how damned lazy can one be?
Sure there’s a difference, Josh. If the government told us what to wear, backed by the threat of criminal stigma, plus fines or jail, it would be an intolerable use of its overwhelming coercive power. It’s just the sort of officious meddling thing that we rightly fear governments engaging in.
But, as Mill knew, it’s also pretty bad when society as a whole starts telling us what and what not to do in matters that cause no real harm. If there’s a fashion, in some circles, for wearing pajamas to the supermarket, it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket.
FWIW, I just went shopping at the local supermarket in neat casual clothes (shorts, running shoes, T-shirt).
But this is a sub-tropical beachside city, and plenty of young people turn up at the supermarket on hot days with bare feet and wearing little (or even nothing) more than their swimsuits. For some of them, this is a good look. For others … not so much. But, really, no one cares because it’s commonplace. It’s just a matter of what you’re used to. I find it very odd to think that a supermarket would reject these people’s custom.
The frumpy woman in a pajama bottom in the photo doesn’t look so great, but neither do lots of other people who wear more conventional street clothes. If I were a supermarket manager, she could turn up in nothing but what the New Guineans call arse-grass, or in nothing at all if it comes to that. As long as she paid for her packet of cancer sticks, I wouldn’t care.
Russell, did you misunderstand me? Was I not clear enough that I was not backing gov’t interference, but rather, pointing out to Bud that the conversation here was about social disapproval, not gov’t-enforced dress codes?
Ah, the obligatory moralism about smoking. Right on cue. Thanks, I was waiting.
Yes, that’s true, but it seemed clear that there was not a fashion for wearing pajamas in this particular Tesco. I’m right with you – if a certain store/nightclub/lunchspot encourages ultra casual wear, then they may do so, and anyone who sticks their nose up at it can refuse to patronize that place.
I don’t see where the disagreement is.
I don’t think anyone would question Tesco’s right to impose such a ban if they choose. But since when does this blog believe in “the right not to be offended”?
Drawing cartoons of someone’s prophet is clearly, by any objective measure, more “offensive” than going out in pyjamas. Even if the prophet was not really holy, his God does not exist, and the prohibition on representations of him stupid, breaching this “rule” goes to the heart of someone’s faith and is, for them, something serious and upsetting.
Yet everyone here would agree that those who are offended just have to suck it up and accept they live in a free society. That we are not bound by these silly mediaeval codes of behaviour, even if they choose to be, and that we must be free to think, speak and act as we wish, no matter how much genuine [or feigned] offence it may cause.
Again, I agree that Tesco is a private company and can set their own rules. But I’m a little surprised that you consider mere ‘unseemly’ behaviour to be a suitable thing for rule-making of this sort.
I can’t speak for this blog (if anyone could, it would be Ophelia, though since it’s not a person and all. . ), but I don’t believe in right not to be offended. I do believe in a right of private companies (within limits) to set rules for patronage. I also believe in the right of people to complain, or bellyache, about what they perceive to be coarse or rude behavior.
I also believe in the right of other people to say “sod off, you’re being silly,” and in the right of said companies to say “I’m sorry you feel that way, but we’ll not be changing our policies to suit you.”
What is so hard to grasp about this?
If it’s essentially harmless, Russell, then so is our “condemnation” (which really consists of a few muttered gripes), no?
I’m not saying you don’t have freedom of speech, Jenavir. Obviously you can say what you like and if the government tries to censor you I’ll defend you. I’m saying that I’m bemused when some of my friends seem taking very seriously what is really very trivial conduct.
I mean words/phrases like “disgusting” and breach of “a bare minimum of civil behaviour”, and so on have been used on this thread. In fact, all this is about is a woman somewhere in Wales who has acted like a bogan and somehow received media coverage for it. If y’all were just turning up and pointing and laughing and saying, “What a bogan!”, I’d be there with you.
Acting like a bogan may not be aesthetically pleasing to those of us who are not bogans, but it’s hardly disgusting, or in breach of some basic standard of civility, or whatever. At worst, it’s faintly comical.
Look, I’ll do it:
LOL, what a bogan!!
I went to the University of Western Ontario, where it was not uncommon for students to go to class in their pyjamas. So I guess I’m desensitised. But then again I have never been a very principled advocate for human dignity.
Jenavir:
“Yay for Tesco! Basic decorum is not optional, people! Ms. Carmody, even though you are only popping in for some fags, we still have to look at you.”
Maybe we could all get togther and shun Ms. Carmody?
Tesco is risking a loss of custom if it gets this sort of thing wrong – maybe even a lawsuit, given the kind of idiocy the government sees fit to impose as legislation.
Also, someone who goes out in a PJs for some fags is probably not the product of a brilliant upbringing. In this sense, she’d didn’t ‘choose’ to be a slob who gets other people down.
So why did I feel cheered by Tesco’s decision? Partly because it emphasises that there’s a difference between private and public conduct. If I want to dress up as Hitler in the privacy of my own home and move little plastic panzers around a map of Russia, that’s my right. But I don’t think I have the right to take my Fuehrerfetish to the shops.
Or are some of us now saying that public and private conduct are not clearly separate? And would that apply to, say, having hot three-way sex in Tesco’s car park, Russell?
Benjamin,
While I wouldn’t dismiss human dignity as lightly, I have also been desensitized, I think. After the initial cultural shock of watching students coming to classes in their pyjamas, I’ve gotten used to it. Now that I’m back in Slovenia, I sometimes even miss it, especially when I’m expected to change and put on make up every time I leave the house. I’m with Russell on this one: I find the whole thing trivial and really not worth being this upset about. I do find it interesting, though, that people would compare wearing casual clothes to spitting in the street – now that’s something I could never become “desensitized” about.
OB: It sounds like your mom was watching too much Sex and the City all those centuries ago :) In my experience the dress code is far less demanding in large, modern liberal cities. While I never iron *any* of my clothes, for example, my mom even irons her underwear, while her friend from an even smaller town (where you have to wash and blow dry your hair before you can go across the street for a cup of coffee) even irons her socks.
What on earth are you talking about Valdemar? Are you seriously saying that wearing unconventional clothing in the street or the supermarket is “public conduct” in the sense that it is conduct that should be regulated by the state?
Look, I get that y’all don’t like bogans or whatever you call them in your respective countries (is “chavs” the word in the UK?).
But the reason that what Tesco is doing is legally okay isn’t that it all took place in public; it’s that it took place on Tesco’s private property. No one is challenging Tesco’s legal right to decide who to admit to its own private property, or what behaviour to demand of them, so long as it doesn’t breach any anti-discrimination law relating to, say, race or sex or the protection of breastfeeding mothers.
But that doesn’t mean that we should be applauding loudly when Tesco cracks down on merely aesthetically displeasing behaviour.
Then again, even that’s not the real point.
Some people are going much further and talking about this trivial breach of convention by this bogan woman from Wales as if it’s a breach of fundamental standards of civility, as being like people having sex in clear sight of the public (which can arguably be banned by the state as high-impact offensiveness), and so on. As if it’s the kind of thing that seriously damages the fabric of society. This sort of language is going way over the top and has endless illiberal ramifications.
Seriously, none of you want to live in a place where not only a private property holder dealing with conduct on its own property, but also the state itself, can start telling you what and what not to wear. Any jurisprudential principle that allows the state to treat wearing pajamas as a fundamental breach of something-or-other will allow it to do all sorts of things you won’t like.
How about banning homosexuals holding hands in a public park? Many people find that indecorous or offensive.
What if they’re kissing? Even more people find that indecorous or offensive.
What if it’s a heterosexual couple having a kiss in a restaurant? Lots of people get offended by that, too.
What if the state sets a minimum size for your swimsuit at the beach and sends around inspectors with rulers to measure the fabric? This used to happen, not that long ago, and why not? Lots of people find brief bikinis or Speedos on men “indecorous”.
What if the state decides to ban the display of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Many people consider that sort of display to be indecorous and damaging to the social fabric.
What if a bookshop unilaterally decides not to displays Rushdie’s book for the same reason? Indecorous! Damaging to the social fabric! It would have every legal right to do so, but we’d still criticise it. And we’d still criticise it if the book had a lot less literary merit than anything by Rushdie.
We live in pluralistic societies where there are many standards of decorum. Bogans in pajamas and slippers have different standards from me. So do barefoot, suntanned surfer girls shopping in the supermarket on the way back from catching a few waves. So do traditional religious women wearing their long dresses, stockings, and sensible shoes. The general assumption in a pluralistic society is that we all tolerate each other.
Look:
1. If I was in the supermarket with a friend and we saw this kind of bogan behaviour described in Ophelia’s link, we’d have a quiet laugh about it. But we wouldn’t be so precious as to be “offended” (Tesco’s word) by it. I’m sorry, but I think that’s ridiculous.
2. Tesco had every legal right to demand a certain standard of dress on its own private property. In doing so, it didn’t even have to be reasonable. Similarly, I can be unreasonable about whom I allow in my house or to post on my blog, or about what they can say, wear, etc., if they want the privilege. (However, my decisions are still open to criticism as being unnecessarily harsh, or whatever.)
3. But, 3., the breach of convention or etiquette, or whatever you want to call it in this case, was nowhere near at the level that could induce genuine disgust in most people, or be considered a fundamental breach of civility or basic decorum, or any such thing. It was just the breach of a rather arbitrary social convention. A hundred or so years ago, a man not wearing a hat would have been considered a worse breach – there was a famous scandal when a man went out in Sydney without his hat(!!) at the turn of last century.
4. Yes, valdemar, you should, indeed, be entitled to wear what you like in public, as far as the state is concerned. There may be exceptions, but they’d better be genuinely compelling exceptions. Perhaps the state can ban wearing something so high-impact in its offensiveness that the impact shades into harm. For example, there may be a case for banning the prominent wearing of Nazi swastikas in the street, especially in areas where there is a relevant history of terror, such as in Germany, or where there are many people who might be intimidated, such as in a local government district that includes largely Jewish suburbs. All that is at least debatable. But the considerations which make this sort of thing debatable have nothing to do what is involved in wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants instead of (say) a pair of denim jeans. They have everything to do with the terrifying history and continuing connotations of Nazi symbols.
More generally, what’s got into you all today? I’ve never seen so much illiberal thinking on Butterflies and Wheels. Has someone been around bumping your heads with some kind of magic stick while I wasn’t looking?
Nothing to add, just felt that russell deserves some kind of applause…
Seconded.
*clap clap*
Very well said, Russell.
Why are people getting exercised about it, though? Probably because of a whole lot of (possibly related) things going on in wider UK society – a kind of guilt by association thing.
Good report here about reactions to PJs in public:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/scotlandfeatures/2831682/Why-all-the-drama-over-shopping-in-pyjamas.html
I’m on Russell’s side. I’ve seen people in street dress that I thought ugly. If someone uses pyjama pants as comfy daywear, so what?
But if the Bible said, “Thou shalt only wear appropriate dress in public”, I wonder how many here would clamor for the woman’s right to wear what she wants?
Well I did say it was a frivolous interlude, Russell! :- )
Sure, it is all about taste, and changes over time, and what turns our stomachs and what doesn’t, and talking as if our standards are Universal when we know perfectly well they aren’t. There’s a certain level of irony in the whole discussion, isn’t there? Or an ambiguity? ‘Yes Carmody in her jammies makes me curl the lip, and yes I realize that’s class-bound and snobbish and local and yes I know very well that I in my jeans and turtlenecks would make other people curl the lip, not to say get out the whips.’ And so on.
Consider airplanes. I remember a heated discussion with my (ten years older) sister decades ago about what I was going to wear on a plane. I was planning to wear just what I wore in general – jeans and turtleneck and sweater (or a T shirt – I don’t remember the time of year). My sister insisted that one dressed for a plane trip in just the sense one dresses to go to a nice restaurant. I thought and said that was absolute nonsense. I still think so. I don’t dress up to take the bus, and planes are a lot more like buses than they are like nice restaurants, or even nasty ones.
Then again one does have to look at the other people in airports, which is what makes them so hellish. I tend to avert my eyes from people in sweat pants, and wish they wouldn’t. I really don’t want people to turn up in their pyjamas.
I did joke about this above – “I wear jeans and a sweater – not a ball gown, and not pyjamas.” I do realize I’m picking out an arbitrary Goldilocks Ideal Mean here – neither too dressed up nor too slatternly. Part of the joke is that it feels Right to me but I know perfectly well it’s arbitrary!
Mind you, I also think some of this is objective. I think public spitting is objectively disgusting: people are universally grossed out by phlegm, even their own. There’s that ‘disgust’ question about why we accept our own spit while it’s in our mouths but recoil at the idea of spitting into a glass and then drinking it.
I think there may be an objective element to the jammies-bed hair disgust, maybe to do with the need to be awake and alert once we are outside the den. Amateur ev psych, sorry.
Russell,
I agree with all of your arguments. These things are arbitrarily decided. Yes, we need to mind carefully whether we applaud actions like Tesco’s, since, as you pointed out, there are people out there who believe gay people holding hands constitutes an offense to public decency.
But I don’t think that means none of us can ever say we find slovenliness gross without having to justify why we’re not putting everyone on a slippery slope. You think that I’ve overreacted (you’re bothered by my use of terms such as “disgusting”), but I think you, in turn, may be overreacting a little too.
I suppose I should have been clearer that I used this story of pajama woman as a jumping off place to have a fun complaining session. That’s it. No, pajama woman is not the most offensive thing in the world. Yes, I’ve seen far worse (and I pointed out some examples earlier regarding ass cracks). Ass cracks showing over waistbands is disgusting. Pajama woman is merely tacky. I hope that’s clear now.
Yes, I am bothered by what I see as a never-ending degradation of any and all sense of decorum in public life. Yes, it bothers me that people parade around half-naked in markets. No, I’m not a complete prude, and no, I’m not unaware of the ambiguities of what constitutes “public decency.” But I also don’t think a little rant about people dressing like complete slobs is the harbinger of sliding all the way down the slope to social tyranny.
“If y’all were just turning up and pointing and laughing and saying, “What a bogan!”, I’d be there with you.”
Really I think that’s pretty much what we’ve been doing! With some real energy and intensity, but still knowing perfectly well that it’s basically just pointing and laughing, or griping.
I do know all this, Russell – I brood about it all the time. There’s the issue of social pressure on girls and women to be hawt, and whether it’s possible to counter that social pressure without being coercive oneself. I never see any solution – it’s just a permanent tension.
Josh, what’s the US equivalent of bogan and chav, do you think? Redneck? That seems the closest but it’s not very close – it’s too rural. ‘Chav’ at least is decidedly urban. I’m not sure we have an equivalent…but maybe that’s just my ignorance.
OB –
We don’t have a precise equivalent, which is a shame. Redneck is close, but doesn’t carry quite the same connotations as “Chav,” and not just because redneck implies “rural” while Chav doesn’t.
The closest I can think of is an adjective, not a noun: white trash.
There are two other possible equivalents to “Chav” and they’re gendered (and one is racist). For men, it’s “wigger.” For women, it’s “skank.”
I merely report, I don’t endorse.
Clarification: “White trash” is a noun, not an adjective. It’s just that it’s not used the same way one would use “Chav.” One can say, “look at that chav and his mates,” but one can’t say, “look at that white trash drinking a coke.”
Ah and there’s trailer trash – that might be close.
White/trailer trash is a collective noun, no? One can’t say ‘look at that white trash drinking a coke’ because it’s not singular? So one can’t say (contra Martin Amis) ‘look at that police drinking a coke.’ One could say something like ‘Lots of trailer trash here tonight.’
I wouldn’t though, except for meta-discussions like this. Very uncomfortable word – right up there with ‘bitch’ and ‘faggot’ and ‘nigger.’
More social pressure. Calling Mr Mill!
:- )
Yes, OB, that’s right, that’s what I couldn’t express. It’s a collective noun, not a singular noun. And when I write “one can say” I mean it in the linguist’s sense of what’s grammatically permissible, not that one ought say it.
I’ll cop to harboring some classist notions, and that they inform my reactions about things like we’re discussing. I grew up in a very poor household, headed by a single mother on welfare. There was much humiliation to be had by us kids going to school in hand-me-downs, etc.
But, my mother was insistent that just because we were poor, that didn’t mean we had to act “like trash.” She never let us go out of the house without clean clothes, clean faces, and combed hair. She wouldn’t put up with us screeching in public, or talking back to grown-ups in shops. She was disgusted by other people in our economic condition who just accepted that they were “trash,” and walked around proving it to the world. For her, taking some pride about one’s person was a way to maintain some dignity in what were often undignified circumstances.
I carry that with me, and that’s why it rubs me raw to see some of this “chav” behavior. I’m not saying it’s a nice sentiment, I’m just explaining.
Well obviously I’m the same way! The post reeks of classism. But as you say, it’s interclass too. Big, touchy, interesting subject.
I’m gonna have to disagree with the general sentiment in this thread and say that I frankly don’t give a shit what people wear. As far as I’m concerned, people can walk around bare ass naked if that’s comfortable for them.
“Nice clothes” are artificial–it’s an external symbol which we use as a cognitive shortcut to judge people. But people with shit for brains frequently dress very nicely, while people who actually have a lot going on upstairs often can’t be bothered with petty trivialities like dress.
I live in a college town, and I see people at the grocery store in their pajamas all the time. Doesn’t bother me one bit. And it doesn’t even occur to me to pass judgment on their “dignity” based on something so trivial and superficial.
And let’s not forget that throughout history and all over the world in many different cultures arbitrary standards of dress have routinely been used to oppress women. Is there any society where the expectations of dress are the same for males and females, where women don’t get labeled “sluts” and “whores” for failing to display a level of body-shame which is never imposed as heavily on males? The only ones I know of are societies where they don’t wear any clothes at all.
I read somewhere that “Chavs” stereotypically wear tracksuits and hoodies made by brand names” – but Scots Gaelic bòcan folk, don’t at all.
Siimilar concepts exist under other names in other countries, such as chav, scally or pikey (England), ned (Scotland), scanger and spide (Ireland), tokkie (Holland), Proll (Germany) and white trash, redneck, hick, or hillbilly (North America).
Manx buggane, mythological creatures, have elements of mischief, nuisance or malice.
Wes – didn’t I just say all that?
As far as the spitting in the street aspect of the discussion goes, I would say that there is a more objective, health related reason instead of the more subjective taste justification for various levels of discouragement.
As far as the main issue of the post goes, I admit I am more likely to be the one causing offence by my appearance than the one being offended. I suppose there is a bit of bogan in me (thanks for the new word, or new usage. I had previously only heard of bogans as some sort of southern mythological swamp creature.)
Just the other day I stopped off at a convenience store on the way home from the dog park. Thanks to a very sociable St. Bernard puppy I was covered in muddy paw prints. I mean covered (she was a cute pup, and I’m a sucker for a puppy). When I got home I not only had to change all my clothes, I had to take a shower.
Now, I could have gone home and cleaned up first. And I can’t imagine choosing to leave the house looking the way I did. But given the circumstances, there was no way I was going to add a separate trip to finish running errands just so I could look nice when I bought tooth paste.
Since this is a lighter thread I have to say, when Russell said:
“What if the state sets a minimum size for your swimsuit at the beach and sends around inspectors with rulers to measure the fabric?”
He tapped in to a recurring dream I used to have when I was around 13… but I won’t be a bogan enough to air the details.
Strangely enough, they actually have pajama days at schools in Dallas. Even the teachers show up in their pajamas. There’s one upside to this–people are probably no longer having recurrent dreams about being in public in their pajamas.
Personally, I put on my clothes to go anywhere–except to the curb (on a busy street) to get my newspaper. Now I’m wondering how many people driving by have considered me a “bogan”–and what the hell that word means, anyhow.
Getting the newspaper is an internationally recognized reason to be outside in night attire. As Ben Franklin said, “It takes more than that to be a bogan.”
Great discussion, and I was hoping those of you who are not Aussies (most or all of you) would like the word “bogan”.
Or was that Thomas Jefferson? OK–now I will stop being hemisphere-ist and look it up.
And while we’re being all classist and everything, this may amuse some (and inform Jean):
http://www.bogan.com.au/definition/index.php
Straight synonym for chav, it looks like – with due cultural corrections.
If you did, then I misinterpreted your position. If I did that, I apologize. But my impression of your comments was that you approve of Tesco’s actions because you view going outside in one’s pajamas as disgusting. That’s why I responded by saying that such things don’t bother me in the least. I wouldn’t even be opposed to people grocery shopping in the nude. There might be some penises out there I’d rather not see, but honestly I don’t care if people flaunt them. There are lots of things I don’t want to see, and when I catch a glimpse of them, I just look somewhere else. I don’t see why any rules should be made to prevent me from seeing things I don’t want to see. My neck has functioning muscles and tendons. I can easily look somewhere else.
I find this whole thread hilarious, but I have to admit: I shed my jeans for sweatpants or pajama bottoms the second I walk in my house – aah, creature comforts – and I frequently find myself saying on the phone “I guess I should put on some pants, then” when some proposal is made for someone to stop by or for me to go out to meet someone. Since I bother with the pants, I guess I’m not a bogan. (Thanks for the link, Russell!)
Oh Russell, that link just killed me! Yes, yes, we have bogans in the US, we just don’t have a good word for them. It shall now be my mission to introduce the word into common usage (among discreet friends who know not to utter it publicly, of course). Heheh. .
In Scotland the word is “schemey” i.e. person from a housing scheme. I thought in Australia the word was “Westy”, meaning from the unsalubrious western side of the city. Or is that just Sydney? “Westy” is used in Auckland, New Zealand, as well.
Sounds to me like “trailer trash” is the nearest equivalent, or maybe just “low life.” (If you use the expression “trailer trash” at just the right time and with a wink, it’s not half bad. It should be used to describe a certain subset of the high and mighty, not genuine…er…mobile home dwellers.)
Back in the C19 they called them the ‘undeserving poor’. Depending on how things go in the next 20-30 years we’ll either be calling them ‘Soylent Green’, or ‘Master’. You never know when an unscrupulous capacity to survive will come in handy.
“I shed my jeans for sweatpants or pajama bottoms the second I walk in my house”
So do I! Except for the pajama bottoms part, but then sweat pants are pajama bottoms for me except in summer, but they’re different sweatpants and it’s very important not to mix the two. (Can you say anal compulsive? I thought you could.) And the most I ever permit myself in sweatpants is to take the garbage out or collect the mail, and I quake inwardly even at that. The rules are deeply internalized.
I’ve already started saying ‘bogan,’ and giggling. Excellent new addition.
“Back in the C19 they called them the ‘undeserving poor’.”
On Josh’s comment, I was also thinking of ‘the self-respecting poor.’ Also a trope in African-American culture, of course; Henry Louis Gates writes about this. Cf. the Robinsons.
Big thread for such an apparently trivial issue, eh?
Since Russell responded so well earlier, and certainly presented principles I’d never disagree with, I’ve been walking around with my Mulling Hat on. Why did I react so strongly to this apparently piddling fuss?
I think – and I’m not proud to admit it – is fear of violence. On the very few occasions in my adult life (thirty plus years of it) when I’ve been duffed up, it’s been by drunken charvas, as we call chavs or bogans round these parts. And I’ve been on the receiving end of verbal assaults many times, and heard them delivered many more.
Such experiences shape us. I’m walking down the street, a group of young people are approaching. How are they dressed? Goths? No problem. Chinese students? Well, assuming that deal with the Snake Heads is still solid, no problem. But if they’re in trainer, shell suits, hoodies – potential problem.
I don’t think I’m the only person who engages their street tactical radar in such circumstances. Am I boxed in, or do I have room to dodge and escape? Is there anybody else around? Would a potential witness deter them? Maybe someone who’ll intervene?
99.9 per cent of the time, this is redundant and indeed ridiculous. It’s the awareness of that 0.1 per cent that gets the adrenal gland working and the heart pumping.
None of which undercuts basic liberal principles one jot. But there it is.
In mitigation (your honour) I’m not prone to nasty generalisations about this or that group. I’ve been impressed and moved many times by the way people who’ve drawn a 3, a 5 and a 7 in life’s poker game make a go of it. Young mothers from poor backgrounds, in particular, often strike me as saintly in their patience and wise beyond their years.
But there you go. They’re just pyjamas, when all’s said and done.
Yup, just pyjamas. I’ve been mulling too. I have A Theory about one reason they bug me (and possibly other people) – I think I’ll do a post about it later. I also think the putative general principle about such rules may not be all that general – I think there are other open-to-the-public places on private property where even Russell would not disapprove of a rule against pyjamas (should an implicit rule against them break down). I suggested one on his blog a few minutes ago.
Just for one thing supermarkets are get in and get out places – and most of them are nasty anyway. What about places where the whole point is to linger and enjoy the atmosphere? Then what other people do to make the atmosphere more nasty becomes a real issue.
Then again I don’t disagree with Russell’s point that such rules are illiberal. I guess I just bite the bullet and accept that we need or want some illiberal rules in certain public/private spaces – or that we, or some of us, prefer to have them rather than not to have them.
But I draw the line at ones that require women to wear skirts. Which is arbitrary. There you go.
Two points:
1. A lot of good social norms are “illiberal” in the sense that they disapprove of actions or words that do no direct harm, and are also arbitrary. Norms about personal hygiene, appropriate attire, appropriate language, which side of the street we walk on…that kind of thing. So, it’s arbitrary. So what? That doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve a good social purpose. Furthermore, while I’m a staunch liberal on issues of state coercion, I’m much less so on issues of social disapproval–particularly when the disapproval isn’t “shunning” or ostracism but just “ew, that’s disgusting, don’t do that.” I think there’s something wrong with an individualism so extreme that we can’t have collective norms or blame people for violating them.
Obviously we should be willing to rethink what we socially disapprove of, to make sure the social norms aren’t unfair or excessively restrictive. But that doesn’t mean the norms can’t be good, or that we can’t disapprove of people violating them.
For instance, the norm about skirts is unfair. It puts an oft-onerous burden on women, especially when you consider that in many settings skirts require pantyhose. The norm about no pajamas does not privilege any one group over others and doesn’t require people to spend lots of time and/or money making themselves presentable; therefore, I think it’s acceptable. I’d be willing to listen to an argument that it’s not. (Since this is an oh-so-serious topic and all!)
2. Pajamas in particular are bothersome to me because they suggest having just woken up, not showered, being covered with sweat and/or your lover’s fluids, not having brushed one’s teeth, etc. I think of pajama-wearing as an intrusion of normally private functions into public spaces.
Jenavir, I don’t see anything extreme in what I said above. Refusal to pay taxes, and thus refusing to contribute to worthwhile government programs that help others, is an extreme form of individualism. Refusing to get upset by someone wearing unconventional clothing combinations is not.
Wearing a pair of pyjamas may have all sorts of associations for you personally, but that’s just you. I mean, it would never occur to me (for example) in a million years that a woman would have sex while wearing a pyjama bottom. Who does that?
Wearing a pyjama bottom is just not the same as exposing you to the presence of feces, snot, vomit, saliva, phlegm, or the like, and treating a mere breach of clothing conventions like this as if it was like that strikes me as … odd.
It’s actually very dangerous extending the disgust we feel for feces, etc., to other things, and I would have thought that one of the things a bunch of rationalists would be doing is going around robustly opposing exactly that sort of extension. Historically, the human preparedness to extend disgust beyond a very narrow area has had disastrous results, so it’s not the kind of pyschological phenomenon we can treat as simply unproblematic.
The private functions in public space argument is also odd. Wearing a pair of pyjamas may be comic, tasteless, or whatever, but it is just not the same as urinating or defecating, if those are the sorts of things you mean by “private functions”. We are usually ashamed to do those things in public because it inflicts the proximity of nauseating substances on others, and in some cases because we are vulnerable while doing those things (it’s hard to defend yourself while having a crap), but the woman wasn’t doing anything remotely along those lines.
We should also beware of taking too far this idea that there are certain essentially private things that it is shameful or disgusting to do in public. That’s a very Augustinian idea. Again, it’s the sort of idea that we’d normally want to criticise and confine pretty closely to paradigm cases such as pissing shitting and spitting.
I accept that there are good reasons to discourage public pissing shitting and spitting – reasons relating to public health and to the presence of the central things that are disgusting to almost everyone. But sleeping – which is what pyjamas mainly signify – is not an example. If someone has a nap in a public park or on a public beach, or in their car on the side of a public road, that’s fine.
I spotted a pajama-clad lady in Asda yesterday at 4pm. I’m a South Walian, living on a council estate no less, so I’m fairly regularly exposed the jammies & flip-flops ensemble.
I used to work on a project which provided counselling to people with depression who were long-term unemployed (before the project went bust and I ended up long-term unemployed myself.) Certain areas have multi-generational unemployment; there’s also a lot of people ‘on the sick’ with depression, which is only exacerbated by isolation etc. Our counsellors used to set small goals: getting up, dressed and out was one of them, as lack of attention to appearance is one of the signifiers of depression.
When I see women in pajamas at the supermarket or at the school gates I don’t just think ‘what a chav’ or whatever (although I do think that): but I have this feeling that as part of our regional post-industrial malaise, depressive behaviour has become almost normal.
OB – I would think twice about adopting the term ‘bogan’ – in an Australian context it has pretty well overtaken the older term ‘ocker’ and more or less means “working class Anglo to whom I and my snarky mates consider ourselves superior”. It is entirely snide and nasty, whereas ‘ocker’ could have both affectionate or negative connotations, depending on usage. IMHO this shift reflects the increasing respectability of snobbery and inequality in Australia, and is one of the few ‘acceptable’ forms of bigotry in certain quarters.
I too (greatly) value civility in the public sphere, but no rules are broken by the ‘bogan’ dress code – trackies, runners, t-shirts and flannelette shirts. These garments are cheap, practical and comfortable, and I have encountered vicious rudeness on more than one occasion in the gentrifying suburb where I live (presumably) for wearing same, as my behaviour certainly does not invite such responses!
To digress upon usage in another thread – “cunt” in this country is most certainly not a mere placeholder, it is an absolutely henious insult, and an invitation to physical violence. This is well understood by both accuser and recipient – if in doubt try flinging said placeholder around in any pub.
In short, there is an increasing tendency to conflate the (white only) working class with the unfortunate behaviour of some folk who would once have been described as ‘no-hopers’, and this is by malice not accident. Other people’s insults should be used with caution as many subtle shades of meaning are involved.
Aha, Galloise Blonde has said what I was going to say (and probably still will, later on) – the theory I came up with when mulling was that I associate extended pyjama-wearing in public with depressive behavior.
I also agree with Jenavir’s 2. A clean pair of pyjamas might be one thing, but one simply not yet exchanged for daytime clothes is all fusty and beddy (at the least) and thus not appetizing to the world at large – just as bed hair isn’t. That’s why there’s a term for bed hair.
At the very least, pyjamas that have been slept in for a whole night and perhaps several have a certain smell – a beddy smell – which is to be sure not like shit, but is also not something one wants to encounter while shopping for food.
SC – yes I kind of gathered that – as with ‘chav’ – really I meant I was going to adopt it for murmuring to myself, not really for public use.
Some of y’all might enjoy this:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/asda-welcomes-shoeless,-pyjama%11wearing-freaks-201001292424/
Re-read this entire exchange, but substitute ‘burkha’ for ‘pyjamas’…