Clothing on Hamilton's Campus

During her lecture, Shabana Mir mentioned that youth culture doesn’t fit with religion. The clash between these cultures is very evident on college campus’, such as Hamilton College. The lack of religious clothing or symbols is most likely due to the fact that people want to fit in and they don’t want to wear symbols or objects that will cast them as outsiders.

In the few weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve noticed a trend among the clothing worn by students. The most common items being, flannel shirts, Sperrys, L.L. Bean boots, LuLu Lemon leggings, etc. Did the Hamilton admissions office coincidentally accept students with the same fashion choices? Or has our transition into this school influenced a change in our wardrobes in order to fit the norm?

I think most students, even those who want to be unique and original, still feel the need to be accepted and to fit in amongst their peers. Because of this, I think some students choose to wear or not to wear certain articles of clothing.  Our fashion choices tell our peers that we’re a part of the community, or that we’re outsiders

Being Jewish on Campus

With today being Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and the start of the holiest days of Judaism, it only makes sense to look at how Jews are identified on campus. For the most part, Jewish students wear very similar clothing as most other students on campus except on Jewish holidays such as the Sabbath. During these holidays , many Jewish students dress up in very nice clothing and walk to either the Chapel or more likely, the Azel Backus House. The Jewish students are not identified as "different" through their clothing, though the clothing they wear  is viewed by others as very formal (the language given off by the clothes). There is one major way in which some Jewish students are identified as "different." The major thing that separates Jewish students from others is the Sabbath where, for less religious students, there is a dinner while the more religious students do not do anything that contains effort (i.e. turning on a light). Some students are confused by these religious Jews not participating in the typical college experience in a similar way to how students at Georgetown and GW were confused by the Muslim students there. Jewish students are not identified as "different" often, as really the only time some are viewed as different is during the Sabbath.

Campus Life: the Sacred & the Sporty Clothes

    In our jammed-packed lives, we’re practically running from one event to another. Many of us on campus are physically active as well, so it’s not uncommon in class to see people in sport’s clothes coming from the gym or about to hit the track. But how about during services?

     I asked a Jewish friend of mine if being religious shaped how she dressed. We agreed that as Jewish and Catholic students, we perhaps dressed more conservatively than most, especially during services.

     “But sometimes I wear sports clothes to service, because I simply don’t have time to change before,” Jane* said. And I agreed. Many other students, including myself, have shown up to services a tad sweaty. I’d say there’s at least one person in sportswear at our Sunday Mass. 

      “It’s something about the space too” Jane commented, “We have services in the Hub [a public event space on campus], and it’s not like going to Temple. Nor is the Chapel like going to Mass for you, I bet. Knowing that during concerts a cappella groups drink beer on that alter makes it, I don’t know, different.”

     And she was right. For me, the modest, white Protestant Chapel did not have the same amount of sacredness for me as my home parish with its kneelers, stained glass, and incense in the air.

     For Jane and I, the casual campus vibe and our busy, active lives pervade into our sacred space. The spaces for our services were also more casual than what we were used to, less traditional. Maybe that’s a reason why us students feel its ok to be sporty and worship: the buildings themselves are such a mix of the typical “college life” and the religious.

*name changed 

Sending the Wrong Message,

Sending the Wrong Message

Luis Serota

    

     Alison Lurie makes a powerful statement at the end of the first chapter of The Language of Clothes, "By the time we meet and converse we have already spoken to each other in an older and more universal language." Here, Lurie is claiming that our dress immediately imparts an in-depth narrative of ourselves and our core identities unto anyone that happens to look our way for even an instant; whether it be our socio-economic status, religious beliefs and commitment level to those beliefs, or any other passion that might define us.

     While Lurie is predominantly correct in her claim that our clothes are unspoken, but rather comprehensive identifiers of who we are to those around us, she fails to point out a fundamental flaw in this form of non-verbal communication that Shabana Mir highlights in her talk and book. Specifically in the case of Muslim Women on modern American college campuses, Mir calls attention to the fact that other individuals, when "conversing" with" these Muslim Women in the language of their clothes, totally overlook the rest of these womens' personal identities due to being clouded by the traditional Hijabis that they don, and instead solely associate them with Islam. These miscommunications lead to unfortunate misnomers; the rest of these women's diverse, unique, and compelling identities are sacrificed in the eyes of the "normal" American college students around them at the cost of wearing Hijabis.

     How can we combat these unfortunate miscommunications in Lurie's innate language of clothing elicited by Mir? These unmerited social judgements are likely caused by the innate human response to react uncomfortably, or cautiously, to what we don't see as "normal" by our standards, acting as a defense mechanism to create social-separation from these things. How can we eliminate these barriers, and perceive everything as "normal?"
   Recently, an old friend of mine published a mini-documentary on the power of engaging in "Big-Talk" with strangers as opposed to the purposeless small talk we would normally engage in with people we are uncomfortable with. In the context of the Hamilton College Campus, or really in any community large or small, I believe engaging in more meaningful conversations with strangers has the ability to overlook the normal judgements we would normally pass them solely based on the language of their clothes. In the video, Kalina asks strangers deep and personal questions like, "what do you want to do before you die?" The response she gets from these people are far more telling of their identities than any religious ornaments, designer clothing, or lack thereof might impart.

Religious expression through dress

In her book and talk, Shabana Mir discusses stigmas from forms of religious expression through clothing. The discomfort the female Muslim college students she discusses demonstrate the assumptions people make about hijabs. People constantly jump to conclusions about others based off their appearance, and when that appearance is outwardly religious, certain stereotypes or assumed standards follow. It is part of human nature to make assessments of people based off appearance, as is explained in Alison Lurie’s article, “The Language of Clothes.” When religion is added to the mix, the assumptions get more complex and often more judgmental.

On Hamilton’s campus, outward religious expression through clothing is minimal. Some people wear Crosses or Stars of David around their necks, but beyond that, students tend to have a very secular appearance. That is not to say people do not make judgments based off appearance, though. The secular culture makes religious expression all the more daring and potentially important to the person choosing to express their religion through dress. In a campus culture where religious expression is rarely seen, to break the mold and display one's beliefs takes great courage and commitment. Therefore, a person wearing a hijab, yamaka, or the like is opening himself or herself up to the impressions of people who are unfamiliar with this type of religious expression.

Religious Dress and the Desire for Conformity on the Hamilton Campus

Despite the predominantly secular attitudes of students at Hamilton College, there is a religious presence here. The Muslim Student Association, Hillel, and Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship are all active organizations on campus. However, very few students actively present a religious identity through their clothing. For the most part, students seem to dress within the norms of American youth culture. It is possible to make certain assumptions about people through what they wear, but for the most part gleaning some sort of religious identity without a marker is difficult. Shabana Mir’s lecture and chapter provided me with some insight on why that is the case. In her lecture she discussed how someone's  peers are the biggest influence on a person at college. In her chapter she writes “hijab facilitated personal piety precisely by limiting assimilation within mainstream culture.”

Here at Hamilton “mainstream culture” means the party scene. This kind of highly secular environment tends not to match the kind of behavior that is expected of prototypically ‘religious’ students. Visible crosses, yarmulkes, or hijabs do not conform to the secular culture at Hamilton. People who do publicly display their religious affiliation, and choose not to participate in leisure culture, come across as more religious than students who do conform to secular ways of dress, even if that is not the case. Religious students can either downplay their religious identity to fit in or choose to embrace that part of themselves at the risk of alienating their peers.

The Othering Process

The process of othering that takes place during and after an interpersonal interaction, but Mir and Lurie made an interesting point of dispelling that notion. Both left me with the impression that the process begins long before that. Signifiers such as the hijab lead onlookers to believe that the wearers of the item have a vastly different outlook on the world around them. In regards to one of Lurie’s statements, the vocabulary a wearer of a hijab would use is assumed to be the opposite of a blonde protestant. Furthermore, Lurie stated that human speech does not have a single language, but Mir’s lecture gave the impression that if Americans could operate by using a single language we definitely would. The diversity of language as it relates to clothing creates personal variations that are assessed then classified based on the societal norms of a singular language. But why? Why is there such a strong desire to fit people into groups that are easily digestible? What makes the task of developing true understanding of a different culture’s complexities that we avoid often avoid even trying? I truly don’t think this desire is fueled by malice, but an attempt to avoid the discomfort that overcomes a person when they come in contact with something they have never had to comprehend. When Mir described the experience Fatima, one of her subjects of observation, had when she was asked to explain why she does not drink alcohol or has never had a boyfriend, Fatima avoided being othered by giving an answer that does not elude to any cultural identifiers. Fatima’s discomfort was a product of the reactions she was sure her peers would have if they knew the real answer. If am not mistaken Fatima was also one of Mir’s subjects that did not wear the hijab. Even though Lurie suggests that clothes act as a means to using another language that does not necessarily mean that bystanders will want to speak it with you.