I was recently speaking with my younger sister, who is currently attending the same high school from which I graduated. She was recalling the week of the school's senior prom, a time when the conversation always on the table in most high schools around the country, was especially heightened: what and what not to wear.
My sister mentioned a recent addition to the school's "curriculum" which I had since forgotten. The program had been added the year I graduated and has been sparking controversy ever since. The program, dubbed "Fashion Police: Prom Edition," consists of a two-hour assembly, which every female student of the school is required to attend. Attendance is strictly enforced, and the program takes place during the school's study hall, a time popularly used by students to schedule meetings, study for tests, and complete assignments.
The power point presentation includes a series of images of women in formal attire and dictates what is appropriate and inappropriate according to faculty. Images displaying dresses showing a back, midriff, and an "excessive" amount of shoulders are covered with red Xs and the students are told that they draw the wrong kind of attention. Girls are told that prom is meant to be a fun time, so to distract the boys with revealing outfits, and to distract oneself with the sheer discomfort and shame associated with wearing revealing clothing, would be to spoil prom completely.
The presentation goes on to feature a segment in which the female presenter encourages girls to "dress the body they have" and demonstrates how while certain dresses look acceptable on tall, thin frames, they look terribly promiscuous on curvier figures. Girls are warned that if they violate these rules and regulations, they are to be turned away from prom, no longer able to attend the dance and thus no longer eligible for a refund of the 60-some dollars paid for tickets.
You may be needing some confirmation at this point, so if you are asking yourself "Wait, so they pull almost 300 girls away from their studies in order to tell them that showing too much of their bodies, especially if they dress their body type incorrectly by faculty standards, encourages harassment and will effectively ruin their prom?" Yes, that is exactly what's happening.
This is but one example of a school that is severely misguided in their efforts to nip sexual harassment in the bud. In many schools, a surface-level awareness of the issue exists, and staff members choose to attempt to resolve the issue by addressing the student body. However, they are mistaken in that they address the wrong audience entirely, the female students who most frequently fall victim to sexual harassment in a public school setting.
Why, if time and money are to be spent on a program to eradicate sexual harassment and demeaning treatment of female students, are the efforts not focused on the most frequent harassers, the males attending the school? Why are male students not pulled away from their classes and taught not to harass others, regardless of what they're wearing? Because let's be real, ladies, we've all been harassed, even while wearing turtlenecks and sweatpants, so I beg you not to become convinced that the way we dress is the actual issue at hand here. Better yet, why is this program not extended to all students to encourage appropriate behavior rather than appropriate dress?
Dress codes in general are not a new concept. For centuries, women and men (primarily women) have been told that wearing certain clothing to school distracts from the learning process and for that reason it is forbidden. Why is this? The issue goes beyond restrictive dress codes and expands to the attempt to correct female behavior entirely. We are told as we reach the age of college students that the best way to prevent rape is to dress appropriately, travel in packs, and never set our drinks down. If you ask me, the best way to prevent rape is to educate not the victims of rape on how to avoid being raped but rather the rapists to respect their fellow humans enough to not violate them in the most severe way imaginable.
In the example of my high school, the program encouraging females to cover up was initiated by a male administrator, but presented by a female faculty member to an audience of females. In other words, the administration saw an obvious problem with a man in his 40s addressing an audience of young female students and telling them to not dress like sluts. And they weren't wrong. This would raise many more questions than a dress code initiative launched by another female. That's because the fact that an adult male administrator noticing the clothes that your high school-age daughters are wearing to the extent that he is thinking about them being groped or verbally harassed is really f**king weird. This isn't thinking in your daughter's best interest, this is pathetically veiled misogyny.
It is high time that dress codes be abolished in schools and the blatant sexism, backwards attempts to eradicate harassment, and embarrassing double standards are tackled instead. Because let me tell you, sexual harassment is an issue that is far too common for EVERYONE.
A vision for the future: we move toward addressing the problem at the root of the perpetrator rather than the victim. We no longer pretend that how a woman dresses has the slightest thing to do with the actual problem of abundant and unwarranted sexual aggression. We raise empowered women to make choices and decisions for themselves no matter what level of veiled slut shaming they may receive from adults. Because who are we kidding, any level is too much. And finally, we work to educate, shifting our efforts to creating an enlightened student body rather than a covered one.
