Everyone remembers the high school dress code. Sometimes I forget what the dress code means. No one can restrict what anyone wears in a public facility, but somehow public schools can. Why? No one knows, but it’s outdated, not to mention sexist and patriarchal.
In so many public schools, students aren’t allowed to wear short shorts, leggings, crop tops, and other clothing items deemed too revealing or “inappropriate.” Funny how schools will say “all students” when really it’s directed at female students.
The reasoning behind most school dress codes is that it’s “distracting to the learning environment,” a reasoning specifically in concern for male students and teachers, but somehow all those distractions suddenly cease to exist once they go to college or enter the adult world.
The “learning environment” clause is a sham to mask the fact that public schools still cling to traditional gender roles of feminine modesty. They say her breasts better be covered, and leggings reveal too much of the butt’s shape. What will the boys say? What will they think of her? What could happen to her at school?
Girls shouldn’t be censored on what they wear; boys and men should be censored in how they view and treat women. Anybody can respect another person, despite what they’re wearing, but when it comes to the female body, men simply can’t help themselves. Everyone just says “boys will be boys.”
This notion that the female body will be sexually exploited at any age because of what girls wear perpetuates rape culture – a common term simply defined as “a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.”
If students are raised from ages 5-18 with the knowledge that girls should be ashamed of their bodies, that the female body is inherently sexual, this sexist idea can be dangerous to all of society – girls, boys, men and women. The negative stigma placed on the female body not only affects how girls and women perceive themselves, but this notion condones how boys and men view and treat women as sexual commodities. Society’s reasoning for the dress code endorses slut-shaming and victim-blaming.
If a woman is sexuality harassed or assaulted, society considers first what she was wearing to provoke a man into these actions. Instead of blaming the victim for what happened to them, why not simply hold the accused accountable for their crimes? The same goes for boys in any school system. It seems the public is more willing to protect boys and men as they blame girls and women.
It’s no wonder America can’t listen to female victims of sexual assault, because so many of us have been raised in a public school system that teaches us that girls are at fault for the injustices they receive because they didn’t have the “decency” to cover themselves.
Public school dress codes should be eradicated from the school systems. Treating each other with respect should be the main principle of any school, not body-shaming one gender into modest submission fit for traditional patriarchal values. It’s time public schools recognize girls and boys as equals, and begin to treat them as equals if this world ever intends to get better.
