I write as a recent high school graduate preparing for a year of seminary in Eretz Yisrael. Like many girls my age, I am filled with excitement, gratitude, and also questions—about life, about myself, and, more immediately, about what it means when I am told that I must now only wear navy or black tops, with no other colors allowed.
Over the past few months, a number of seminaries have quietly changed their dress codes to require rigid uniforms or limited color palettes. The stated reason? “Consistency,” “elevated presentation,” or “removing distractions.” But many students feel a different message altogether: “Your individuality is a problem.” The result isn’t inspiration, but quiet resentment—towards tznius, towards authority, and sometimes even towards their own identities as frum women.
It’s ironic. We want to raise girls who love Torah, who embrace tznius as dignity, not erasure. But when their self-expression is stifled for the sake of “uniformity,” we risk turning tznius into something cold and externally imposed. How can we expect girls to develop personal ownership over their growth if we don’t give them the space to be people—not just products?
At the same time, we talk often and loudly about the “shidduch crisis.” We organize asifos, initiatives, and countless articles trying to “solve” it. But perhaps part of the issue lies in what happens much earlier—when girls are subtly told to conform at the cost of self. How can a girl form a healthy sense of who she is and what kind of home she wants to build if the path she was forced on never gave her room to think for herself?
What makes it worse is that many of these rules were announced very late in the year—after girls had already purchased full wardrobes. This creates stress, waste, and frustration. Instead of cultivating love for tznius, it creates resentment toward it.
We talk often about tznius as a Torah value, but it seems applied almost exclusively to women. Where is the parallel standard for the boys in yeshiva—many of whom are in Israel for longer? If seminaries are expected to police color and collars, why aren’t yeshivos enforcing no hoodies or guidelines around haircuts? Why are girls the only ones expected to erase individuality in the name of growth because boys in Eretz Yisroel can’t be controlled ?
This double standard doesn’t inspire submission to Torah—it just teaches girls that being frum means being silent, small, and the only ones held to a higher bar.
Also, in Bnei Yisroel there are 12 Shevatim for a reason. Each shevet was necessary to bring a different derech. There are different derechs each girl can take while still completely following Halacha.
This is not a plea for casualness or for lowering standards. It’s a plea for balance—for leaders to remember that growth in Yiddishkeit must come from within. That dignity is not black or navy; it’s confidence, self-respect, and inner clarity. That tznius is beautiful when it’s chosen—not just enforced.
I can’t help but wonder what Sarah Schenirer would say. She was unconventional, divorced, and in many ways a quiet revolutionary. Her boldness gave birth to Bais Yaakov, not her conformity. If we silence our girls under the guise of modesty, I believe she’d be rolling in her grave.
As a community, let’s be careful not to confuse obedience with spirituality. And let’s not mistake control for chinuch.
Signed,
A Concerned High School Graduate
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19 Responses
I was with you up until the part where you started comparing yourself to boys or men.
Boys have their own challenges. And while tznius for men is important, it’s not one of the top three struggles they typically face
Unless you’ve been conditioned to believe that men and women are exactly the same aside from body parts, I think deep down you probably know this.
My daughter is coming home from a seminary called Midreshet Moriah, otherwise known as MidMo, located in the Baka area of Jerusalem. It was a bit surprising she went there coming from a Bais Yaakov environment in high school. It was her choice. The dress code is absolute conformity to tznius of collarbone, elbows, and knees. The rest is left to the girls choice of tasteful dress. There is a extremely wide array of course study subjects from which the girls have a choice based on their areas of interest. Their schedules are their choice and based on their class choices, with mandatory attendance of around 40 hours per week. My daughter’s growth in ruchnius, knowledge of tanach and halacha is quite noticeable. Nothing is force fed. There is no forced conformity. It allowed my daughter to grow in a great environment and give her a great foundation for the next steps in her life. People need to stop obsessing over conformity and image. It is then that you will be able to develop your identity.
All of these mailbag letters seem to be written by the same author in the same style with all of the same emotional points
No one is forcing this “girl” to go to seminary. (The letter sounds very much like a troll letter). There is nothing really new about seminaries and their requirements. As far as why isn’t there a code for boys, it reminds of the following story. A bochur was stopped by a cop for some infraction right near his yeshiva building. The boy said, “left my license in my jacket just inside, can I get it” The cop aid ok. He waited for a few minutes, and the boy isn’t coming. So, the cop asks someone coming out “did you see someone just go in? The person asked the cop, “did he have a white shirt, dark slacks, with fringes on the side? Pretty short haircut? The cop said “yeah that’s him!! “. The person pointed to the beis medrash door and said – he’s just in there.
You want to be radically different from everyone else, there are seminaries and programs for those who say they want real individuality. Though it seems that those who go there are the most similar to each other. Their supposed individuality is the exact same as everyone else who wants to express individuality. There is more honest individuality in the yeshivas and seminaries where the supposed individuality is not expressed in externalities.
She’s right. If we gave the girls more slack in their choices of color and collar, guess what, they would have a lot more options of boys to chose for shidduchim and you wouldn’t end up with 40 girls going after the 10 masmidim and then 30 girls left over shidduch crisis….
As Reb Gershon Ribner pointed out when asked a similar question about boys white and black dress code, a person’s individuality should be much deeper than what clothes they are wearing. Is wearing something different the extent to which you are actually different? Or is there anything deeper to a person. Ideas, emotions, spiritual connection, that truly stand for who he is as a yachid in clal yisroel.
To have clothing represent a person’s individuality is vain at best, and perhaps a bit childish.
And while we’re asking hard but necessary questions—can we also talk about what’s happening in our Bais Yaakov high schools?
When did limudei kodesh become about “killer tests” instead of a love for Torah?
Why are girls being told that success means memorizing 18 perokim of Navi with every detail, rather than understanding how those messages apply to their lives, their middos, their connection to Hashem?
When did learning become so anxiety-driven? So grade-obsessed?
Where are the classes that teach girls how to hold onto their Yiddishkeit through heartbreak, doubt, disappointment, or real-life pressure? Where’s the space for honest conversations about emunah, tefillah, and building a relationship with Hashem?
Torah is not a performance. It’s meant to be a guide, a comfort, a source of identity. But we’re creating pressure cookers, not people.
We say we want to raise daughters who are strong in their Yiddishkeit, but the system often trains them to fear failure more than they love growth.
Let’s get back to the basics: Torah as life. Tznius as dignity. Chinuch as heart.
We can do better. We must do better.
Beautifully written. Well said and spot on. The point about Sarah Schneirer is also right on the mark.
Today’s generation has turned Yiddishkeit into external dress. Not so long ago about sixty years ago only the rebbe had hanging long peyos and white Sox. Today everyone walks around with long hanging peyos sometimes even no tzitstzos. I have met guys with streimels who are outright atheist. It’s a very big society to day with a large young population.
When I was in seminary, they did not require the light blue shirt. I wish they would have. It caused a lot of unnecessary stress, a fashion statement every day, and extra spending that would not have been had they had a stricter dress code. The next year my seminary changed the rule to light blue and I’m sure many people were very grateful.
Unless you’re going to an out of town seminary, when a bunch of in town girls are living together the clothing pressure is there.
It is very different as a mother or post sem girl, where you’re not dorming with 100 other girls, and constantly around them.
It is also very different than Sara Schenirer’s time period, the gashmiyus was not on the level of where we’re holding today. I think she would very much endorse uniforms for nowadays.
There are plenty of opportunities where you can be an individual such as Shabbos, off days, vacation days, you don’t need it every day.
I don’t disagree with the author. But the comparison to boys is little awkward, seeing as how there is probably no group in the world who has as much uniformity of dress-code as Yeshiva boys. Expression of individuality among yeshiva boys is limited to belts, shoes, glasses, and the brim size of their hat. And I think we can all agree that the range of variation in these areas is still quite narrow. Someone who is really wild and out there might put a feather in his hat ribbon.
The people concerned about the author’s comparing girls to boys are completely missing the point. This isn’t about any double standard; it’s about the girls themselves. Take boys out of the picture.
Over the last three months, all the Bais Yaakov seminaries decided to completely upend what they considered acceptable for a Bas Yisroel to wear. Clothes that were considered tzanuah and allowed in almost every seminary were suddenly erased from dress codes. The wide arrays of approved colors were reduced to black, navy, and gray. Our girls were told (some of them only about a week ago) that all the clothes they had so excitedly bought for seminary were no longer deemed appropriate. Furthermore, for the most part, there was no communication from the seminaries to the girls, rather, the girls were given the cold demand of “You only wear black now.”
I don’t think this is a matter of stifling individuality as much as it’s a matter of resentment, like the author expressed. These girls have been wearing uniforms since kindergarten, they can stand to have their “individuality repressed” for one more year. The issue is the complete lack of communication and “pulling out of the rug”. No matter who you are, extreme demands breed resentment. These girls were told suddenly that their current clothes aren’t tznius enough, they have to buy a whole new wardrobe, and that they have barely 3 months to do it. What kind of unhealthy stress does this put on girls, their parents? Mothers spend hundreds their girls’ seminary clothes in hopes they’ll feel good and fit in. So what now? They certainly can’t return any of it– we all know Jewish clothing brands have return windows of about five days. And what about the girls themselves? Are we seriously telling them that tznius only comes in forms of black and gray? That they’re not a Bas Yisroel if their clothes don’t match the color of the floor? If we’re looking at it honestly, how can it NOT breed resentment?
And, look, IS a dress-code change the biggest deal? No, it isn’t. But, it’s undeniable that it was handled very poorly across the board. Why not wait until next year? Why issue this drastic change when most girls had already finished shopping? Why couldn’t the seminaries all align and change at the same time?
There are rumors of a mysterious Vaad that’s making all the decisions for the Bais Yaakov seminaries. I don’t know if these rumors are true, but it would certainly explain why everything felt so rushed and disjointed.
TL;DR: More or less okay with decision, but its execution was pretty abysmal.
As a mother, I dreaded Sundays because of the “I have nooooothing to wear” refrain. I loved uniforms and made sure each daughter had enough changes for the week without doing laundry every other day. My girls were even able to hand down uniforms to younger sisters. When in Israel for Seminary, my daughters had some laundry disasters and their wardrobes were greatly diminished and they wore pleated shirts, button down shirts and v-neck sweaters quite happily. Seminary has to be more than a fashion parade and expression of self via image. Uniforms are a great and welcome requirement even post h.s. splurge on your wardrobe when you’re back home and looking to get married.
As a Bais Yaakov graduate in the same situation, I very much agree with this girl. True, the comparison with boys is a bit interesting, our struggles are quite different from boys. But as a teenage girl, individuality is a really big thing. For girls, what you wear says a lot about you. People may say this is shallow or externally based, but for girls, this really matters. So telling us that we can only wear black and dark navy doesn’t feel like tznius. it feels like conformity, and that we’re being squished in a little box, and if we don’t fit in it, we’re not being tznius. Additionally, the fact that they told us so late in the year, and that they gave little reason for this switch, really upset many girls, myself included. One of the comments spoke about how learning torah in Bais Yaakovs is just about the mark. I cannot agree more. I can say that for almost all of us that all we care about are the marks. no one really cares about what the content is, but as long as you memorize whatever the material is, spit it out the next day for the test, then you’re good. This is terrible for us. nobody even realizes what we’re learning! This is what needs to change. The rules of conformity and calling it tzniyus, and the academic pressure of limudai kodesh classes.
Funny how the seminaries control the girls but the teachers themselves (married woman )can go as they please
I think the one thing you missed here is the difference between a school dress code and tznius. I don’t think the seminaries are saying that anything not black is not tznius – its just not part of the dress code. It makes sense for a seminary to have a uniform, a dress code, and the girls should follow that. When they’re not in seminary, they should know the actual halachos of tznius and make sure their other clothing follow those halachos while still portraying their own individuality. They should not be taking the seminary uniform / dress code as halachos of tznius.
Comparing this whole thing to the boys makes no sense because the boys have way more of a dress code than the girls and if they wear anything other than a white shirt they’re considered “modern” or “off the derech” so if you want to be like the boys then start wearing only uniform all days of the year not just to school.
Maasehshehaya-
Missing the point?
Did we both read the same rant?
This letter may contain some worthy points but also contains some trendy ideas that are foreign to our hashkafa and the depiction of Sara Schenirer is incorrect.
another disgruntled girl complaining about tznius