Yes
Tom Barrie
To some, the crux of the subfusc referendum comes down to whether the passionate voices of the few should outweigh the more casually-held opinion of the many. Those in favour of subfusc currently outnumber those against it on the respective Facebook campaigns seven to one, yet the reasons offered by the ‘No’ campaign, ‘Subfusc OFF’, seem more profound than those offered by their ‘Yes’ equivalent, ‘Save Subfusc’. After all, who would keep an oppressive, uncomfortable and backward practice simply because it had been around for a long time?
I’m not going to bang on about tradition and history – these points have been made over and over again, and by people more eloquent than me. By now, I think we’re all pretty familiar with the arguments on either side of the debate. Instead, it’s more worthwhile to look at the validity of the arguments already presented, and then perhaps introduce one or two fresh points to think about.
Subfusc has been called elitist, but I’m not sure where this idea comes from. Keeping things in perspective, it’s a gown and a suit or dark clothing; the only elitist thing about it is that yes, you have to go to Oxford to wear it. If that’s an issue, then surely the logical conclusion of that argument is to abolish entrance standards? It’s a hallmark of the academic elite, fine, but isn’t that what we’re all here for? Many have claimed that subfusc puts people off applying to Oxford. Personally, I’ve never been presented with any evidence for that. Anecdotal evidence is well and good, but equal numbers have been vocal about the romance and history of the place driving their desire to come to Oxford; that argument cuts both ways. As a side note, when you leave and get a job in the real world, chances are you will have to wear a suit or similar smart clothing in similar high-pressure situations, and you’ll probably have no say in it. We should not, then, be bullied by media stereotypes that paint us as ‘snobs’ when we are not. Why pander to the tabloids who will simply find another reason to hate us the day after we abolish subfusc? Already the Daily Mail is reporting on ‘Oxford set to scrap academic dress’ with comments to the tune of “These kids can’t think of anything better to protest, after mummy and daddy buy them their way in.” There’s no logic to it.
It’s been claimed that subfusc is physically uncomfortable, which would have more merit if everyone didn’t just take it off as soon as they get into the exam room. The only rules are that you wear it in and out of Exam Schools (I bet you didn’t know that, freshers).
The No campaign has been conducted eloquently and passionately, but doesn’t account for practicalities. Those in the No campaign claim that if people still wanted to wear subfusc, they could – it wouldn’t be banned, merely optional. However, this argument doesn’t account for the fact that nobody will want to wear it if it becomes optional – after all, nobody wants to be the kid at school who came in wearing uniform on home clothes day. Similarly, when you’re sporting subfusc in that big white tent before Prelims, the last thing you want is for everyone around you to be staring and thinking “prick”. The idea of choice is a fallacy. All this decision would do is replace one form of judgement with another – rather than a perceived divide between Oxford and the outside world, there would be a split within the student body, as everyone becomes anxious about what values they’ve chosen to endorse through their clothing.
Subfusc is visually levelling. Psychologically it has different effects on people, but not only negative ones. There are those who value the stability and uniformity of it, allowing them to focus on the tasks they face.
Moreover, there’s so much to be improved regarding mental health in this university that one might question whether OUSU ought to be expending so much time and effort on this campaign (which, incidentally, mandates the University to do precisely nothing) when resources could be used to assuage issues elsewhere. This is by no means a “we face bigger problems so let’s ignore this one” argument. Rather, it’s a suggestion that we fix what is most broken first, and deal with the semantics of clothing second. Abolishing subfusc is too small a step to take in addressing so large an issue.
Let’s keep this in perspective, then – it honestly doesn’t matter that much. These are, after all, just the clothes you wear in your exams. Just keep in mind that once you get rid of a tradition, you can never bring it back. Oxford has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the present day over the last 40 years. At times, reactions from the establishment to this modernisation have been embarrassing at best and prejudiced at worst. There’s still a huge amount to be done to ensure the inclusion of every student at this university, and to make everyone feel welcome and encouraged to apply.
Subfusc just doesn’t come into it.
No
Bethany Currie
I have a confession: I actually kind of like subfusc. The 30 seconds I save on choosing what to wear does feel like a real coup on exam morning as I trot off to Exam Schools, reassured and comforted by the fact that anyone who sees me in my old-fangled (but suave) get-up immediately swaddles me in kind thoughts of sympathy and solidarity.
But a lot of people really don’t like subfusc and for a multitude of different reasons: it smacks of archaic elitism, it can be really physically uncomfortable, gendered dress codes should be a thing of the past, it is weirdly restrictive (black socks only, please), completely random (no one else in the world ever chooses to rock an arbitrary black ribbon) and it functions as a stereotype primer that can negatively impact the marks of less privileged students and contribute to an exam atmosphere that allows men to consistently perform better than women in finals.
If you like wearing subfusc, then that’s cool, but personally liking subfusc is not a reason to vote ‘Yes’ in this referendum.
Voting ‘No’ allows other people to have the same level of comfort that you might feel in subfusc. Indeed, making everyone feel as comfortable as possible in exams should be our priority.
We all know that exams at Oxford can be truly horrid, and as students we should commit to making them as manageable as possible, and voting ‘No’ in this referendum is one easy way to cast off one small piece of horridness for a lot of people.
In fact, voting ‘No’ in this OUSU referendum is exactly how we communicate to the University that the status quo should change so everyone can be comfortable.
If the vote comes out as ‘Yes’, then we as a student body have endorsed the way things are at the moment, making any change in the near future pretty inconceivable. We shouldn’t be using our votes to force people to wear things they don’t want to wear, so we should vote ‘No’ rather than ‘Yes’ in this referendum.
Personal stylistic choice can’t really come into it for us anyway. If the referendum goes against subfusc, then that only binds OUSU to change its policy and campaign to make it non-compulsory, it has no binding impact on the decision-making bodies of the University.
The structure of Oxford’s committees can seem utterly impenetrable, but it does mean that the rule might not be changing overnight, and might not actually affect any of us currently here.
And while subfusc just seems pretty funny to us when we are here, content in our knowledge that we don’t wear it every day, we can’t ignore the media’s capitalisation on the association of Oxford with elitism. The Daily Mail branded Ed Miliband a “Tory boy” because of a picture of him wearing white tie at Oxford – but that picture of him wearing white tie was actually just him in his matriculation subfusc. We can’t pretend that the construction of such stereotypes is neutralised by our repeated chorus of “oh but it’s not really like that here”.
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This stereotype can be well tempered by access work when prospective applicants can come down to Oxford. Then we can counter the public perception by introducing real Oxford students, standard folks going about their day in sports kit or wavey garms. However, it is really hard to counter these stereotypes in access work in communities outside of Oxford.
A lot of schools with students who would be amazing at Oxford can’t make the trip here because of time or money, and the challenge posed to access work outside of Oxford is far higher. It is just one person’s word against an ingrained cultural stereotype, and a lot of the time students who I talk to don’t find it that convincing.
The Oxford into which subfusc was introduced was not an Oxford made for everyone, but that is exactly what we want Oxford to be in the future. We can big up academic excellence and passion as much as we want, but if Oxford is going to be accessible to everyone then we need to ease off on our cult of tradition. Yes, the cultivation of community identity can be wonderful, but not when we are excluding members of our community who are actively telling us that we are doing it wrong.
So if you care about choice and comfort in exams, access, or both, you should be voting ‘No’ to compulsory subfusc.
