The school dress code has been a pressing issue as women push the boundaries of fashion. Our generation continues to make riskier clothing choices to accurately display our gender identities. Some adults, excluded from the reform, understandably have hesitations with these new trends. The rules and restrictions that have been put in place in schools are unfair to adolescent men and women.
Some teachers aren’t realizing that we wear what we wear because it is what’s available to us, not because we want to flaunt our sexuality. One of the hardest rules to abide by is that shorts must be six inches from the knee or longer. If you go to any store that sells teenage clothing you will find very few selelections available to meet these standards. Many teen shorts barely have a one inch inseam. This is also a severe issue with skirts and dresses too.
While it isn’t okay to wear something that flashes your underwear to all your peers, we should be allowed to wear ones that are a bit shorter because of availability, once again. School appropriate dresses are hard to find, especially ones that aren’t strapless. The notion of wearing strapless clothing to school may seem preposterous, but if you really think about it, what’s the difference? The only change in coverage is that there are now exposed shoulders, which aren’t all that distracting.
Teenage discretion is one of the reasons the dress code is put into place. Being young, we enjoy pushing boundaries to see what we can get away with, which in this situation is only going to cause stricter rules. Upon waking up in the morning you can easily determine what would be better for a concert or party and not school, yet there is a select few who choose to disregard their conscience and dress inappropriately anyways. This is what is ruining it for the rest of us. Many schools have a zero tolerance when it comes to dress code, so if you think about it we’re lucky. For example, in Heritage you can’t even wear flip-flops to school.
With this being said, there are still faults in the concept of a dress code.
The common excuse for banning some girl’s options is that it is “a distraction to the educational environment.” This is an insult to teenage males, basically stating that they are a slave to their hormones. For the ones that are, it is telling them that what they’re doing is okay and they don’t have to change their ways, the world will just conform to their needs.
The dress codes centers around females and the “sexual” parts of their body, for example exposed shoulders and thighs. Enforcing the idea that these areas are provocative and not to be shown in public just makes girls more self conscious.
Are we teaching girls that their body is something to be ashamed of and must be hidden. How’s that for educational?