Recently I came across a Buzzfeed article about a 17-year-old girl who was told by her high school officials to put band-aids over her nipples after not wearing a bra to school. If hearing that doesn't immediately make you recoil, I'm questioning your sanity.

Simply put, the girl wore a baggy t-shirt to school without a bra underneath and was called out of class for violating the dress code. She was told that her breasts were "distracting" and that a boy was laughing at her, so she, therefore, was a distraction and had violated the dress code. They then made her put band-aids on to "cover up" (which, by the way, can be incredibly painful and leaves marks), wear a second shirt, and jump up and down to see how much her breast moved.

This crosses so many lines for me that I don't even know where to start, but I suppose I'll begin with this: I am completely floored that any competent adult allowed this to happen. It's appalling that this girl had to be taken out of class to be humiliated and punished for the sake of the comfort of others. No one deserves to be embarrassed in such a way, especially not in a place of learning and especially not to an underage girl. If we ignore the ridiculousness of the dress code itself for a second, this situation was handled awfully by the school staff involved and nothing like this should have happened in the first place.

The most important thing here, though, is a problem much bigger than just this young lady. The problem is thatdress codes over-sexualize young women and it is those very women who suffer for it.

We ALL have nipples, people! Who cares!? Why should any person's learning be inhibited because of that?

This story is just one of a million others just like it, where a student--almost always a girl--gets in trouble and shamed for violating dress codes that set double standards and contribute to the way our society sexualizes women. There is absolutely NOTHING distracting about someone's nipple, or shoulder, or legs, yet we have been taught since we were old enough to understand that these parts of a woman are "not classy" to show and that it's a woman's fault if other people are bothered by it. It is ridiculous that women must police their own bodies for archaic and senseless notions of how a woman should present herself.

Even worse, these school dress codes are for minors! By telling these girls that they need to cover up, that the boys will be distracted, that their bodies are unconventional--we are telling them that their bodies are sexual objects to be looked at and maintained for the sake of others. We are meant to be fostering these young minds to prepare them to do great things in the future, yet we are sexualizing them and taking them out of their learning environments because of it.

A body is a body, nothing more, nothing less. No one deserved to be punished for that.

We, as a society, need to do better. Instead of leaving it to girls to "cover up," let's instead teach boys that the female body is not something they are entitled to ogle at. Let's teach them that dress codes like this that enforce such ideas are wrong.

Mostly, let's make sure that no one is ever told to put band-aids on their breasts ever again.