Megan Hutchinson
Staff Reporter
Every day, from the time we are small to when we become legal adults we attend school. We receive an education for thirteen years of our lives. We are taught that girls' bodies are distracting and dangerous to those around them.
That falsely loaded and incorrect statement is the mentality from those around us that young women face all the time. These ideologies are supported and fueled by the sexist dress code and the way they are implemented.
However, the criticism schools face about their sexist dress code result in the same response. They believe in maintaining a “distraction-free” learning environment and pride themselves on teaching the importance of appropriate attire for different occasions. Though, the dress code specifically targets young women and girls.
At the Everyday Sexism Project, they encourage people of any gender to submit their experiences of gender inequality, receiving hundreds of assertions by young women and girls affected by dress code and everyday sexism. For example, directly quoted from the Everyday Sexism Project (https://everydaysexism) “There is a girl in my class who has the best fashion sense in the whole school. She always looks amazing. One day she came to school with short shorts and a shirt that exposed something like half an inch of her belly. Walking between classes, I saw a (female) teacher haranguing her for being too ‘distracting’. Everyone averted their eyes and kept walking. This happens all the time at my school. There are 12 rules for what girls can wear, and only 4 for boy’s clothes. Girls in my class have up to 7 violations each. I have never seen a boy get dress-coded, ever.” Girls are constantly told to cover up to avoid distracting fellow male classmates or making male teachers “uncomfortable” yet they are never taught to keep their eyes to themselves and control themselves. It is disgusting that underage girls have to worry about distracting or receiving unwanted attention from their adult male teachers who sit in a place of authority.
Teaching women and young girls that their bodies are dangerous, sexualized, and powerful, and that boys are built to objectify them can inform young women about their own bodies in ways that could hurt them later in life. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women are sexually assaulted but society blames, questions, and silences women, while perpetrators are hardly ever disciplined.
Today, the codes feel less about protecting women and protecting social norms and the hierarchies that refuse to tolerate diversity. Schools make the decision to police women yet turn a blind eye to boys’ behavior, setting up the assumption that sexual violence is inevitable and placing the blame on victims.
Image Credit: PBS
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