We have all heard stories about girls being sent home or being forced to change, but we rarely hear stories of boys being sent home or being forced to change. We have all heard of girls being told to “cover up” or being told they look too “distracting”, but have you ever heard someone tell a boy to pull up his pants or to stop wearing those low cut muscle shirts?

School dress codes are used to stop distractions and to keep a safe learning environment. But who is more important the boy who got distracted by some girls leg or the girl that is gonna have to miss some class to go change? How can someone decide what is distracting? Who should be punished for it? The girl who felt confident in her clothes or the boy who got “distracted” by her shoulders. 

Middle school and high school students are trying to dress to the latest fashion trends, but the latest fashion trends conflict with school dress codes. Females are now wearing crop tops and short shorts, but when schools say shoulders and stomachs are a distraction it limits their clothing selection. Our society tells them they need to look a certain way, but then schools degrade them for looking too “skimpy”.

Li Zhou a writer for the atlantic wrote an article called “The Sexism of School Dress Codes”, wrote about a high school student from Versailles, Kentucky, name Maggie Sunseri. Sunseri talks about how dress codes treat males and females differently, and how girls are disciplined disproportionately. Sunseri produced a “Shame: A Documentary on School Dress Codes. In this documentary she interviews with her classmates and her principle, it tells about the negative impact it can have on girls.

Li Zhou also writes about transgender and gender nonconforming students who may clash with  these policies. She states that students have been sent home, or asked to change because their clothing does not correspond with their legal sex. Some student have even been excluded from school yearbooks.

Laura Bates the founder of the sexism project, and the author of  Everyday Sexism. Wrote an article called How School Dress Codes Shame Girls and Perpetuate Rape Culture, in this article she uses a couple project entries from the sexism project. One of the entries states

“I got dress coded at my school for wearing shorts. After I left the principal's office with a detention I walked passed another student wearing a shirt depicting two stick figures: the male holding down the female's head in his crotch and saying ‘good girls swallow’. Teachers walked right passed him and didn’t say a thing.”
School dress codes are used to stop distractions and to keep a safe learning environment. But who is more important the boy who got distracted by some girls leg or the girl that is gonna have to miss some class to go change?  How can someone decide what is distracting? Who should be punished for it? The girl who felt confident in her clothes or the boy who got “distracted” by her shoulders.

My personal opinion is that we need to teach boys that just because i’m showing skin doesn’t mean I want them staring at me or does not mean I want them at all. We need to teach boys that they need to show respect to women. Women need to be respected no matter what they wear.

Schools have a lot to catch up on, but they definitely need to update their dress codes. They try their best to to stay “fair”, but in order to do this they need to take a look at today’s society and try to match their dress code accordingly. They also need to figure out who is their priority. Hopefully in the years to come we won’t have to deal with sexism and homophobia in school dress codes.