There is a huge epidemic plaguing school systems across the United States, and it may not be what you think. This has been happening for decades, especially to the female student demographic. Young women are singled out, picked apart, sexualized, made to feel inferior, and even lose valuable educational time in the classroom. Horrible, right? How could we be letting this happen to our girls even as young as middle schoolers? If you are thinking “we need to stop this”, then you need to fight against the unfair dress code for females in school.
Today, a woman’s education is based on the comfortability of a man. Woman are taught from a young age that they are sexual objects. When you pull a woman out of the classroom to reprimand her for an “inappropriate” outfit you are sending the message “Your education is not as important as the males in your classroom.” Instead of teaching woman to cover up their bodies, you need to teach men to stop sexualizing them. Every student’s education should be protected, not just males.
We live in a society where men are viewed as superior to women. Male privilege is real, and society has convinced us that it should be tolerated. To this day, men are more accommodated by society than women. Here are some male privileges just to name a few: Men will make more money than a woman at the same job, if a man has children but does not provide primary care for them, their masculinity will not be called into question, and on average, men are taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces much less than females are.
The same thing is happening in the school systems. Men are being privileged over the women in the classroom, because of their gender. Not only is there gender favoritism, but there are also double standards. There are several blacklisted items from the women’s dress code around schools in America. Typically, there are no spaghetti straps, tank tops, short-shorts, short skirts, yoga pants, and leggings allowed in school. Let’s take a look at some of these, documented from female student bodies themselves.
Male shirt, allowed
As you can see there are two women in bathing suits depicted on this male’s shirt. It is ironic that schools let shirts like these through their doors when they don’t want their female student body dressing like this. Basically, males are allowed to choose when women are sexy and when they are deemed inappropriate.
Female outfit, not allowed
Pictured above is Macy Edgerl, a senior at Orangefield High school, in Orangefield, Texas. She was sent home because her leggings were “inappropriate.” This outfit is anything but inappropriate, but Macy’s school shamed her and sent her home because of their sexist dress code. Check out the full article here.
Women are not staying quiet about this issue and are fighting back. A most recent case, Rose Lynn from Oklahoma, made a statement after being sent home from school for her outfit.
Her outfit on the left is what go her sent home from school. As you can see, there was barely any skin showing. This outfit was not your typical controversial outfit. Instead of letting the sexist school administration keep her down, she made a statement by wearing this shirt. It says “It doesn’t cover your crotch. You’ll distract the boys.” That was exactly what the administration said to Rose. Unbelievable. Rose captioned her picture with “So today I was sent home from class, after being in school for two hours, for my outfit. Because I’m developed farther than the average girl my age, I am required to go home and change. Yet, if I was skin and bones or overweight, (not to offend anyone) I would be overlooked and no comment would be made, (at my particular school). Because “they must do that to feel better about themselves and they crave attention.” But because I look like a curvy woman and may distract young boys, I have to miss class and change my outfit. So once again, society has failed to advocate young ladies, by confining them in a box, where they are stripped of their sense of self-respect and self-expression, rather than teaching young men to respect the boundaries of young ladies. My response: #Feminism #YoullDistractTheBoys #SocietyIsFailing”
In addition to this signs, have been popping up all over schools sending positive messages and calling for an end to female body shaming in school systems.
If you are sexualizing women, YOU are the problem.