In a message dated 22/10/2009 18:16:58 GMT Daylight Time,  
katherine.gotthardt at gmail.com writes:

When I  teach, I am clean-shaven and wear shorts and a T-shirt, although my 
"nice"  ones.


This was actually written by Michael, of course! It is also a cultural  
thing! Here in north Wales, clean-shaven does not register particularly 
strongly  on a scale of threat/invitation whereas shorts do! Even 'nice' shorts 
(like the  image!) might well come across quite strong to some from more 
sartorially  buttoned up cultures. I lived in Yemen for a while, years ago, and 
while the men  usually wore some form of sarong (the 'foota' wrap-around 
sarong the everyday  version) it extended well below the knees, which were never 
shown. They  would have been quite shocking, in fact. Men in shorts was 
several steps too  far. I remained in jeans however warm (and it was ferociously 
hot in the Tihama  belt by the Red sea).
 
Re Hawai, and those shorts, it is more complicated where there is a very  
dominant culture and a more homogeneous population. It is unreasonable to 
expect  everyone in Hawai to discard their shorts (if you see what I mean) for 
the sake  of a few who are culturally disturbed by them, just as in a 
culture where the  norm is female invisibility, insistence upon wearing a bikini 
may be a  considerable distance out of place. How far is tolerance to extend, 
and who is  to do the extending?
 
Hugo


at: _http://www.hugokerr.info_ (http://www.hugokerr.info/) 

"We're here to help each other get  through this thing - whatever it might 
be." (Kurt Vonnegut) 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/diversity/attachments/20091023/a72d9e82/attachment.html