Last week, the Afghan government published a new moral code. Among other things, it stipulates that women are not allowed to wear thin, tight or short clothing and that they must always cover their faces in public.
I hope your reaction is the same as mine: “What people wear is none of the government’s business.”
But let me ask you a related question. What about the 16 states, including Denmark, Bulgaria, Morocco and Tunisia, that have gone the other way and banned draping Islamic clothing? My reaction is the same: it’s none of the government’s damn business. But I recognize that my position is becoming eccentric in an increasingly illiberal world.
In July, Nassau County in New York State signed a law banning face masks. The law was pushed by Mazi Pilip, a Republican former Israel Defense Forces paratrooper of Ethiopian Jewish heritage, who argued the ban would stop pro-Gaza protesters from “hiding behind masks and terrorizing the Jewish community.”
I notice that many people who were horrified by being forced to wear masks during the pandemic are now calm when the state uses the opposite violence. So most people are more for or against masks than against coercion.
Perhaps this should not surprise us. The idea that it is not the government’s place to tell people what to wear is remarkably novel. In most societies, clothing has been organized by status over the centuries.
In Rome, only senators and officials were allowed to wear the purple of Tyre, and then only as the hem of their robes. In medieval England, fabrics made of gold, sable, ermine and velvet were reserved for knights and lords. In the Italian city-states, low necklines were forbidden for women and prostitutes had to wear a distinctive stripe.
Louis XIII of France forbade non-aristocrats from embroidering their clothes with gold thread, while in Massachusetts the law allowed only citizens with a fortune of over 200 pounds to wear lace, embroidery, openwork, hatbands, ruffles or capes.
The concept of personal freedom is rare and new. In societies where people are defined primarily by their occupation or caste rather than as individuals, dress codes, or expense laws as they were commonly called, seemed natural.
As Pilip knows, Jews were more exposed to this attitude than most. In medieval France they had to wear badges with yellow wheels, in Sicily blue stripes, in Germany yellow pointed hats, in Hungary red cloaks, and in many Muslim countries yellow turbans. If such laws seem strange to us today, it is because we have internalized the concept of individual autonomy.
As modern society returned to identity politics, it was perhaps inevitable that luxury laws would make a comeback. And since nothing has advanced our authoritarianism like lockdown, face masks were always going to be the most likely battleground.
Leaving aside the question of whether face masks worked, what was striking was how quickly they were incorporated into the American culture war, with leftists more willing to wear them than conservatives. When Black Lives Matter and Antifa violence erupted during the pandemic, the masks took on a certain radical chic, amplifying their political connotations. It’s notable how many anti-Israel protesters on campus seem to have been wearing them since 2020.
I had hoped that the Conservatives would respond to the end of lockdown by saying, “Let’s never give up our freedoms so easily again.” Instead, many seem to be saying, “You’ve imposed your values on us, so now let’s see if you like it.”
For example, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) issued an executive order prohibiting business owners in Florida from requiring masks or proof of vaccination on their own property – a decree that was just as illiberal as the measures he rightly opposed.
Someone has to sing the old song, so here we go. We are entitled to personal autonomy, freedom of association, and private property. It follows that, except in the most extreme cases, governments should not dictate what we wear. It also follows that private institutions can dictate any dress code they want.
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A restaurant may require you to wear a tie. A place of worship may require you to cover your hair. A mall may prohibit face coverings to deter shoplifters. If you don’t like the rules, go somewhere else.
Well, here’s the thing. These principles don’t depend on whether you approve or disapprove of the people involved. They’re not about respecting or disrespecting other people’s religion, or agreeing or disagreeing with them on COVID. They apply regardless. That’s what freedom under the law means. Or at least what it used to mean.
