Wardrobe Malfunction: Knesset ‘Miniskirt’ Rule Humiliates Sensibly-Dressed Aide

Man in revealing kilt. Probably too scandalous for the Knesset. Image by Getty Images

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy December 13, 2016

Remember last summer’s burkini ban in France, where police (!) in the South of France — as in, actual police, not fashion-police-y French beach-goers — demanded a woman take off a bathing suit a new law deemed too modest? (See Jane Eisner’s analysis.) Even more frighteningly (though neither is great…), in Mosul, Iraq, reports the New York Times, ISIS-enforced dress codes require women to cover every part of their bodies, a complicated procedure involving gloves and eye coverings.

Which leads me to the latest in womenswear-policing: Marcy Oster reports that Knesset aide Shaked Hasson was examined and detained by a guard and other workers for violating new rules regarding skirt length.

A Facebook photo of the outfit in question reveals… nothing all that revealing. She’s in office-wear. I don’t have the cultural relativism in me that would be necessary to sort out how the outfit in question could be classified as a “short skirt”, in Israel or anywhere else. Yes, different locales have different dress codes, but it would seem a rule about workplace-appropriate attire wouldn’t entirely converge with one about what to wear at a particularly traditional house of worship. Or, rather, it sure says something when they do! Although I did notice that the Knesset website makes no mention of requiring head-coverings of male visitors, which suggests a touch of good old sexism under the cover of piety at stake.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO