Bais yaakov vs non BY approach to teaching Tznius

amother

Olive

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 12:29 pm

amother OP wrote:

My experience working with teen girls in camps and schools is that most of the girls who come from Bais yaakov can’t wait to break free from their rigid school uniform and wear whatever they want. They follow tznius guidelines generally but when left to decide what to wear their outfits are tighter or just overall pushing the envelope. The girls from non Bais yaakov seem more comfortable with their body image and tznius guidelines overall and end up dressing more tzanua when not told what they have to wear. It seems BY schools use a lot of words like “bnos melachim, dignity, refinement, royalty” as opposed to non Bais yaakov schools that teach Halacha vs minhag hamakom and to focus on internally as opposed to externals.
I am worried about this because my daughters’ school is switching to a more Bais yaakov feel. They’re adding a sweatshirt with emblem, switching to a button down shirt and knee socks from a more relaxed polo shirt uniform. I loved that there was space for girls to choose how they feel comfortable dressing as opposed to being told this is a “dignified” look. I found that generally they chose to be more tzanua than their BY peers because of the room for choice. What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear your background with your answer

I have not found this to be true at all.

The bais yaakov girls I know (a few dds and their many friends, as well as neighbors etc) follow the same tznius guidelines when wearing their own clothes.

Except for the ones who come from more modern homes, in which case they dress the way their family dresses and they are just wearing the uniform to keep the school rule.

But the more yeshivish girls are keeping the same guidelines as their uniform.

↑ Chayalle ↓

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 12:34 pm

b.chadash wrote:

I dont know which crowd you have been exposed to that you are comparing BY girls to. Are they MO? Chassidish?

I have worked with BY girls and don't see this the same way. I would say that the biggest influence of tznius standards on the girl is not the school but the mother. Even if the girl dressed tzanua in BY, if the mother in a style not consistent with BY values, in most cases, the girl will end up dressing like her mother.

I see the biggest influence being peers/friends. I see plenty of girls who dress more trendy than their mothers. They want to fit in socially.

amother

Lime

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 12:46 pm

amother Olive wrote:

This. Who is buying the girls the.tighter clothes? Who is buying their camp outfits? Many BYs do not have only girls from a single background. You will see a much wider range of norms outsde of school. It's not necessary rebellion urban reflection of the school's teachings.

↑ b.chadash ↓

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 1:02 pm

Chayalle wrote:

I see the biggest influence being peers/friends. I see plenty of girls who dress more trendy than their mothers. They want to fit in socially.

Ok. Would you agree, then, that in most cases, girls gravitate towards other girls who come from similar background to their own families?
The girls from the yeshivish homes tend to become friends with each other, and the girls from more "cool" or trendy homes, will stick together.

I don't know how it works in Lakewood (where the schools tend to be more homogenious) but that is certainly the case in my OOT community, where there is a greater diversity of girls. Of course, there are always exceptions, but I see this as a generality.
If that is the case, it ends up being the same thing. They are either dressing trendy because of their mother or their peers.

Last edited by b.chadash on Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

↑ Chayalle ↓

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 1:59 pm

b.chadash wrote:

Ok. Would you agree, then, that in most cases, girls gravitate towards other girls who come from similar background to their own families?
The girls from the yeshivish homes tend to become friends with each ither, and the girls from more "cool" or trendy homes, will stick together.

I don't know how it works in Lakewood (where the sxhools tend to be more homogenious) but that is certainly the case in my OOT community, where there is a greater diversity of girls. Of course, there are always exceptions, but I see this as a generality.
If that is the case, it ends up being the same thing. They are either dressing trendy because of their mother or their peers.

No, I would not.
In fact, I remember talking once to DD's Mechaneches, and she said the same - that parents often send their girls to high school thinking they will be friends with girls from a similar background, but this is often not the case. Girls gravitate to girls based on other factors like personality, social standing, etc.....

↑ b.chadash ↓

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:03 pm

Chayalle wrote:

Ok, then maybe it is an in-town vs out of town thing.
I have seen both from my own daughters and from working in a BY school, that girls (on the whole) gravitate towards girls who are on the same frumkeit level as them more than any other factor. And I remember that being the case when I went to school as well.

Last edited by b.chadash on Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:06 pm; edited 1 time in total

↑ mha3484 ↓

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:04 pm

b.chadash wrote:

Your experience is what I see all the time. In a large OOT BY Highschool the girls on the right and the left of the yeshivish spectrum tend to socialize with their type.

amother

IndianRed

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:06 pm

B'Syata D'Shmya wrote:

That was my experience, but Im way older than you. The BY girls really absorbed the message of respectful dress. People treat you more respectful because of it

My friends who went to MO schools (for want of a better term, to be specific, Central) went from pants to tight pants, short sleeves to lower revealing necklines and the shirts with slits or missing material on their shoulders. They claim that the hot weather justifies the less cloth, its not meant to be revealing and anyway the men should keep their eyes to themselves and look up at the face, not the body....

Incidentally, a few gained weight and started wearing looser clothing.

I think maybe you should edit your post and remove the name of the school. Even though hundreds have already seen this lashon hara.

amother

Snowflake

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:17 pm

First, you need to compare baselines. MO girl who wears pants to start with is not the same as MO girl who always wore skirts. So of you're going to compare with BY, you need to start with at least a similar starting point (so, both coming from no pants homes. I say this as someone who grew up wearing pants and no longer does). Second, I think where someone ends up has mostly to do with messaging, and I don't think there's necessarily a correlation with school type in terms of who does the messaging better. Honestly, I went to a MO school where it was common for the teachers to be more to the right of the families and messaging regarding tznius and shomer negia was pretty gross. I went to a more RW seminary and got much better messaging on both and as a result changed my practice of both.

amother

Eggplant ↓

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:36 pm

Op, I know exactly which school you are referring to. I send my kids there and live in the community. Personally, what you’re describing may be more of an issue in high school, not elementary. I grew up in a more Bais yaakov system and I don’t have a problem with the new rules.
However. I think the school messed up in the manner that they rolled them out. Imo, the girls kodesh principal should have spoken to the bigger girls in May/june to explain and discuss the changes. This was a total missed opportunity to explain tznius in a beautiful healthy way. Instead, they heard it from their mothers, most of whom were annoyed. Not a great start.
Also, rolling it out in July when pple already may have bought uniforms was disrespectful.
I do not think the rules will have long term effects on their attitude to tznius and body image as was described in the letter. I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.
For the most part, I have noticed that many girls tend absorb the attitudes their mothers have about these things. Be a good model to your daughter and keep communication open. And try to send your daughter to a hs that has a level headed approach to Tznius.

amother

Navyblue

Fri, Aug 09 2024, 2:38 pm

Chayalle wrote:

Quite possibly. And I wonder if the diversity range is different in-town and OOT as well, which might be a factor.

We are OOT and kids are only in elementary to middle school, but so far I see it is common here for MO and JPF or yeshivish kids to be friends at those ages. Boys and girls. My community is not tiny, but a lot smaller than mha's.

I would add that people who require extreme insularity for their children would simply never move to our community.
There is a big difference between a family that says "We don't allow our children to watch non-Jewish videos," and a family that also says "We don't allow our children to play with children who watch non-Jewish videos." Same thing for "We don't use smartphones," and "We don't allow our children to have friends whose parents have smartphones." For both categories, we have families of the first type and none, to my knowledge, of the second.

amother

↑ OP

Sat, Aug 10 2024, 10:52 pm

amother Eggplant wrote:

Thanks for your response. I feel better hearing your perspective. You’re one of the first few people who I’ve heard from who isn’t bothered. Glad to hear. I think the rules on their own were ok for me but the description of knee socks “to ensure their dignity” to me seemed off. There are plenty of people who look dignified but don’t wear knee socks so it’s really to ensure they look like Bais yaakov girls. It’s a cultural thing/minhag hamakom/chumra… I think the principal didn’t have a chance to discuss this with the girls because the Vaad just decided this after school ended. Seems like it’s to increase enrollment from the larger segment of the community that sends elsewhere. I’m glad to hear it doesn’t bother you with your Bais yaakov background. I was personally very turned off in a Bais yaakov elementary school because of the overemphasis on external dress code that seemed fake. Wondering what you thought about the separate seating at events now. It feels very not reflective of the parent body but rather something to make the school look more yeshivish so the larger community will want to join. Disappointing for me because it was the one event tho at my secular family agreed to come to and enjoy. They won’t come to shul so those events were sweet…

↑ b.chadash

Sat, Aug 10 2024, 11:03 pm

Honestly, whenever I hear people discussing Bais Yaakov hashkafos or rules, I wonder how many actually BY schools they have been exposed to. There are thousands of BY schools worldwide. Each school reflects the community it's in, the people who run it and the parent body relative to other schools in the area. (Meaning, if the BY is the only girls school in the neighborhood it will have a much wider spectrum of levels than if there are several girls schools to choose from.)

And so there is no one standard for all schools. Maybe there is an image people have when they think of a "Bais Yaakov girl", but when it comes to questions like the OP has, it is very specific to the school.

The BY I went to is very different from the one my kids went to, or the one I taught in. And the teachers there all experienced different styles of chinuch, although they all went to Bais Yaakovs.

We are all limited to our own experiences, so it's not honest to extrapolate from our own experiences and make general statements.

amother

↑ Eggplant

Sat, Aug 10 2024, 11:08 pm

amother OP wrote:

I heard that the girls principal has been wanting to do these changes for several years now and I don't think it was specifically because of the enrollment issue you are describing. I also heard from other parents that the bigger girls were beginning to wear oxfords on their own because they were self conscious about the polos. Now, how nice it would have been if that was added to the email!!! It would have communicated that this decision wasn’t simply top down.

I think coming on the heels of the separate seating, many families were upset. It seems like a very drastic turn to the right that may not reflect all the parents values. I’m not really sure why the separate seating was something they needed to change. I have no patience for externals. I totally hear that. But that’s also why it was a mess up, that they couldn’t predict this turning pple off. If they wanted to do things smartly, it should have been done much more slowly and thoughtfully.

The bottom line is that schools can make whatever rules/changes they want and we have a choice to stay or leave. But I hate when the school messed up something they had control over (and there are already many problems they don’t have control over, such as teacher shortages)… it could have been done with more sensitivity and seichel, without alarming and turning off parents.