One of my Facebook friends shared this article yesterday about what school dress codes say about young women. I found it interesting because it's an issue that has been bugging me since middle school. Why are the clothes that young women wear so heavily regulated based on what young men find "distracting". What kind of message is this sending to young women? I remember my friends and I being both disturbed and amused by it back in 6th grade. We weren't allowed to have spaghetti straps for unexplained reasons, but were allowed to have wider strapped shirts. I can only assume this was because they didn't want our braw straps to be shown, which is a pretty ridiculous notion to me. If a boy can't concentrate because he knowns that I'm wearing a bra by seeing a strap on my shoulder, knowing full well that nearly every girl in the room is wearing one whether he can see it or not, then I don't see why that should be my problem. If the reasoning is not to keep from "distracting" boys, which is both blaming girls for what boys think or do to them and insulting to boys, insinuating and teaching them that they cannot control themselves, then it is probably to teach girls "modesty". Teaching modesty is at least less of a problem in my opinion, depending on the reason given for why it is important. I think schools need to be careful about how they approach the dress code issue, as young girls walking around in their bikinis is hardly school appropriate, but blaming girls for the supposed faults of boys is hardly helpful.
Of course, sometimes the issue goes the other way as well. When I was in 8th grade, my school placed a short-lived ban on kids bringing their backpacks into class. However, girls were still allowed to bring their purses in, which the boys of the school deemed unfair. To protest this, a group of guys in my grade borrowed their sisters' purses and brought them to class with them. The principal, while amused, was not a huge fan of this, and tried to prevent the boys from doing so. Unfortunately for her, the kids had the support of many girls along with teachers, and couldn't do much to stop them at risk of being called sexist. As a result, the ban was eventually lifted as the boys got rowdier (middle school boys have a tendency to get out of hand). This event brought to my attention that the clothes boys wear are almost never regulated. When have you ever heard of a school banning tight shirts or skinny jeans for boys just because it would "distract" the girls? I never have, but anyone who thinks that they won't get distracted or have a look needs a heavy dose or reality. So why are schools so one-sided in their regulation of dress code?
