Dear *Mrs. Barnes,
I was only 14 years old when you told me that the low-cut shirts I wore distracted male teachers. I was only 14 years old when I couldn’t walk down the hall to my English class without being harassed by you and told to change into my hideous gray gym shirt. I was only 14 years old when I began to feel like I couldn’t celebrate my own body.
Middle school wasn’t easy for most pre-teenage girls. These were the years we started developing crushes. These were the years we started growing and evolving, sometimes in places we weren’t used to. These were the years we experienced feelings we had never felt before. These were the years we came into ourselves. For me, however, it felt as if I were doing something wrong. It felt as if I were on the wrong track. My mother did the best she could to teach me about the physical alterations of puberty. However, mentally, something just wasn’t right. I didn’t understand why having larger breasts than the other girls my age made me different than them. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t wear the cute things that they wore. I didn’t understand why puberty was such a bad thing.
The mornings I would try to leave the house for the bus stop only to be told to go back upstairs and change became countless. Even on the very few days that I was able to leave the house in a shirt that didn’t suffocate my breasts to the point of non-existence, I’d have to deal with my friends telling me to pull my shirt up all day long. However, out of all of the troubles that having larger breasts caused me, nothing was worse than what you told me on the first day of spring during my eighth grade year.
If you don’t recall, allow me to refresh your memory. I was walking to my eighth grade English class on the day that I’d be awarded my right of passage onto ninth grade honors English. I had on my favorite purple shirt, and of course, it was a v-neck, just how you like it. I tried my best to avoid being seen because heaven forbid that I would want to look nice on such an important day. However, just in the nick of time, you turned your back and you saw me and my two overdeveloped 14 year old breasts in all their glory. I don’t know what had gotten into you on this day, but you were not in the mood. After I explained to you my need (and my right) to look nice, you told me something that scarred me. You told me something I wish that I had never heard. You told me something that disgusted me with every fiber of my being. You told me, at only 14 years old, that male teachers would routinely have conversations about me and my breasts about how distracted they caused them to be. After you said these words, I remember standing still in dead silence, thinking to myself about how wrong I was for wanting to look nice. I remember thinking to myself about how I could never show even the smallest amount of cleavage again. I remember thinking to myself about how my parents were right. I remember thinking to myself about how I should have listened.
On my usual walk of shame to the girl’s locker room, tears began to pool in my eyes. I had never felt like such a disgrace. I was left with so many unanswered questions. Why is this my fault? Why do all of the other girls get to wear v-necks and I don’t? Why is that I can’t be happy with my body? Well, now, Mrs. Barnes, five years later, I finally know the answer to every single last one of those questions. First of all, it isn’t my fault. For some reason, there are still people that can’t handle the idea of “overdevelopment.” Just because a girl “sprouts” at a younger age does not necessarily mean that she is any different from any of the other girls her age. Secondly, the sexualization that takes place due to misogynistic dress codes forced on girls in middle and high schools is absolutely ridiculous. In addition to listing the clothing that isn’t allowed, dress code administrations may as well add “if you have an overdeveloped body type” as a disclaimer, and lastly, I can be happy with my own body. I celebrate myself every single day. I love my breasts. I love my stretchmarks. I love my birthmarks and I love my ability to wear whatever I want as one of my rights as a human first, and a woman second.
So, thank you, Mrs. Barnes, for teaching me everything about puberty that I needed to know.
Yours Truly,
The girl in the purple v-neck
*Name has been changed