We wore ‘sexy’ shorts to 5 gomen buildings. Guess how many kicked us out

Man oh man, what a busy, indecent February it’s been. If you didn’t know, the month has been full with back-to-back episodes of people being denied entry to government offices for wearing inappropriate clothes.

The whole thing started with the lady who was turned away from the Kajang police station, followed by the the lady who was told to change clothes at the Kampar hospital, and the latest one involved a woman who was disbarred from taking the elevator at the Pasir Gudang city council. All this because their shorts didn’t reach their knees, and in the Pasir Gudang case, the dress she wore was allegedly see-through.

And then from government reps to victims to netizens weighing in, everyone seemed to have their own version of events. Now being the rebellious truth seekers we are at Cilisos, that didn’t sit right with us. So we decided to send one of our writers to several government offices within the Petaling Jaya area in an outfit that went against the dress code. The reason of course, was to see how strict these offices were with the policy, and if we would be kicked out for breaking it.

We wore a pair of thigh-length shorts

This is the outfit we traipsed around town with…

…vs. the dress code we are supposed to abide by in government buildings.

So we chose to go with a pair of shorts because it most obviously violates the dress code, and also because it was what the women from Kampar and Pasir Gudang were wearing when they got caught. In terms of location, these were the offices we visited:

• City Council (MBPJ) in Petaling Jaya
• Police station (IPD PJ) in Petaling Jaya
• Community library (PKPJ) in Petaling Jaya
• Road Transport Department (JPJ PJ) in Petaling Jaya
• Government hospital (SBH) in Sungai Buloh

And now for the part yall have been waiting for, the results!

MBPJ — Met so many people and nobody said anything

So there are actually 2 MBPJ buildings in PJ– one is at the main square, and the other is called Menara MBPJ where most of the departmental offices are located. In both places, we walked up to the counter and spoke with the officers on duty and were subsequently told where to go and what to do.

In other words, no one made any comments on the clothes we wore. We even went all the way up to one of the departments and spoke to more officials. They assisted with our enquiries and we left both buildings without so much as a side eye from any of them.

Police station — Kena tegur but we were still let in

Next, we headed to the PJ police station, which also happens to function as the district police headquarters (IPD). On the one hand, we were expecting things to be a bit more formal and strict, but we were also hoping that the officers would be more accommodating.

It so happened they were both.

We were stopped at the gates by the sentry, who proceeded to listen to our complaints. He then allowed us into the police station, but not before giving us a warning about the appropriate adab pakaian at a government office.

“You must wear long pants or skirt below the knees. Next time, please don’t come dressed like this,” – Police personnel

Library — Kena halau right at the entrance

We know what you must be thinking– OF ALL PLACES??!? But yeah, it seems that the PJ library has no tolerance at all for clothes that don’t fit in with the dress code.

We were barely a couple of steps in when we were called to the front desk and questioned on our attire. But where it was a little intimidating at the police station, the librarian here was genuinely trying to be polite. She asked if we had travelled far, and if we had a sarong or jacket that we could tie around our waist. We had neither and were eventually told to leave, but it was almost as if she wanted to help us. Ngl, it kinda made the whole experience a lot less upsetting than it could’ve been.

JPJ — Let in despite the dress code at the doorway

If you’ve been to the JPJ office before you’d know that you gotta scan the QR code to enter. We were lucky that on the day we visited, the system was faulty so we were allowed to walk straight to the office without meeting any of the security guards. The JPJ office was also the only government institution where we saw the dress code displayed clearly at the entrance. But even so, many people had walked in with their pasar malam slippers.

To be honest,  we were expecting the JPJ office to be the one to kick us out since it has a reputation for being super strict. And yet, walking in and out of the office was a breeze! From the entrance to the counter, and having spoken with the officer, no one mentioned a single thing about our clothes.

Hospital — Walked all over the hospital and nothing happened

The last place on our list was a government hospital and we chose to visit the one at Sungai Buloh. There were several entrances into the building and we experimented with gates B, C and D, just to see if the security guards might stop us. None of them did. Likewise, the guards inside the hospital didn’t stop us either and we even approached them to ask for directions.

We also ran into a couple of doctors and nurses as we walked along the hallways, but all of them seemed to be occupied with their work and simply passed us by. To round up our trip, we stopped by the emergency ward and spoke to a hospital personnel stationed at the registration counter. In short, we encountered no problems whatsoever clothing-wise.

Government offices might not be that strict after all

It’s a bold statement, we know, but it seems that people can walk in and out of most government offices in PJ and not be turned away simply because of their clothes.

But whether that’s a positive or negative outcome, well, that’s a whole other thing. Because there are those who believe there’s a need to uphold a sense of professionalism in these places and therefore a need to dress appropriately. And there are also those who believe service matters over appearance and so there’s no need to scrutinize clothing. So yes, it’s a divisive topic and one side will probably never totally agree with the other.

But what’s important is that in offices where emergency services are provided, like the police station and hospital, people are allowed to enter regardless of their attire. Of course, it needs to be said that PJ doesn’t represent the whole of Malaysia, especially since it’s a lot more urban than areas like Kampar or Pasir Gudang where these incidents actually happened. There are other things to take into account too, like how revealing the clothes are and how strict the officer on duty is– which is all super subjective tbh.

What can be considered however, is that the stories that the media has been sharing lately are perhaps the exception rather than the norm. Also we don’t know about yall, but this writer found all these gov builidings super cold and will probably stick to wearing long pants 🤪