Go to a search engine and type in "dress code debate." I can assure you that it will return more results than you know what to do with. Google gave me 2.01 million results. Rather than rely on someone else's experience with a dress code issue, though, I want to share my experience with a strict dress code policy and the negative impact that it has had on myself and the people around me.

For my last two years of high school, I was given the opportunity to attend a small Christian high school, where the dress code was a lot stricter than most other schools. Getting ready to start a new school is hard, but when I took a look at this school's dress code, I was shocked. The school's dress code was laid out in five key rules, or principles as my school liked to call them.

Principle 1: Students should wear apparel and accessories that are inoffensive to our Christian standards.

Examples of offensive dress include:

- Any picture or message that gives offense

- Body piercing for boys and girls (exception for girls: ears)

- Tattoos

Principle 2: Students should dress appropriately for school.

Examples of inappropriate clothing:

- Clothing which is inappropriately torn or frayed

- Sleeveless shirts and tops

- Pants or shirts considered athletic wear (e.g., sweatpants, wind pants, jogging pants, yoga pants, etc.)

- Coats designed for outdoor wear

- Hats or bandanas

Principle 3: Students should dress with modesty and restraint.

Examples of immodesty and lack of restraint:

- Dresses, skirts, skorts, and shorts with hemlines above fingertips

- Any top that exposes midriff and/or has an inappropriate neckline

- Underwear that is visible

- Skin-tight clothing

Principles 4 and 5 talk about the upkeep of personal hygiene and how footwear should be worn at all times.

Principles one, four and five were a standard. Every school has rules along those same lines, so I had no arguments there, but continuing on, that is where I became upset. Principles two and three ruled out about half my clothing. I love my leggings and Uggs. I love my yoga pants, running shorts and sweatpants. I could wear none of them here. So when I went back-to-school shopping with my mom, she made me bring along this list. She agreed to buy me a new wardrobe for school, as long as it fit these specific criteria. I took this list into places I usually shopped — American Eagle, Hollister, Abercrombie, Forever 21 — asking for help in each store to find clothing that fit these criteria. Employees at each store were baffled, not even knowing if they had anything that would fit it besides a long-sleeved shirt and jeans. With school starting in mid-August, I did not want to have to wear jeans, but that's what I did, that's all that fit the dress code. So jeans it was, every day, all year. I have more pairs of jeans than I even know what to do with now.

However, about halfway through my senior year, the teachers started having issues with people not following the dress code. The trend that almost every girl was wearing was big baggy sweaters or shirts with leggings, and riding boots, adorable and cute, but against our school's dress code. So our teachers decided it was time for a sit-down. They gathered the entire school together in the Great Hall before school started one day. They then asked the boys to go to the gym with the male teachers, while the girls stayed in the Great Hall with the female teachers. We were then lectured for an hour about how we were dressing inappropriately and that we were the ones responsible if a boy looked at us inappropriately. I remember some of our teachers saying, “It's about modesty and teaching you self-respect," and my personal favorite, "Boys only look at you when they want to have sex with you." The girls in the school were outraged with what had just come out of our teacher's mouth, the last comment coming from a woman we all respected and looked up to. Hearing her tell us all that, if we are raped, we are the ones to blame...it was heartbreaking. Talking to my female friends after, we all felt the same kind of hurt. We all felt as if we were being told we are responsible for the way the boys at our school think and that a male's education is more important than a female's in this school. We had been told that we are being a distraction to the learning environment. That left a mark on all of us and still haunts us even now, months after our graduation.

After the whole morning lecture, I got some time to talk to a few of my guy friends during class later in the day and asked them about what they were told during their lecture. One friend told me they were basically just told to "keep it in their pants" and "focus more on class." That was about it. Then they sat there for half an hour waiting for the girls to be done so we could begin the school day. It was unreal. We were told that the way we were dressing was making it difficult for the males to focus in class while they were just told to focus harder.

I can still remember the loud murmur that went through the crowd of girls as our teachers talked to us, and I will never forget that lecture. Even now as I'm about to enter college, it is still fresh in my mind. Because of that lecture, I believe that we need to make education equal. A boy's education is not more important than a girl's. A girl isn’t responsible for a boy's lack of focus if she is wearing leggings. Teach guys to respect women, and not just look at them like pieces of meat. That is the real problem here, not the leggings.

I am not trying to disrespect my school in any way. I love the people and the experiences I had there. My hope is that this will help with the way the dress code is handled in the future, not only in my school but in other schools as well. So no girl is ever victimized for her clothing choices.