It was a correspondent writing in our edition of October 18, 2007, who alerted the public to the fact that the GPO had joined a number of other agencies in implementing a dress code. Exactly why citizens must present themselves garbed in a certain way before they can be allowed to buy a stamp or pay their taxes has never been satisfactorily explained by the mysterious authorities who dream up these puerile edicts. It is not even as if the GPO building with its hot, unimaginative and unwelcoming interior and sometimes surly staff warrants any kind of fashion statement or sartorial recognition from the public.

At the end of last month Dr Joyce Jonas recounted her experience of being refused admission to the GPO building because she was dressed in an armless top. In fact the outfit comprising a high-necked top and matching slacks was both smart and modest – something of which our readers could be in no doubt, because she supplied an accompanying photograph. The notice on the GPO wall prohibiting particular forms of dress, to wit, ‘strap’ tops for ladies and armless tops for men did not apply to her in any case, since she was neither male nor was she sporting a ‘strap’ top. The security guard was unimpressed with the obvious logic of this argument, however, and refused her access anyway.

Dr Jonas’s letter was followed some time later by one from Ms Ryhann Shah, who related similar experiences in the Office of the President and the National Library. When she was refused access to the latter institution she was attired in a sleeveless dress which she had worn to the Museum of Metropolitan Art, Manhattan, and which she said could have been worn to any library, licensing office or state institution in the US, Canada or Europe. “And why,” she asked, “in a country where our illiteracy is daily evident, is the public library concerned about how we are dressed? They should be in the frontlines of state institutions welcoming anyone and everyone no matter how they are dressed.”

She also referred to the double standard in operation, citing the occasion when a visitor from the South African Broadcasting Corporation wearing a sleeveless dress was allowed into the OP. Only Guyanese women, it seems, are obliged to cover their arms. One must presume that our well-travelled President must have been present at many formal ceremonies outside this country where he was privy to the sight of ladies’ bare arms, and one cannot believe that he has been unduly corrupted by the experience, or that he is committed to the view that the arms of Guyanese residents are more provocative than those of their sisters elsewhere. As Ms Shah said, “When did the arms of females become indecent or improper body parts?”

There are two issues here. One is the larger question of when a dress code is in order, and the other is whether the requirement that a woman should cover her arms (except, perhaps, in certain places of worship where the secular rules do not apply, or because there is an industrial operation where safety is a consideration) is ever acceptable. Where the first question is concerned, it has to be said there really are very few places where a dress code should apply, and these do not include the vast majority of government offices and agencies (where the staff frequently treat people with contempt in any case), and certainly not the GPO building or the National Library. Where the last-mentioned is concerned, Ms Shah said it all, and where everywhere else is concerned, as Dr Jonas observed, there are “moral issues of far greater consequence than a couple of inches of fabric more or less on a woman’s upper arms” if the authorities are really committed to arresting the “moral landslide.” She might have added that there were more pressing moral issues as well than short pants (for men and women), armless tops for men, rubber slippers and ‘strap’ tops.

Certainly there must be cases where bandits whose sober dress would have qualified them to enter the National Library have gunned down law-abiding citizens whose clothing would not.

While in general government entities should not concern themselves too much about the way the public dresses, there are one or two exceptions. The obvious one is a meeting with the President, where out of respect for his office a certain sobriety in terms of attire is in order, albeit with the caveat mentioned below. (There is also the exception where he calls one of his impromptu press conferences, and reporters do not have time to go home and change.)

Western dress styles are largely what operate here, and these, of course, are subject to convention which changes over time.  This is a hot, humid country and the clothing styles we mostly share with the north temperate climes are not always suited to our conditions. Strangely enough this was tacitly acknowledged by the old colonial authorities, some of whose officials had the option of wearing short pants in the tropics. Nowadays, of course, short pants or three-quarter pants for men are regarded as déclassé and it is this perception, rather than any actual indecency by current standards, which prevents a conscientious male so clad from dropping his income tax forms in the box provided at the GPO building.

The National Cultural Centre in more recent times was the first to reintroduce a dress code, and even here it has been a source of controversy on occasion, sometimes because of how the rules have been applied. It is those collecting the tickets at the door who are the ones to decide whether a patron meets the code, and issues relating to the exercise of judgement have been raised in the past. The hope was that an insistence on formal dress would ensure a higher standard of behaviour in the auditorium, but in fact this connection has not necessarily been borne out. Certainly for the most part nowadays, theatres in industrial countries do not have dress specifications for their audiences.

But even for the few institutions which might legitimately entertain a dress code, none of them, including the President, should have a prohibition on uncovered female arms. There is simply no indecency attached to a woman’s bare arms in any country where Western dress styles are common. If that were not so, Mrs Michelle Obama could never leave the White House to go anywhere.

So who in government sat down one day to think up new ways to harass citizens? Ms Shah is of the opinion that the dress code is just “another way for those at the top to make sure you feel the full force of their authority.” Certainly it seems like little more than a power trip on the part of faceless bureaucrats – and a power trip which reaches all the way down to the security guards, who make their own additions to the code in order to exercise their little bit of devolved authority. The Guyanese people have enough to endure without in addition having to put up with ludicrous regulations which impede them from conducting their everyday business.