When I was in high school, there was a teacher who sent every single girl that wore shorts to the principal's office. It didn’t matter if she was wearing Bermuda shorts or hot pants, he sent everyone. That same year of high school a guy in the cafeteria commented on a girl's shorts, saying, “well, if she gets raped we all know why.” It seems like every time the weather warms up, girls are getting body shamed and victim blamed for their choice to keep themselves from suffering heat stroke.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone that school dress codes routinely sexualize girls between the ages of 10 to 17, but if you need any proof, just look up “high school dress code.” Actually, don’t, I already did it for you. My personal high school dress code was actually pretty lax, basically dictating that undergarments, shoulders, stomachs and backs should remain covered. Even then, the majority of students got away with wearing tank tops, cut out dresses and crop tops in hotter climates. Still, that didn’t stop other students from calling girls sluts, or saying that a girl was too fat or thin for her choice of outfit. Most schools are stricter in enforcing their dress codes, especially when it comes to girls.
A lot of schools have a “no cleavage” policy, which is where body shaming starts to take over. Where one girl might wear a top and have cleavage, another girl who’s smaller could wear the same top and not have cleavage. Should a girl be punished for having bigger breasts? Of course, some people might argue that maybe she could be distracting male students, but why aren’t they being punished for gawking at her? Instead, a girl is taken out of class and misses a learning experience because the school has deemed her chest too big. Let me remind you, all that cleavage, or lack thereof, is not a measure of a girl’s worth. Breasts are just sacks of fat meant to feed a child.
In the same vein as the “no cleavage” rule is the “fingertip” rule that dictates how long shorts should be. At some schools, the rules dictate that shorts should be mid-thigh, but this is just as bad as the fingertip measurement. Usually, these measurements vary based on a student's height, so where one girl would be wearing shorts that barely cover her butt, another might be stuck wearing shorts that are practically down to her knees.
Now, of course, I’m not going to defend wearing a bikini to school, because there is a time and a place for certain types of clothing, but at school, especially in middle and high school, the students are usually already self-conscious about their bodies. A school is a place to both learn and socialize, and students, whether male, female, or somewhere in between, should be allowed to wear whatever makes them feel comfortable without fear of being shamed or bullied.
This spring and summer, students across the country should be allowed to wear what they want, within reason of course, without being shamed by the adults whom they trust.
