How short is a short skirt and who gets to decide?
These were the questions vexing members of the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, on Wednesday as dozens of female employees arrived in above-the-knee attire to protest what they said was the Knesset guards’ sudden eagerness to enforce a long-standing dress code.
Many of the aides also wore thick tights or black leggings, though it was unclear if that was a nod to modesty or because of the bad weather.
The years-old code, which a Knesset spokesman said was recently “refreshed,” calls for dignified dress that becomes the place and bans items like shorts, ripped trousers, skimpy tops, T-shirts with political slogans, short skirts and dresses, and flip-flops.
While many Knesset members and their aides said they supported the need for a dress code, they questioned the guards’ role as the arbiters of appropriate skirt length, comparing them with the modesty police in conservative religious societies.
The skirt-length skirmish burst into public conversation after the left-leaning Haaretz reported on the plight of Shaked Hasson, who was pictured in a slightly crumpled, above-the-knee blue dress and was held up by Knesset guards for nearly an hour on Sunday until her boss, Merav Michaeli of the center-left Zionist Union, intervened.
“Yes, yes, no less than five guards stood and visually measured up Shaked’s legs and decided that her attire did not allow her to enter the Knesset to do her job,” Michaeli, a leading feminist lawmaker, wrote in a Facebook post.
Describing Hasson’s experience as “humiliating,” Michaeli added; “Respectful attire yes, but no to modesty patrols.”
Knesset spokesman Yotam Yakir described Wednesday’s protest as a “provocation.”
“I am sure other parliaments in the world have a much stricter code,” Yakir said by telephone. “Here, jackets are not obligatory. We just don’t allow real minis, torn clothes, things like that. It is very elementary. It is not about gender.”
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