0
0
A sexist issue that involves more than short-shorts and tank tops
By Claire Ward
All Dexter High School Students know that this school only has two temperatures: inside the inner rings of Hell, or exploring the arctic tundra.
Unfortunately, the fall seems to be the time where DHS students are enhancing their learning in the walls of Satan’s home. Okay, maybe not exactly, but you get the point. This school gets hot, and it’s hot outside.
With record high temperatures this summer and zero rain, the past few months have been a doozy. We’ve spent the time laying around in swimsuits and diving into lakes to cool us down.
Come September, we have to hang up our bikinis for fingertip-length, solid, not too tight, no holes above the thigh, plain, mom shorts.
DHS does a pretty good job of letting students wear what they want. You pretty much can dress yourself whatever way you please, as long as you aren’t hurting other people while doing so – or aren’t dressed at all.
Dexter Community Schools sends out a handbook every year to the district. In this student handbook, you can find the dress code spelled out for everyone to see. The problem with all schools in general, is not that the dress code is there, it’s that the dress code we have is geared towards the female student body more than the male student body.
The DCS handbook states “Undergarments showing shoulders not covered (no spaghetti straps)” are examples of “inappropriate dress”. Having undergarments showing is inappropriate, but clumping it in with spaghetti straps insinuates that female students should try to steer clear of letting their bra straps show.
*NEWS FLASH: girls wear bras, everyone knows it.*
Boys do not tend to wear tank tops with the very thin straps like girls tend to (but if you want to guys, you rock those spaghetti straps). The problem is boys do wear tank tops, bro tanks have been an on-again off-again trend for years now, but the district does not address this as “inappropriate dress.”
The handbook also tells us that “Shorts/Skirts that are not modest in length (need to cover top of thigh and bottom of rear)” are considered inappropriate. I can get this one too; no one wants to see the bum cheeks of that freshman girl hanging out as she walks down the hall to Mr. Parker’s English 9 class.
This rule specifies that skirts must be “modest” length, and this is where the issue comes in again: I have never seen a boy wear a skirt to class if it was not part of a costume. The district is making sexist regulations as to say girls must cover up, with little mention of boys.
Now, I’m not just here to criticize the dress code policy, it does tell students sagging isn’t allowed (which let’s be real, is one of the worst fashion emergencies in existence), and that shoes with wheels will not be permitted. These are totally viable things to keep out of our learning environment.
Now, I won’t lie, our school is pretty slack on dress code violations (WHICH IS MUCH APPRECIATED). Nothing is worse than a 60-year-old male teacher telling you your shorts are distracting. Problems arise in telling a 17-year-old girl her shorts are distracting, because it comes down to who the administration thinks is being distracted by a girl’s legs.
Dress code rules have been put in place for the longest time, preventing students from showing too much skin. Female students have been told that their shoulders are distracting, the little patch of skin on their thigh that shows through the hole in their jeans is distracting, that even their collar bones (a body part that we have no control over) are too distracting.
The problem is boys do wear tank tops, bro tanks have been an on-again off-again trend for years now, but the district does not address this as “inappropriate dress.”
These things are not too distracting to other girls, girls honestly do not care about seeing someone’s shoulders, but they are too distracting to the male classmates at the school.
I can remember being told of the “3-finger rule” for all tank tops beginning in the third grade all the way into high school. In middle school, we were forced to stand in a line as the teachers told us whether or not our outfits were appropriate (“We” meaning the female student body). During this time, boys were allowed free-time to watch movies or hang out while the girls were told whether or not they were being “too sexual”.
Having a teacher tell you to go change out of a pair of athletic shorts that you thought seemed completely innocent, while the boys in your class are peeking through the door and laughing at each girl as she is told to go change, is absolutely humiliating.
We are 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18-year-old girls; We are not trying to be sexual or promiscuous by wearing a pair of shorts or a tank top. We are trying to dress for the weather outside and the temperature of our school.
We don’t come to school to distract boys. We come to school for an education. Dress codes over-sexualize the female student body, and a focus towards girls in the handbook shows a sexist injustice.
Dexter High School shouldn’t change its policies towards dress code, nor do I think there should be more policing in what students are wearing. Students should be able to wear whatever they feel comfortable in, to an extent (no one should come to school in simply their underwear). The policy in the handbook however, needs some changes. Right now, it is geared towards girls, and this over-sexualization of young woman trying to get an education is a humiliating, unjust experience that needs to stop.
