Tuesday’s opinion column, “Putting on Airs,” argued that U.Va. students create an “embarrassing” atmosphere on game days by following the tradition “Guys in Ties, Girls in Pearls.” I couldn’t disagree more. Since my first day at U.Va., I have worn a dress and a three tiered strand of pearls to every football game. I pride myself on always upholding this tradition. I firmly believe that by wearing button down shirts or dresses, students show their pride and respect for the University as well as for its sports teams. At the William & Mary game, for example, I walked into the stadium behind two girls wearing sports bras who had painted their bodies green. They were discussing how “fancy” the girls at U.Va. dressed for games. In that moment, I felt a swell of pride. No girl at U.Va. would ever attend a football game so underdressed, and the fact that we dress like sophisticated women shows our confidence and respect for ourselves.
I do agree, however, that there should be a change in the implementation of “Guys in Ties, Girls in Pearls,” but I do not agree that this should be done by telling students to wear T-shirts. Instead, students should be encouraged to dress traditionally, but to do so in shades of blue and orange. I’m originally from Georgia, and my best friend attends UGA. She wears a red or black dress to every single game, as do all the other female students. Guys at UGA wear red and black bow ties or oxfords. As a result, the stadium is a sea of red and black. The ideal game day outfit is not a T-shirt and jeans — this is a fundamental shift away from the principles of U.Va. — but rather a classic, traditional outfit in shades of color that show support for our football team. In fact, corner stores other than Mincer’s and the Student Bookstore should encourage this trend: Finch, for example should have a selection of appropriate game dresses in blue and orange.
Kelsey Kerle-O’Brien
CLAS III
This is astonishing. I’m not putting on a tie and shirt, sweating my scrotum to the bone and simultaneously exclaiming “ah the joys of tradition.” I guess women who don’t dress up at games or wear khakis and a sweat shirt are somehow disgraced citizens who shouldn’t feel highly of themselves, what with standing next to people who apparently think they are at the Kentucky Derby. Drink your mint juleps, shut up and let me wear whatever I want to the damn game. If tradition were somehow relevant than you wouldn’t be writing this article because you wouldn’t be at the University, much less able to attend a game. Turns out, bucking tradition really isn’t all that harmful sometimes. Oh and what “traditions?” Please, tell me what heathen crime I’m guilty of because I wear a freaking orange short sleeve shirt. I guess it’s my way of telling Jefferson to “shove it?” Get a grip. I’ll go to the game naked if it makes me comfortable. I am not going to put on a shirt and tie, sweat, and then pretend I’m enjoying the game. If other people enjoy it that way, then fine, I have no problem with that. But all of this “people who don’t dress up are going against the University traditions” don’t know what they’re talking about. If you need to speak with me I’ll be on my big green tractor waiting for a deer to pop out; apparently only redneck dumbasses wear t-shirts to football games.
By the way, dressing up doesn’t make you stand out as a UVa fan. You could be in a grocery store after church for all I know.
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i think no one should be encouraged to wear anything. its a damn free country. i used to think everyone should wear ornage tshirts because i thought it was silly to dress up to a fball gm (i still think it is a little). but the important thing is the mindset and if u cheer on the team. i think the next most important thing is the wearing of school colors whether they be formal wear or tshirts.
im surprised kelsey that u think no girls wear body paint to games. im sure some have. thats a very general statement to make and to lump everyone in to the same pot. i think body painters must be some of the most rabid fans there are and there is nothing wrong with that and actually, its terrific. to be sure, there are students wearing tshirts who are not great fans, but id say more often than not, the students who dress up are the ones not cheering and are the ones more interested in socializing and drinking.
again though, the main thing is to cheer on the team and wear the school colors in whatever form you want to.
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I think it’s funny how you think wearing a t-shirt and jeans to a game is in your words a “fundamental shift away from the principles of UVa.” Really? What principles would those be? The one that says the only way for girls to show their confidence and self-respect at games is to wear a gaudy outfit and a “three tiered strand of pearls?” That’s a terrible principle if you ask me. I hope there are girls here that find self-respect and confidence in things other than expensive jewelry and frilly clothing. What if I think going all out, with no regard for your personal image, and painting your body to show your support for your team shows more so-called confidence and respect(in your own self image and your team)? Anyone can wear a nice dress in public. Not many people are willing dedicate the time to paint their body to support their team.
The only “principle” at U. Va. regarding fashion that I can think of comes from the mouth of Thomas Jefferson himself. “In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.” In this day and age, I’d say the “current” is strongly going in the direction of dressing comfortably for football games. Jefferson himself would be appalled at how many students try to stick to this antiquated tradition for tradition’s sake. News flash, Jefferson was one of the most progressive men of his day. He knew that useless tradition and pageantry only suffocated the formation of new ideas and culture. An unwillingness to break from tradition is what lost the British the Revolutionary War. It is what keeps confederate flags waving on porches in neighborhoods across the south today.
I’m not saying everyone should wear an orange t-shirt to games. I personally could not care less about what the guy next to me is wearing (as long as it covers all the important bits). If you feel compelled to dress up for a football game, then so be it. Go all out. Dress to the nines. However, I do have a problem when people start thinking that they need to dress up to somehow honor the memory of Thomas Jefferson or the University. Or, when people find their “self-respect and confidence” from the little logo stitched into their clothing label and how many more strands of pearls they have than the next girl. You honor the University by acting with decency and honesty in all situations. Not by wearing a nice dress or blazer. Definitely not by stumbling drunkenly down a muddy hill in it. Classy indeed.
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Dear Ms. Kerle-O’Brien – This is such a standard, simple, conventional, and completely oversimplified perspective that you have. You say “No girl at U.Va. would ever attend a football game so underdressed, and the fact that we dress like sophisticated women shows our confidence and respect for ourselves.” That is once of the stupidest and dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Way to meet the typical stereotype of a UVa student – southern, very ignorant, and shortsighted.
I personally think that by wearing a sundress, you are not being classy. I think, rather, you are being WASP at the very extreme of white culture. Dress classy when you go to a job interview. Dressing “classy” (as you call it) to a football games just makes you look like an idiot – an idiot whose only life experiences is WASPY culture.
Honestly, people like you made my time at UVa very unpleasant. As a person from Northern Virginia who attended UVa for 5 years, I still cannot believe how many people from UVa participate in the white extremist (and borderline racist) culture that you describe. It is people like you that keep UVa from progressing, while reinforcing the culturally backwards, WASPY culture at UVa. I honestly wish you would just take your confederate flag and go back to Georgia.
CLAS 08
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Kelsey, I agree wholeheartedly with you. I think that dressing up at football games is what Southern tradition is all about: girls in their finery and boys in their ties and blazers. Sure, they shouldn’t have to wear them if they don’t want to, but really? What true Southern girl or guy wouldn’t? Like you were saying about the two girls with the body paint, who would you respect more? The girl dressed properly in real clothes or the girl whose body is painted green and is barely wearing anything? I think I know most people’s answer to that.
The fact that people are calling this article racist is beyond me. Kelsey says nothing in here about discrimination. She just states her opinion on why she thinks people she dress up for football games. That’s it. Next subject.
True, people do have the right to dress any way they want to at a football game, and they have the right to express how they feel about this article, but I’m surprised at the hostile reaction this has gotten. Boys, has your mother not raised you right? I know that I would never let my son go anywhere and insult a girl the way some of you have comment on this article.
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I will be sure to tell my parents to beat the shit out of me. Also if I am unfortunate enough to sit next to you at a game, I will strip naked just to show how crappy my parents were.
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Excluding the irony and mis aimed backfiring evidence of common knowledge of the purpose behind wearing clothes relevent to the previous comment, that is, not to say that was it a he? hasn’t got any reasons to be bitter about whatever ” ‘compedative’ ” histories ‘you’ both have, but merely that to wear clothes is a vertebrate and non vertebrate activity with a long tradition in … shock ! horror ! , other places in the world !! Wow ! Seat belt to legionairre paralells and suits ain’t suits humors aren’t just my doctor forced drug haze paranoias ! like wow ! Etc (from the perspective of a non resident / foreigner) , i’d initially like to neither agree nor disagree (for what it’s worth) but point out something that you’re ALL doing – being, not specifying WHAT about, both or either’s claim of then assumed affectory affects(of whatever parts of, etc), in terms of purposes of either’s, specifically affects, except for the initial description/opinion, and the inferrentials about pearls – the rest of …
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…which go straight for the jugular, so to speak, when already flogging a dead horse instead of a mere sporting clothing-preference statement maker – which she was – that is, the purposes of whichever’s “choice”s physical purposes, amongst all external or present factors – (the same colours as the referee, grey and blue, for both cloudy and sunny days, etc) – not what would’ve been / would be a affect of a affectory dress, thong, whatever, but what of …
… pause …
“do you know whata pause is?”
… pause …
…what, they said – what they ACTUALLY said
what they said, OF, the acual items/bits/peices, of clothing, when, doing whatever it is that they’d be doing
but why? you don’t need to …
aaaaaa! stop right there !
why not – what’s too lose in getting into the detail ?
c’mon – what’cha got to lose by getting into the details, mmmm?
the initial comment for example, said that “we” dress like sophisticaed women, not ;
that YOU should ( by moral or obligation )
“we” (not you)
or, that you, are doing whatever sterotypical things sensitive, which i don’t want to know of, especially if of ;
“what they think we think”, or,
“what they think we”
READ IT AGAIN, assholes.
She did not say, specifically, also ;
either ;
# that other choices do not indicate pride / respect,
but actually, that the choices made are not traditional, most likely, in relation to links at the game, etc, to tradional consistencies/indirect effects/phenomena! for heck’s sake (such as from colours, abscence of silk, etc)
# that you should be by punishment, OR enforcement ;
“encouraged”
imbeciles – how difficult is that?
got somebody else’s thong stuck up your ass?
too bad – pull it out, identify it as distinct from whtever else is up your nose, and kill it.
Frankly , Daniel, i couldn’t give a crap what you think about Georgia or ‘its’ previous leadership, what supposed origins you beleive (probably like a total progoganda-nervous disorder-worry little shit), & nor consider it of any importance in either the modern multi-national environment, ‘your’ history, or in relation to what I’m then supposed to be then beleiveing about her (as a matriarch defender, whatever), which you are obviously incapable of associating with in a positive sense, tradition. Freedom has its limitations, and you’re still not free, shmuck-o
I’m not a traditionalist by a ICBM-for-a-dick long-shot matey, but to
threaten / pseudo-threaten a self-assertive beleif statement, … pause … anyone, to the extent that you did, reeks of stupified indiscrimination.
As does, what you rediculously said, about the break up of “British” settlements – the breakup had little to do with tradition mechanically – (cause-and-effect) judjing by everything i’ve ever read about it, much more about rights
and exchange/value/provisioning/useful-support(as opposed to the kind of crap that was usually skimmed off during those then-capacities)
in relation to the supplying of your dead,
of which i usually feel sympathy for, if not some common ground as a ancestor of victorians, both those who had to made decsions in difficult circumstances (ever spent a summer in Ballarat without an air-conditioner or medicines ?), AND those that suffered from it.
today, i don’t
What’s in yuor head, is probably a gallery-portrait subtelty that’s presumably way above your head, ‘ally’.
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…
What most of you seem to’ve missed, is the specific purpose behind the clothing in question :
dresses
maybe difficult topic,
maybe not –
maybe piss-easy, to use an australian term.
Dresses do not automatically turn flesh into inanimate flesh,
turn scotsmen into Kamikaze scotsmen regiment volunteers – give us a break!
(from hearing it, that is,
like an annoying brat or unnessarily loud woman in a shopping complex)
I’ll make up my own frigging mind about BOTH Georgian related histories & propoganda, & BS (or pig or bird, or bear/(american)wolf – oo, scary! or beaver, or ferret, or whatever – what a dream, to imagine – “if it is cold, panties i will wear” tee hee) like “…take your confederate flag and…”
Does the word reconciliation mean anything to you ? or is your brain merely full of what would-be self-determined blue-collar imitations that you seek homogenically, mmmmm?
(-of a group, …going back to the same…)
YOUR ENTIRE COUNTRY, IS PUT IN JEAPOARDY BY MANY THINGS IN ITS HISTORY, and clothing choice, i must say, is not 1 that really matters, does it ?
nor, that when ‘rejceted’, should be pounced on like the then would-be cat owning new Yorker whatever, with a degree in professional BS, by someone such as you – what’s your fucking problem – it was only a comment about sporting clothes !!
take a look at yourself, you fuckwit
I don’t know the histories ?
it wouldn’t fucking matter if i didn’t buddy, including by your own ‘post-feminist’ freedoms / measures of freedom
not going to maintain your argument now?
or are you going to differentiate between freedoms post-fighting in the south, and freedoms from EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE FUCKING WORLD !!
those pains in the arse from whereever ARE at times annoying and nasally monosyllabic and such, like a peanut-brained ‘righetous path’ nasal bornean forehead-user[sic], with indigestion, and a bad case of gas-to-space-to-fart-ratio inescapability/inevitability,
but that doesn’t justify all reactION,
as opposed to reactionS
A range of choices, YOU – can buy!
don’t clean out your own eye sockets, let us do it for you! Etc
if the logic in favour of dresses then seems counter-logical because of
long-legged, kick-your-ass arguments as oppsed to “leg-covering” arguments,
then consider this simple relativity :
RNA goes in your shins
dresses cover shins
not wearing anything over them, doesn’t.
clear?
that Hole track, where they’re dancing amongst the fairies with spinning (already)rather than too-heavy to spin dresses, make sense now ?
hidden amongst the corridors, indistinct amongst the living-library, etc, something that does, does, something that doesn’t, doesn’t?
She was trying to say, that she values it, & in saying so, merely beleives / reckons, that others should – not must
do you never say should ? yeah i bet you don’t.
The difference ?
should, in a sentence, is broad – non specific, in terms of tense
should be, isn’t
i.e, the object, that you were then to’ve been “told to” do whatever, was in the broad sense – not the specific present tense, neccessarily – by neccessity – ie, [i think, you neccessarily should - should, because you need to]
[i think you should]
need to?
the other guy said “need”, not her. back off.
to use ‘your’ infamous locker-room morphisms, or whatever ;
not to have to run, eat, shit ans sleep in the things !
wanna see something really stupid ?
check out the long-board surfing in long dresses,
that supposedly occured in australia somewhere along the line
now there’s something mollusc-relative stupid !
A woman merely getting the shits with a beer and cum-to-milk or
beer and milk-to-cum relativity / headache,
is not commiting some unexcuseable crime !
she would-be doing the same, need it be said,
as you are doing,
when holding a indiana-jones type skull in your hand
[ possibly with a "possibly SS" ACDC torque-wrench up your ass 'relaxation-technique' monkey-ass A-frame, shit-to-cloud, cloud-to-shit "repositioning" ]
no?
or is your variety of cheese somehow immune from this relativity?
(different chair – chairs? shairs? you have chairs in YOUR house? etc),
when doing it “with the majority”, presumably.
nice, nice
“with the majority” – check your own rules, asshole.
? didn’t really think about what you said ? fine, fine, only in the foot.
? going to do it again? fuckwit.
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… Same goes for you, Rob – are people supposed to beleive that presumably ‘reliable’ she-got-drunk-too bullllllllshit?
You think that you’re on a high horse pal, but you’re probably ” ‘on’ ” a blind calf, because of what the other guy said – nice, nice, fellas – real nice.
unknown to the rest of world, is it? the complxeities so easily condensed like a yet-differentiated fart upwind, is it?
a turned head upwind, reaches the downwind toss-pot, comparing beauty and aversion with the indifference and i’m not paying attention to that, someone else is expertise of a reeaaaaal A-frame expert, does it?
what does that make you, you idiot ?
not going to bother
Rob didn’t want to [follow] with his nose to the ground, to the ditch, where her shot-at church or shot not-at-church corpse would then be dumped – is that the best you can do, is it? an arse backward, i’m somebody else attempt with a fake name, and all the confidences of a 51% shove-in, or 51% puppet.
well done, well done – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasehole
watch police academy or something similar (the naked gun, spy hard, etc) for the laughs, and don’t ever do the same
Or was it more, than that?
was Jefferson’s presumably already “buck” (naked) statue if not magma-ghuul from-the-base-of-the-dong-but-not-his-feet ‘swaying’ in the breeze in some local paradimension unknown to me, in position to media ‘capturing’, which then captures the offending members with newfound technologies and inamongst the
(media X drugs) equasions which exist
presumably … pause … somewhere … pause … (cos they’re not in your (my)head, are they?), not evident in your statements, but in only, the previous guys’s – (boy with no parents), because by the time the word naked has eventually been types by someone, the use of the word statue has already been forgotten
was you too, was it?
poor old Daniel – what did he do, to deserve that, eh?
going to be torn to shreds for expressing your (if he weren’t)
shoot-her-then dump-her attempt at shock “tactics” / terror, whatever
fucking idiot !
works does it?
keeps em, something something, does it?
the military doesn’t collectivly do shit like that to targets as meager or petty as this (a jersey, nay, perhaps jersey ‘boys’, … pause … lets face, it … pause … wank! ), and encouraging / fostering / reinforcing such in it, makes YOU weak.
idiot.
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…
BBut no!
your ; … “we’re not stuck between a rock and a hard place” expurging of no-doubt relativities and such, or, perhaps, if we’re lucky, recognisable chx of indigestables, (as oppsed to undesireables – fair enough, i say), ironically, which includes game-seat writhings, buddy, you better beleive it !
(ie, post-border resolution mexicans and cross breeds(unlike ‘us’ whoohoo hurrr hurr heee) + flag waves on one side,
and ‘your’ non- “OF” -the-south
(i’m actually from the south, buddy, you’re nowhere – the southern lights exist – get used to it – no more excuses about ice, that sort of thing))
neo-mass-media numbers-pushers etc from the north on the other) … are (because of being either non-nationality eligable from the south whoevers, or of the other side)
Eisenhower advocates / tolerant types,
“NY”-wastrel accomodating time-wasting good-listeners, tolerators of all things corrupt and able to be hush-hush, because it’s not spoken in some meaningless accent, or at ear-shreikingly loud volume off a public-speaking stand or whatever – vibrates “ya” the right way, when going through the PA (as opposed to other types of vibration, like planes overhead, for instance)
They’re not, fuckwit !
That uni – probably has been edited UPON – by someone else – someone else, trying to fuck with your head – sometimes enemy number 1, sometimes not.
The reason why in that sense, tradition is sometimes appealing,
is counter-developmentally the same sort of reason why you probably wouldn’t want to see your son or daughter lost to a now popular gansta-type – by comparison though, its reliable – reliably unreliable
failure tested
dull
visually appealing neutral – cold-unforgiving stone (with pain-in-the-arse-i-didn’t-ask-for-a-room-with-candelabras candelabric ‘holiday’ windows), that sort of thing
memory aimed – not fucking corner-of-a-door-to-kick-posts-of-the-goal-post/s
open-doored like a total tit –
tighten up ‘ally’,
or somebody else can/will screw you, like you would her.
your country (which if you’re truly of-the-south-patriotic you shouldn’t be patriotic for anyway, since they treated you very badly – differentiations are still made in legal bodies – as i said before – a feeling not unfamiliar to me) is hardly unknown for tolerating fuckwits that mis-represent the population, is it?
that applies to everyone, not just Jefferson’s with 2 letter Fs and a blood-dripping J for visual appeal (it’s not Jaiheira or Jahira, or however thay’re spelling it where you are), convineintly architectural – so subtle !
(average, presumably)
US americans must be getting better at that !
They’ve never done it before (scoff)
But …
but how is what i said, possibly like that?
possibly …
it doesn’t have to be, simply put.
what most of you have said, does that, sometimes one or two things off, other times “only” contributes to it, by
sidestepping whether or not she was UNable, that is,
incapable, of counter-appreciating the value of a nice pair of boobies, for example, presumably.
i don’t think actually was, chump!
you might be suprised what goes on behind closed doors
(try The league of gentlemen, for a output-example)
I think it’s quite obvious, that she’s a bored linguistics student/post-grad, professor, (all chest hair and turkish moustache, of course), heritage representative or such – not a fellow, yet-to’ve-made-up-her-mind student.
what’s the matter? danielle steel on your ass ?
doing an internal investigation that you’re uncomfortable with, while you battle on, struggling against astral tetherings and non-human pregnancy-realted stresses ? good-going, buddy, good passing
images of Henry kissenger in a dress haunting your dreams ?
too disturbing ?
like i said – they (dresses) don’t do that automatically, UNLIKE, a properly trained, … pause … Kaimkaze scotsguard.
Get over THAT, totems or no totems.
too bad
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Wow, you guys are dicks. It’s called costly signaling, and even antelopes do it. You dress a certain way to signify you’re part of a community and adhere to the standards thereof. Like it or not, “Girls in Pearls, Guys in Ties” is thus inextricably tied to other U.Va. traditions, like hospitality, respect, and the Honor System.
I bet your church, job or social circles have modes of dress that are common among members as well. I also bet you don’t write volumes about how that means your high school’s anime club was racist.
Also, can everyone quit dragging mint juleps into this debate? They’re delicious and have never done anything to deserve this level of scorn.
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Ummmm…. is anyone else confused as hell as to what “rod w” is saying?
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