As fall begins, a favorite fashion staple of nearly every collegiette wardrobe is back into rotation: the universally beloved and equally flattering leggings. However, at high schools across the country, these clothing items are in constant contention with schools’ dress codes.
School dress codes are constantly in the news for how they sexistly and bizarrely target girls and their bodies, shaming them for having the nerve to show off their shoulders, collar bones, legs and bra straps, to name a few. Reasons offered up by administrators vary from maintaining that they are protecting girls’ modesty while sexualizing them to claiming to protect the education of boys while inherently placing the value of their education over women’s. However another reason for dress codes and banning leggings as pants has recently gone viral.
A recent news segment from WCBD out of South Carolina, focusing on Goose Creek’s Stratford High School caught the internet’s interest when audio of their principal telling freshmen and sophomore girls “Unless you are a size zero or a two and you wear something like that [leggings as pants], even though you are not fat, you look fat” was broadcasted. This derogatory comment does nothing but body shame young vulnerable fourteen and fifteen year old girls who are incredibly impressionable when it comes to their self esteem and body image. If we think back to when we were in these girls’ shoes, starting high school, we can remember how self conscious we were and how devastating it would be for someone we trusted to tell us we looked fat.
This statement also plants the shameful notion that only size zero or two women are thin and can wear clothing meant for thin girls. First of all, crop tops, leggings, stripes, bikinis or anything else that is supposedly only for the skinny ladies can be worn by anyone regardless of size. Secondly, there is nothing wrong with being fat. Some people are fat, and fat people continue to be just as beautiful as thin people. Being overweight may be a health concern, but so is surviving off of ramen and fast food and no one has badgered me about my health recently.
However, the most shocking part about this article is that the person making these remarks to young women is in fact Principal Heather Taylor, a woman. Women should be uniting to uplift one another, not hiding behind a false shroud of “real girl talk” or “let’s be honest ladies” to say negative and degrading statements. So here is the truth: fat is not a bad word, leggings are pants, everyone looks good in leggings and women cannot continue to judge or shame one another.
So wear your leggings with pride, fellow Zips, no matter your size, because it doesn’t matter. You look beautiful.