As winter came to an end this year and it was too hot to sport hoodies and sweatpants, I noticed a strange hesitation in my daily clothing decisions. To this day, I have anxiety when choosing to wear a tank top for fear that this gives some creep out in public the right or opportunity to catcall me from the street. I’ve been receiving disgusting comments from grown men since I was 12 years old, no matter what I was wearing. This, paired with twelve years of being told that my outfit choice would be a distraction in the classroom has given me a self-image of just that: that I’m a distraction because it’s hot outside and I would rather not have sweaty armpit stains. Some might wonder why this a big deal; it’s because women are told from the moment they begin school that the behavior of men is dependent on the clothes we wear.
Young women have recently been speaking out against their schools’ illogical dress codes. A high school student in South Carolina slammed her teachers for making inappropriate and hurtful comments about a business casual outfit she wore for a class. Another was sent home for wearing a long tank top with jeans and sandals. Girls are finally seeing the dehumanizing effects of dress codes implemented before they even stop playing with dolls.
I’ll never forget my first day of sixth grade. Not even ten minutes after my arrival, I was told that I could not wear an outfit like what was wearing anymore. Let me be the first to tell you, there are a million reasons I shouldn’t have worn that outfit—perhaps the excess of sequins dangling from my horrendous jean skirt—but the fact that the denim fabric ended, and a layer of ugly shiny stuff ran down to the top of my knees was not any cause for distraction other than a giggle at my middle school fashion choices. This judgment continued with a vengeance throughout high school as well. I was threatened to be sent home for wearing a big t-shirt with leggings during exams and had to go ask one of my guy friends for a pair of their sweaty basketball shorts to wear over my leggings so I didn’t fail in the name of comfy pants.
Don’t knees, collarbones, and shoulders sound like sexual fixations developed by adulthood? Are some of the dress code policies in place to protect our male teachers from wanting to have sex with middle school students? Sounds like we have another, more serious problem here.
After three years of being in college, I have to say that the lack of a dress code has not been an issue in any classroom.
So, if after all of this you need a cumulative list of why dress codes are detrimental to the view of women and their bodies and society, here you go: different body types are discriminated against in the ruling of whether or not a certain clothing item is “appropriate,” which leads to body-shaming on a large scale for the rest of someone’s life, a girl’s legs or shoulders are seen as more of a distraction than poor behavior in the classroom, and learning is not being put first simply because our administrators are more interested in telling young girls that they aren’t dressed in a way that warrants the education they so deserve.
Ladies, you are worthy of everything in the world whether you choose to rock a tank top and shorts or your boyfriend’s shirt and sweats. Keep speaking up against institutionalized sexism because we can and will change how the world values us.
