A few weeks ago, I witnessed an event I never thought I would see at a “progressive” school like RBHS. Before school one day, I overheard a teacher berating a student, telling her she needed to “call her parents to bring her some different clothes.”
Of course, I glanced to see what she was wearing to offend the teacher so much that the outfit had to be changed right then. The girl had on a crop top and a full length black maxi skirt. A section of her midriff was exposed; maybe about two or three inches of skin was visible.
She wasn’t wearing a shirt with offensive language or subject matter too vulgar for school. She simply had her bellybutton on display.
Last year when I first arrived at RBHS, I was delighted to find the administrators and teachers did not criticize girls’ clothing like they did at West Junior High School, my previous school. Girls would be scolded for having bare shoulders, visible cleavage or, God forbid, too much leg exposed.
The adults these young girls looked up to told the 13-15 year old girls that they were dressed too “sexy” for school. Administrators and teachers alike sexualized these girls before they were even old enough to drive a car. It was, frankly, sickening.
Schools all over the country have dress codes that sexualize girls’ bodies by telling them that their cleavage or legs are too appealing to their male peers to be shown in public. These codes blame the girls for the actions of their male classmates. By telling a girl that she must dress in a way that will not “distract” boys, schools are in effect telling her that she is responsible for the level of self-control demonstrated by her peers. When a girl is pulled out of the classroom to change her clothes, she is being told that her education is less important than the education of her male counterparts.
While RBHS has a fairly lenient dress code, this policy is not guaranteed. As I have witnessed, some faculty members at RBHS do commit sexist micro aggressions towards females by scolding them for their clothing choices, as seen in this incident.
Our school cannot simply be complacent as battalions of sexism encroach on our “safe haven.”
If we do not speak out against dress codes and the subsequent shaming of the female body now, even when it is not happening to us personally, these dress codes will become commonplace in our society as proponents of sexism work as generals, commanding their troops to promote the sexualization, and preceding subordination of women.
I wish I had spoken out when I saw that incident. By not speaking out against the sexism, I became a bystander who enabled the army to gain ground.
We cannot stay silent while our classmates’ rights are being violated.
In the Supreme Court case Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District 1969, the judges ruled that a dress code can only prohibit students from wearing garments that the school predicts will cause a disturbance or have already caused a disturbance, or that supports inappropriate material for school settings, such as vulgar language or clothing that is affiliated with gangs. This court case set the precedent on dress codes, and it is apparent that the Supreme Court meant to liberate these students, not bind them to strict, unfair dress codes.
Nowhere in the case did the Justices state that a girl with cleavage could be told that her body is not school appropriate and if someone tries to make the argument that cleavage can cause a disturbance, they are plainly and simply over sexualizing the female anatomy. It is not a crime to have a body.
It certainly is accepted when a male dons revealing clothing for a school theme day. When the cross country boys held beach day, one came to school without a shirt on.
Everyone considered this humorous. Teachers laughed, and no one said a word implying that the boy was not dressed properly for a school environment.
However, if a girl came to school in a bikini top for a beach theme day students would remark she was a slut and she would have to make a call home to her parents to bring her a change of clothes before the day was done, all because she has breasts.
To foster true change of these undesirable double standards, society must decide to not allow females to fall prey to these sexist ideals. Bystanders cannot stay silent as yet another sexist micro aggression occurs. Instead, society must fight back against the army of sexism that is marching ever-closer, so that no female will be stripped of her rights.
By Abby Kempf
Feature photo by Caylea Erickson.