I’m sure everyone has heard the phrase “giving a cold shoulder”, and though I will not be giving the cold shoulder in this article, I will be talking about a very controversial topic: school dress code. Dress code has been a topic of conversation for as long as I can remember, and as a future teacher, this is a topic that will come to my attention more times than I can even imagine. But what I will never understand about the dress code is this: why are girls always the ones to be reprimanded for the clothes that they wear?
Now, that’s not to say girls should be able to wear booty shorts and provocative shirt to class, but if a girl is wearing a dress that is above the knee or a spaghetti strapped shirt, then quite honestly, who cares? Instead of reprimanding girls for their clothing, why can’t guys be taught to not sexualize women for the clothes that they wear? And honestly, what is so wrong about showing a shoulder or a leg in class?
Throughout my time in high school, I remember hearing stories of girls being sent to the nurses’ office to change their clothing because either their shorts or dresses were too short, or their sleeves were too short. For the girls who wanted to wear shorts and were taller than the average teenager, this made for an extreme problem because more times than not, they couldn’t even wear shorts or dresses in school. Sometimes schools even went to the extent of sending girls home because they refused to change out of the clothes they were wearing (hats off to the girls who stood their ground on this one).
The fact of the matter is, girls shouldn’t have to change out of their outfits because their shorts are more than three inches above the knee or their shirts don’t have the appropriate shoulder length. For a short period of time, yoga pants were even banned at a high school I attended because yoga pants didn’t show “professionalism” in school (which ended up becoming a problem when I had to argue my way out of being in trouble for wearing yoga pants).
The moral of the story is, girls shouldn’t be banned from wearing certain clothing in schools. Guys should be taught not to be easily distracted by the female body and continue to focus on themselves. And sorry to burst your bubble men, but shoulders and legs aren’t as attractive as they may seem. As long as guys are still allowed to sag their pants so their underwear is showing, girls should be allowed to wear what they choose.
