Throughout the years, I’ve seen copious amounts of girls sent to the office in the middle of class simply for having their shoulders showing. They’ve been punished for wearing a v neck shirt instead of a round neck shirt. It would make sense to wear what you want in the place in which you spend seven hours a day, five days a week, and at least thirteen years of your life. However, a lot of schools have restrictive dress codes that prevent students, mostly girls, from wearing clothes that they feel express their personalities. In many schools, boys are allowed to wear tank tops, though girls are not. In the article My high school abolished its sexist dress code. Things got better, Elizabeth Love states, “During our sophomore year, my best friend was disciplined for wearing shorts that were “too short” — although the shorts were part of the school’s soccer uniform… While the male rock climber who sat next to me in English class was routinely free to wear his shirt entirely unbuttoned, flapping in the wind, revealing his chest.”In the same way, boys are discouraged from wearing feminine clothes. While …show more content…
They claim that girls who expose their midriff or shoulders are distracting to boys. This is tosh. Emily McCombs from the Huffington Post states, “ …[the dress code] teaches female students that making sure male students have a distraction-free learning environment is more important than her own education.” Rather than teaching girls to hide their bodies, we should teach boys not to sexualize their classmates. Instead of perpetuating rape culture, we should teach that other people are not to blame for personal actions. It is disgraceful that we still live in a society in which girls should have to cover up to feel safe. Changing dress codes to apply to everyone is the first necessary step to erasing the victim-blaming mindset that people have
...oday there are increasingly fewer attacks on the student body regarding their clothing, undoubtedly to prevent upsetting more parents. We can see in Source F that this pressure to look a certain way never really ends, and this is true for both men and women. Although this pressure to have a perfect appearance doesn’t stop after high school, the Bedford North Lawrence Community Schools should be understanding and more lenient on some of the less scandalous clothing choices to make students feel comfortable and give them a realistic feel for how people dress and behave in public. In the end, everyone’s body is their own personal business and should not be dictated by another person or shamed for how it is presented, however BNL behaved the exact opposite of this at the beginning of the school year, making the way the administration handled the situation inappropriate.
Schools typically justify their dress codes by maintain that it’s important to keep the classroom free of any distractions, however, that language actually reinforces the idea that women’s bodies are inherently tempting to men and it’s their responsibility to cover themselves up.
Hidden behind the dress code is the sexist reason for it. Apparently boys cannot seem to 'control' themselves so girls are forced to hide from men's 'gazes'. Is it my fault that the guy behind me will fail an exam because my bra strap is showing or that I'm wearing a razor-back style shirt? Or if a little bit of a bandeau (a strapless bra cover designed to prevent a bra being shown) is showing, no one will freak out. Girls are being taught that it is our fault that a boy is distract...
Ensuing President Bill Clinton's State of the Union address in January of 1996, more and more public schools are implementing dress codes and uniform policies in their schools. As a result, there has been an increase in legal controversies dealing with the issue. The reason that dress codes are not conclusively enforced is due to the application of the First Amendment to juveniles in the public school setting. The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Should children in public schools be able to wear whatever they want because of the freedoms classified in the First Amendment? I feel that the answer is no. Institutionalizing dress codes in public schools would do a great good for students and the entire academic community. I base my opinion on the fact that the pros of imposing dress codes outweigh the cons of the argument. By imposing dress codes or uniforms for students, it would eliminate opportunities for the ridicule of less popular or less fortunate students based on their attire, help prevent gang violence and gang members from wearing gang colors and insignia in schools, and generate an overall better academic concentration and discipline in the educational community.
Boys dress code allows them to wear a lot more and is more laid back than girls . It shouldn't matter what a girl is wearing; it shouldn't be a distraction in class. A girl ran a test and had three boys take a math test. She had a jacket on, and when she took it off and tested them again, they didn't even realize a change. It is not a girl's fault if a boy is distracted by them. A boy can wear shorts and tank tops to school, why can't we? I think the same dress code should apply to both boys and girls. Just because some boys can't 'control themselves' doesn't mean a girl should have to change what they
It's considered distracting to have any small part of your body showing, even if its covered. Most dress codes say leggings must be covered, and there's no tank tops or anything that shows your shoulders. “They should be able to choose how to dress as long as it's appropriate” (School). This statement is basically saying as long as the leggings, crop tops, or tank tops are covering up enough girls should be able to wear them. Leggings, crop
Oh no, we must put a stop to this horror. There are guys out here not able to get their education because my face is showing! This is a serious matter that should not be taken lightly. Any boy that doesn’t graduate, well, it’s us girls fault really… Maybe if one of us wouldn’t have worn that super comfortable v-neck and yoga pants on test day those guys wouldn’t have been so discombobulated and been able to concentrate on their test and pass. We owe them an apology for being comfortable and trying to get an education as well. Even though we are about to graduate and thrust into the real world, we should most definitely not be allowed to express ourselves through our clothes. Continue to shame girls for their clothing and to teach the boys that we are nothing more than something to look at and not equal to them. Way to go school system! I don’t need an education. I don’t need to be seen as an equal to men. I just need to stay in the kitchen and keep my mouth shut. Don’t show boys how useful we are, don’t let them know that we are actually very intelligent, and for the love of God don’t let them in on the fact that we can do anything they can, sometimes even better… including dressing ourselves how we
A teacher or principle believe that everyone needs to be in a safe and undistracted environment when they are learning. The school dress code to them is just fine and they are always keeping an eagles eye out to spot and hunt down anyone who isn't following it in some type of way. Teachers and principles don’t want students making judgements about others by what type of clothing they are
Dress codes themself are no question about it sexist. The majority of the rules are directed towards women. There is no reason why girls should not be able to wear tank tops when it is 90 degrees outside! Yes it's showing more skin than normal but having to wear a cotton polo in that heat is monstrous. I totally agree with this and they schools should be way more lenient on what they address.
Does having a dress code restrict students from having freedom of expressions? Girls are not allowed to show shoulders, guys can not show anything below the armpit, tank tops are prohibited. Any showing of a bra on a teenage girl is not allowed. Blankets, hats, gloves, slippers and anything covering the head is not allowed. Clothes shall not reference sex, drugs, profanity, and tobacco in any way. If a student is challenging any of these rules, they will be asked to change. If the student becomes tardy or absent due to these policies, it will be marked as unexcused. But remember, be you.
I personally do not think it is what so ever fare about the different dress code policies for guys and girls.”Some schools have banned leggings.” I kinda get mad about that because how can you ban something that isn’t even showing, even the teachers wear them! “If you wear leggings, you need to have a shirt or skirt over them that reaches at least down to your fingertips. In other words, girls need to cover their behinds.” Now this is crazy everyone has a butt no one should have to cover it up if they aren’t showing anything it’s not their fault, guys look but everyone looks at everyone's butts it doesn’t have to be because they are attracted to them it’s just a natural habit. I just find that sexist against girls because they are not showing their butts off in leggings.
Throughout generations clothes have been styled differently representing different meanings. Years ago, girls would be covered from head to toe because of the fear that all men were a threat. Today girls will be wearing half a shirt and a short skirt to school while men will have their pants down representing that nothing matters to them. As life has gone by, humans have had different ideas as to what is appropriate and inappropriate. Womens clothing have become more provocative, short and tight, making it harder for them to choose clothing where they won’t get the negative attention. They complain about the fact that they can not wear what gives them confidence or be able to express themselves. On the other hand, some women are wearing the clothing they chose for the attention, yet when they get the attention they complain. In the article, “These are not girls who are battling for the right to come to school in their bikinis-it’s a principle” by Liz Zhou (The Atlantic), talks about the fact that girls are the cause for “distracting” their peers at school. They feel as if they are being treated as sex objects, those who
One of these trends, which is also common at Siskiyou County high schools, is wearing leggings or yoga pants (a type of flexible, form-fitting athletic pant) rather than normal pants. A high school graduate named Ashley Crtalic from Skyview High School in Billings, Montana, witnessed this style of fashion become a violation of school dress code. Upon finding out about the new-found policy at her old school, she became upset; she felt that it would make no difference and stated that “dress code serves to humiliate females for having bodies” (Why Yoga Pants Are Dangerous to Today’s Youth). She also mentioned that when she attended Skyview High School, she was constantly sexually harassed by the male students no matter what type of clothing she was wearing. In her blog post on the Billings Gazette, she explained that on her first day of junior year, a teacher “loudly announced that [she] was going to have to go home because [her] clothing was inappropriate.” She claimed that she was extremely upset, to the point of tears. The males at her school were never punished for sexual harassment, yet she was punished for simply wearing a top that exposed her shoulders. A teacher at my school explained to me that during staff meetings, when the issue of dress code comes up, mostly females are discussed. However, there are many males at our school who “sag” their pants or wear wife-beaters and
When I was in elementary school conflict regarding the length of boys’ hair or “gang dress” was common, I vividly remember male family members being chastised for their pants falling below their rear end. But those were the days of grunge and gangster rap, parents and schools had been worried for the safety of boys whose role models were criminals and depressives; the current round of moral panic focuses primarily on girls wearing figure-hugging garments, such as leggings and yoga pants, or revealing “too much” skin, as in the case of shorts and tank tops. Just as when I was younger the concern was for the safety of boys, the current conflict over girls’ clothing seems to be similarly aimed at the reactions of male students. The alarm claimed by parents and school officials is that the concerned attire could “distract” other pupils, the unspoken ‘male pupils’ is usually taken as read. Often times wearing shorts or leggings results in a punishment of suspension or the implementation of so called, “shame suits,” while the punishment boys receive for wearing an insulting t-shirt is that they’re made to turn the offending item inside out. How can two crimes that are arguably on par with one another in terms of severity, receive such wildly differing punishments? I believe, as do the students
Students have the right to express their individual identity and one of the ways they do this is through dressing.Furthermore, it is vital that a school environment is supportive of children who does not wish to follow their birth gender. With many schools requiring males to wear pants and a shirt and females to wear a dress or skirt and blouse, this can result in negative outcomes on a child’s gender identity creating problems in their school years. When students are forced to wear a gender specific uniform, it restricts them from the activities and opportunities that they are capable of, especially for females. According to Tait (2013, p. 46) girls’ uniforms are generally more aesthetic and much less amenable to any physical activity and the fact that many are required to wear a skirt reinforces gender stereotyping as they are the natural enemy of all things athletic. Therefore, wearing a dress or a skirt restricts certain activities for females. This includes playing sports at lunch, hanging upside down on the monkey bars as well as not having much expression of freedom compared to males in pants, and always needing to sit in a ladylike way. According to Carson (as cited in Gilmore, 2015, para. 9) the female uniform tangles or hampers leg movement and can be revealing, leading to sexual harassment and modesty policing. Thus, dresses or skirts hamper physical play and create difficulty for children to do physically active games, for example, cart wheels and