Spring is coming, which means we are entering the season of the regulation of how much skin girls around the country are allowed to bare. Dress codes, while usually regulating boys' slovenliness, tend to police girls for how much of their bodies are visible. Anyone who's ever painted or stood in a room surrounded by Kara Walker silhouettes can tell you that white space is defining and when we talk about dress codes, girls' skin is the white space we've all been trained to ignore in these discussions. And, while everyone is in theory affected by dress codes, girls and LGTBQ youth are disproportionately affected by them. Challenging schools to align unexamined, traditional dress codes to contemporary values is a tangible place to start if you're interested in teaching kids to live in a diverse, tolerant society. Of course, many parents are not interested.
When it comes to girls, skimpy and skin-baring clothes are often the primary issue. Kids know that many words, like "unladylike," are code for "slutty." Other words that are frequently used include "distracting" and "unprofessional." Many teachers worry that girls' skin will "so addle boys' brains that they will be unable to concentrate." Boys, and apparently in Iowa, adult men who can now legally fire "irresistible" women, we are told, simply cannot concentrate in this environment.
So, what exactly is wrong with saying girls are "distracting"? I mean, everyone know this, right?
This isn't to say girls should go to school wearing anything that strikes their fancy, no matter how skimpy. When their underwear is showing it's not because they're channelling Jean Paul Gaultier in an attempt to show how artificial the construction of gender is. There are times when girls reach an age when being sexy or sexual is just fine, but In the same way that they shouldn't wear athletic clothes to go to a wedding, they shouldn't wear clothes they'd wear, say, to a concert, when they go to school. I want my girls to be comfortable at school and respectful of their teachers and the learning environment. Boys, too. If this means, as girls occasionally suggest to teachers, that a school talk to boys about not looking at girls' legs if it makes them uncomfortable, then so be it. With uniforms, it should be even simpler. The issue isn't the rules per se, it's how they're constructed.
Equally important is how they are enforced. This is of much more concern and frequently sets harmful precedents.
Some administrators start every school day with rigorous visual inspections as kids tumble onto campuses. These inspections don't exist in a vacuum. No one is suggesting that teachers are like street harassers. But, inspections begin around the same time that young girls start experiencing daily street harassment and sexual harassment on campus. In school, boys, like girls, are targets of public humiliation but, especially if they are straight, this type of public inspection and commentary on their bodies and clothes is usually limited to school. For girls and many LGBTQ people, this is just the beginning and it never ends. They have to deal with related feelings amplified by administrators who feel strongly about enforcement. On the recent afternoon of the day that my girls' school reviewed uniform policies, a gaggle of 13-year-old girls (in regulation uniforms) piled into my car as two men on the street leered, mumbled "compliments" at them and laughed. I didn't mention it, but realized the girls heard them as they started talking about how "creepy" it was. One made an automatic and unself-conscious connection: She said she did not like being inspected in school and it felt the same way to her. It's hard to know, in this context, who a girl is talking about when she says she's "uncomfortable when he winks" at me. I know it seems ridiculous to compare thoughtful, often loving teachers -- of both sexes -- with random jerks on the street, but that is true only if you willfully deny the centrality of the 13-year-old girls' point of view in the matter of her own comportment. The well-documented, harmful effects of self-objectification that result from the policing of school dress regulations is not unlike those that result from street harassment. From the girls' perspective, they'd started their day with people reviewing, having conversations about and publicly commenting on their bodies and were ending it in the same manner. It's wearisome. Some might say distracting.
In addition, the way school rules are often demonstrated is seriously problematic. For example, administrators might take a girl up to a stage and draw a line on her leg, to show where a regulation length skirt should fall. This is often done with humor, to offset the unpleasantness and difficulty of the task at hand, and everyone has a good laugh. A girl with no power, being told by a bigger person with authority what to do, might be acquiescing to what is happening to her, but she is not consenting. By using her body as a prop, the enforcer uses her body as an object for his or her purposes. Making it a joke can be insidious. I know this is not what's going through a teacher's head when surrounded by pubescent students who are violating code. But, nonetheless, this is happens every day, year after years in some places, and it is a terrible precedent to set for boys and girls.
Our ideas about consent and the use of other people's bodies are important and cannot, in this culture, begin early enough. Take, for example, the fact that 28% of girls in college are sexually assaulted (and 3% of boys), only 5% report these crimes. Say a boy or group of boys rapes a girl. They have grown up with ideas about how her clothes can "distract" boys and make them do things they haven't being told or asked overtly to control. The girl also might very well have internalized ideas repeatedly conveyed to her about how people confuse her clothes for "morality," or intent, how others can use or comment on her body, how her consent is not either expected or respected. Not only has she internalized these ideas, but her school might have institutionalized them in dress code policy and enforcement. This is not helpful. According to the Center for Public Integrity, only 5% of victims report crimes either because they don't understand their nature or because they are well aware of institutional tolerances for these practices.
Girls' "right to bare arms" is an idea with a long and meaningful tail.
This topic must be one of the most difficult for school administrators, often caught between a rock and a hard place with students, parents, their personal beliefs, traditions and concerns about student safety and performance. There are many ways to consider the usefulness, purpose, intent and effects of dress codes. If school communities are genuinely worried about girls and boys then they need to examine the stereotypes that permeate their own policies -- policies that are sometimes simply palimpsests of sexism, racism and homophobia, written over time and left undisturbed for too long. When traditions are sexist and homophobic they should be abandoned. Programs that deal with root issues like cultural gender stereotypes, sexism and misogyny in media, like Miss Representation or Common Sense Media's Gender ToolKit, are a good place to start.
Follow Soraya Chemaly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/schemaly
I raised a respectful son so anybody can do it.
I went to highschool 69-72. Our skirts were mini's with tights mostly or fishnet hose. We fought to be able to wear pants, like the boys who could wear jeans and t-shirts to school whereas we had to wear a skirt and blouse no t-shirts allowed.. I will never forget our last meeting with our pig principal over dress code. He told us that we were more likely to be raped in blue jeans then in a skirt. I had to stand up and say that is ridiculous. Jeans are much harder to get off then pulling up a skirt.
The problem is males are not taught to respect females and in todays commercial life girls and boys are bombarded with being sexy, instead of being bombarded with self respect. Instead of using their strength for the protection of women they use it against them. such a shame.
It's those who try to dismiss or defend the harassment that does happen with phrases like "boys will be boys" who are implicitly asserting that harassing girls is something universal to all (proper) boys. But they're not taken to task for it.
The problem with constantly acting as though boys can't control themselves is pretty Psychology 101. Kids automatically internalize the messages of adult authority figures. You treat a kid like they're lazy, they become that way. You treat a kid like she's immature, she'll be immature. You treat a boy like he can't help but be distracted by the way a girl looks or dresses, that he just can't resist making comments or starting or touching or raping, and that's what you get.
Children have to believe that adults are right about things. They will become what we think of them. It's only survival. Treat kids like responsible, caring, empathetic, respectful human beings.
I mean, I can remember when I was a lot younger, having conservative *parents* singled me out a great deal in early years in public school cause I wasn't wearing the fashionable things. Which sure didn't help me pass for straight and all.
Sometimes we forget that a lot of stuff that seems trivial now was a *big deal* when we were in our early teens... And when you've got kids having status battles over the archetypal five hundred dollar sneakers and the like, that's incentive to lots of other things that aren't helping individual expression.
Frankly, I don't think it has to be all-or-nothing about *control,* ...it just that a dress code needs to be thought *through.* Cause there's no real 'perfect ideal' either way.
Better not to leave deciding on the dress codes *to* the control freaks. Cause they'll start demanding certain haircuts and this and that... (Which I think ought to be out of bounds, for a start: that's someone's body, not their attire. We don't need *more gender policing* in the bargain, either. )
I think where there can be a problem with these things, such as what's described in the article, is when dress codes become a vehicle for *others* to impose their conformities and sexist ideologies and related harassments *on* all the kids.
I think the distinction there is a matter of degree, not kind.
One school I attended, by then old enough to pick my own clothes and all, we had a dress code with a certain amount of leeway, but it was enough to avoid people hassling each other over how much skin they might be baring or not baring, how expensive their blazer was, (Pretty interesting, considering how many rich kids were there. They didn't care that the artsy crowd was going to the vintage shops. :) I could be pretty comfortably-androgynous by being kinda New Wave at school and kind of find a comfort level there that probably wouldn't so much fly if everyone was normally all prissied-up, you know. I mean, a lot of people chafed at it, but I really didn't mind.
The problem is, uniforms and dress codes are measures for enforcing not just conformity, but traditionalism as well. Any change in how we might dress will run up against all the uniforms and dress codes, because these are specifically designed not to account for anything more than the least bit new (defined as "since the '60s") or different. (And, yes, that goes for the workplace, too.) Apparently men's haircuts and trousers and ties are part of the Immutable Cosmic Order and chaos will ensue if these ever pass. (I know the essay mainly addresses women, but thanks for the axe-grinding opportunity.)
And, mind you, I do think that boys tend to behave a little more like adults if *dressed* as such. Part of the problem with a lot of 'traditional' dress codes a la Catholic school is that sometimes the girls end up dressed like *children,* actually, ...plaid jumpers and Mary Janes and white knee socks don't really convey 'Respect me,' you know. This is not a real problem if everyone's like dressed for Hogwarts or business casual or something.
I'm all for men in kilts, mind you. You should go for that. :)
I have no idea why boys find ties to be such torture. A bigger collar size would probably help? :)
As far as shorts, forget it--too distracting. It appears Evolution favors those choked at both ends.
Yeah...you really should reread (or actually read) the article. And the three list points especially.
"Uniforms and dress codes exist to equalise social differences and the stigma for families in lower economic groups."
In my experience it doesn't work. Even with uniforms and dress codes it's still possible to tell who has and who has not (especially in smaller communities)--and the lower class kids still get bullied. Have you actually been a public school student within the last 5 years or so?
"And finally, the whole thing about teenagers' right to self expression in school is utter nonsense"
Yeah! The First and Fourteenth Amendments ceases to exist when you walk through the school doors! Oh...wait! They doesn't! And you don't have to be 18 to have your Constitutional rights.
I wonder how dress codes still exist anyway. Federal and state laws should be followed and gym and lab safety regulations are necessary, yes. But the rest has always stood out to me as a clear violation of rights. Several cases have happened to this affect and dress codes banning certain types of expression have been ruled unconstitutional in the past.
I think schools that want to go to uniforms for the various reasons that are good (like avoiding too much about all the class and clique issues that way, need to be a bit more accommodating of diversity and students' own comfort levels. Just some uniform *options* could be helpful, ie, let girls wear slacks or longer skirts, appropriate but uniform headwear for Sikh and Muslim students, etc, ...don't gender-segregate who can choose what options, etc.
Other issues aside, I think a lot of the problems come from people trying to make uniforms a little *too* uniform.