Last week, thirty women gathered on both sides of the passageway in the US Congress building wearing sleeveless dresses to reinforce their political stance. Yes, you are reading it right: their campaign is not about bearing the weapons, it is against the Dress Code of Congress.
This happened in the Speaker’s Lobby where the legislators and the reporters convene between the votes and conduct interviews respectively. For entering this room, the women are supposed to dress up in such a way that their blouses are full-sleeved; otherwise, they are not allowed in.
Not only women, but men too have a dress code, which in their case dictates wearing ties and jackets. Open-toed shoes are also banned.
The birth of "Sleeveless Friday"
Recently, CBS reported that the party adhered to the dress code unevenly to this extent that one of the female reporters was barred from the Speaker’s Lobby because she was wearing sleeveless clothes. This initiated an online debate among the reporters and journalists.
A representative named jackie speier encouraged his colleagues to protest and demand the right to wear sleeveless clothes. They carried out the protest on Friday, July 14, so Jackie Speier called that day Sleeveless Friday and posted a tweet about it online.
A Californian Democrat, Linda Sanchez, called these rules to be antediluvian and archaic.
She said that if they were to follow the tradition in the chamber, then they would not have the bathroom for women to be off the floor. She referred to the lack of bathrooms for the women off the floor in the previous years.
Final words about the report
All the policies are made by the security team of the chamber, and they do it under the House Speaker’s guidance.
The House Speaker, Paul Ryan, earlier in the month of June, said that all the members should come to the Speaker’s Lobby in appropriate business attire.
But later on after a counterblast, he started emphasizing on the fact that they have not devised the dress code under Paul Ryan’s term. He agreed that they needed to modernize the dress code.
He talked about this matter in one of his press conferences and said that he noticed that an issue was arising related to the dress code.
The House Minority Leader named Nancy Pelosi praised Paul Ryan's announcement to change the rule associated with the dress code. She said that she was happy to see that Ryan was planning to update the dress code. She appealed the unwritten rules of dress code must be updated.
