Dress Code - Laws and Social Norms

Laws and Social Norms

In Tonga, it is illegal for men to appear in public without a shirt.

In New Guinea and Vanuatu, there are areas where it is customary for the men to wear nothing but penis sheaths in public - this is uncommon in more developed areas. Women wear string skirts. In remote areas of Bali, women may go topless. In America there are nude beaches and in China women have started wearing only the top of their traditional dresses baring their legs entirely to copy west .

In the United States, a few businesses or restaurants display dress code signs requiring shoes and shirts, claiming to be there on account of a health code, although no such health codes exist. Also, it is common belief that there are laws against driving barefoot. However, no such laws exist. It is quite uncommon for people to be nude in public in the United States. However, there are a few private beaches and resorts that cater to such a population.

Read more about this topic:  Dress Code

Famous quotes containing the words laws and, laws, social and/or norms:

    Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.
    Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)

    We agree fully that the mother and unborn child demand special consideration. But so does the soldier and the man maimed in industry. Industrial conditions that are suitable for a stalwart, young, unmarried woman are certainly not equally suitable to the pregnant woman or the mother of young children. Yet “welfare” laws apply to all women alike. Such blanket legislation is as absurd as fixing industrial conditions for men on a basis of their all being wounded soldiers would be.
    National Woman’s Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. O’Neill (1969)

    A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and, however he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be said to have arrived at self-possession.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.
    Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)