Mise
isle of lucy
...and if so, what can they reasonably demand of their employees? Piercings? Tattoos? Headscarves? Crosses? Do people have a right to wear these things to work? Do employers have a right to impose a dress code that forbids e.g. religious jewellery, such as crosses?
To me, this is one of those rare situations where the usual "conservative vs liberal" lines fall apart. As a liberal, I think that people should have a right to wear those things in the workplace. It's pretty easy for me to say that this includes religious adornments, such as crosses and headscarves, as well as things like tattooes, piercings, and unorthodox clothing. I'd love to turn up to work tomorrow wearing comfortable, casual clothes like jeans and a t-shirt; I see guys who work in IT or creative industries wearing casual clothes and I don't see why I can't also do that. We have "casual Fridays" at work, and nobody bats an eyelid. Nobody thinks, "wow, that company is worthless - look at all those people not wearing suits!"
Anyway this has quickly turned into a rant against business attire. I really wanted to talk about the problems that conservatives and liberals face here. I feel that conservatives have a tough time answering this question, for two reasons. First, the easy part. They would surely want people to have the right to wear religious adornments at work. So crosses, headscarves, jewish hat things, whatever. But isn't this "special treatment" for minorities? (The minority of people who want to wear religious adornments to work, that is.) If religious people are allowed to wear things against their employers' wishes, surely non-religious people should be afforded the same rights? What's the difference, pertinently, between a necklace with the cross on it and a necklace with a skull on it? Is it right for certain religions to be given special treatment? Don't conservatives typically hate it when, say, Muslims or other minorities are afforded special treatment by employers, schools, governments, and so on?
Second, what about the employers' rights? Don't conservatives typically believe that the employer has a right to define the rules of work? Don't conservatives typically hate the kind of beaurocracy and red tape that will be the inevitable consequence of rules like this? Speaking as a conservative, if you make a special case for religion, what's to stop, say, rastafarians or "Jedis" from rocking up in dreadlocks or inventing rules about their religion in order to get special favours that were intended for genuinely religious people? You would have to make up new laws and have new HR policies, with an army of beaurocrats and compliance officers to oversee them all. It would be a nightmare. And, for many conservatives, the beaurocracy involved with anti-discrimination in general is already too much. Indeed, the idea that the employer has a right to hire and fire based on any metric they like is pretty central to many conservatives. Typically, when "the right of the individual" does battle with "the right of the employer/big business", conservatives side with big business; they don't want to impose needless costs on businesses, when those costs could be shouldered by the individual instead.
Now, it's not just conservatives that have a hard time. And it's not as though there is no way out of this quandry. Liberals have a hard time, too. Do they side with big business, who they claim to hate? Or do they allow ostentatious displays of religious faith in schools, courts, and government buildings?
Liberals who think that people should be allowed to wear what they want have a problem of where to draw the line, too. I don't have a satisfactory answer to that, incidentally - I think that people should be allowed to wear casual clothes to work, but I think that there ought to be a line nonetheless. Is that because I'm prejudiced against, for example, juggaloes or nudists? I don't know, but I do know that this is problematic for my ideology.
It's certainly a quandry.
To me, this is one of those rare situations where the usual "conservative vs liberal" lines fall apart. As a liberal, I think that people should have a right to wear those things in the workplace. It's pretty easy for me to say that this includes religious adornments, such as crosses and headscarves, as well as things like tattooes, piercings, and unorthodox clothing. I'd love to turn up to work tomorrow wearing comfortable, casual clothes like jeans and a t-shirt; I see guys who work in IT or creative industries wearing casual clothes and I don't see why I can't also do that. We have "casual Fridays" at work, and nobody bats an eyelid. Nobody thinks, "wow, that company is worthless - look at all those people not wearing suits!"
Anyway this has quickly turned into a rant against business attire. I really wanted to talk about the problems that conservatives and liberals face here. I feel that conservatives have a tough time answering this question, for two reasons. First, the easy part. They would surely want people to have the right to wear religious adornments at work. So crosses, headscarves, jewish hat things, whatever. But isn't this "special treatment" for minorities? (The minority of people who want to wear religious adornments to work, that is.) If religious people are allowed to wear things against their employers' wishes, surely non-religious people should be afforded the same rights? What's the difference, pertinently, between a necklace with the cross on it and a necklace with a skull on it? Is it right for certain religions to be given special treatment? Don't conservatives typically hate it when, say, Muslims or other minorities are afforded special treatment by employers, schools, governments, and so on?
Second, what about the employers' rights? Don't conservatives typically believe that the employer has a right to define the rules of work? Don't conservatives typically hate the kind of beaurocracy and red tape that will be the inevitable consequence of rules like this? Speaking as a conservative, if you make a special case for religion, what's to stop, say, rastafarians or "Jedis" from rocking up in dreadlocks or inventing rules about their religion in order to get special favours that were intended for genuinely religious people? You would have to make up new laws and have new HR policies, with an army of beaurocrats and compliance officers to oversee them all. It would be a nightmare. And, for many conservatives, the beaurocracy involved with anti-discrimination in general is already too much. Indeed, the idea that the employer has a right to hire and fire based on any metric they like is pretty central to many conservatives. Typically, when "the right of the individual" does battle with "the right of the employer/big business", conservatives side with big business; they don't want to impose needless costs on businesses, when those costs could be shouldered by the individual instead.
Now, it's not just conservatives that have a hard time. And it's not as though there is no way out of this quandry. Liberals have a hard time, too. Do they side with big business, who they claim to hate? Or do they allow ostentatious displays of religious faith in schools, courts, and government buildings?
Liberals who think that people should be allowed to wear what they want have a problem of where to draw the line, too. I don't have a satisfactory answer to that, incidentally - I think that people should be allowed to wear casual clothes to work, but I think that there ought to be a line nonetheless. Is that because I'm prejudiced against, for example, juggaloes or nudists? I don't know, but I do know that this is problematic for my ideology.
It's certainly a quandry.
