Missouri lawmakers kicked off the year tackling a dubious issue: covering up women's exposed arms.
Lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives, disturbed by the sight of female biceps, made national news last week. The GOP-controlled House adopted a stricter dress code requiring female legislators and staffers to cover their shoulders.
Some writers had fun with the irony: A state that worships guns won't let women bare arms.
The lazy pun could be amusing if we weren't so tired of being national laughingstocks. Missouri frequently finds itself in the national spotlight for cringeworthy reasons. We had a former state health director tracking the periods of Planned Parenthood patients. One of our senators raised a fist in support of Jan. 6 protestors, then ran like Chicken Little when they attacked the Capitol. Our other newly elected senator sued China and local school districts during the pandemic, and made us the first state with a near-total ban on abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
We're not sending our best, and we know it.
The latest embarrassment about legislating women's sleeves highlights our peculiar brand of Missourah misogyny -- it's powered by Republican women. Every single statewide elected official in Missouri is a white, Republican man. Women hold less than a third of the seats in the Missouri House. Those looking for the best way to cozy up to power know exactly where it rests.
It was a GOP woman, Rep. Ann Kelley, who proposed tightening the dress code for the ladies. Last year, Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman was pushing for laws to prevent women from leaving the state to get an abortion. Once they've got our uteruses in their clutches, someone has to up the ante. These foot soldiers for the patriarchy will join history books alongside the women who crusaded against giving women the right to vote.
The same religious believers mandating that a girl must bear her rapist's baby also perpetuate the idea that the female body is inherently sinful. Whether it's our exposed hair or bare arms -- and whether via school dress codes that target girls more than boys or via police-enforced hijabs in Iran -- the push to cover us up comes from the same place. The root of the argument: Women cannot be trusted to dress themselves.
It's not about the professionalism of a woman lawmaker wearing a sleeveless dress. It's about who controls what a woman can wear and deem it acceptable. It's about women with a little power signaling to those with more power that they're on the same team. This message becomes even more urgent when more people challenge the assumptions keeping outdated rules in place.
Reporters and lawmakers used to be required to wear dresses and blouses with sleeves upon entering the U.S. House chamber. In 2017, a group of bipartisan female lawmakers protested the rule, and then-Speaker Paul Ryan's office conceded that the dress code should be updated. The U.S. Senate also amended its rules.
Now, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the country's most well-known Republican women lawmakers, is frequently seen in sleeveless attire. She wouldn't be allowed in Missouri's House in those outfits.
The rest of the country isn't laughing with us.
They're laughing at us.