Lined up with other students as they came into the school, Sophia was asked to put her hands down by her thighs to measure if the rip in her jeans was lower than her fingertips. It was not. She and 15 other girls were written up before first period. Every Friday since then, Sophia and other students at Simpson Middle School, about 25 miles north of Atlanta, have worn T-shirts that denounce dress codes as “sexist,” “racist” and “classist.” ...
“Dress codes are definitely sexist,” [said Sabrina Bernadel, a fellow at the National Women’s Law Center]. “They put the onus on girls to not be distracting or not call attention to themselves instead of putting the onus on all students to respect everyone’s body.”...
Sophia said her main issue with the dress code was that it singled out girls and made them responsible for boys’ actions. “In school, they think that the boys are just drooling over our shoulders and our thighs,” Sophia said. “They aren’t. They don’t care. And even if they do, that’s not our fault. That’s theirs.”
ADDED: This is the same idea I heard from the school principal circa 1965 when I kept getting in trouble for wearing miniskirts. To me, they were the fashion and they looked cute. We girls weren't allowed to wear pants. We had to wear skirts, and wearing a skirt that came down to your knee looked ridiculous, so I rehemmed everything I had, often re-rehemming as the Mod Era raged on, from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 inches above the knee, as I deemed appropriate.
I'd been sent to the vice principal many times, but I got passed up to the principal, perhaps because I defended my choice. The vice principal took the rules-are-rules position, even though the rule wasn't being enforced to the letter. I was just going too far. The principal shocked and offended me my making a plea on behalf of the boys. Did I understand what they were going through?! Well, no. It wasn't about the boys, and the boys seemed to be doing all right without any need for his creepy empathy. It was about fashion!
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72 comments:
Just one small step down the road to full chadaree...
"That's not our fault, that's theirs."
So why try to look sexy?
Here's what's happening here:
"It was important for me to do this because it's something that affects me and my friends on a daily basis," said Luci, one of the protest's organizers and a student at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. "I've had friends tell me they feel very sexualized and uncomfortable when being dress coded."
The sophomore said they've been dress coded by school officials over 15 times during their school career.
Students across schools including Douglas Anderson, Paxon School For Advanced Studies, Mandarin High School participated.
https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/education/2021/08/27/high-school-students-across-duval-county-protest-dress-code/5614624001/
They put the onus on girls to not be distracting or not call attention to themselves instead of putting the onus on all students to respect everyone’s body.
How dare we observe biological reality! Teenage boy's a mass of stupidity and hormones; that's not an insult, just an observation of reality. Pretending that somehow you're going to be able to change that very much is delusional at best, and dangerous at worst. It teaches girls that they have an expectation about how the world behave that simply isn't so. It's how you end up with these girls growing up to go alone to frat parties where they don't know anyone, getting blackout drunk, and waking up somewhere strange with three guys. Or, walking home alone down a darkened street after a night at the bar. That's not to say that we shouldn't teach young men to be disciplined and respectful, because we should. But it's possible to do so and still recognize biological reality that dress codes help limit distractions that undermine that effort.
It wasn't about the boys, and the boys seemed to be doing all right without any need for his creepy empathy. It was about fashion!
This is a dodge. Fashion is about other people. We dress in certain clothing to send a message to other people. We dress in a suit and tie to show respect for a person or event. We wear revealing or flattering clothing around people we like or want to attract. We wear expensive clothing, certain colors, etc., as a show of dominance and success.
In my HS, there was a test for skirt length. When a girl knelt, the skirt was long enough if it touched the floor. The policy was enforced at home: mothers did not allow their daughters to go to school wearing a short skirt. But ... many of those mothers also taught their daughters how to sew, so they had access to safety pins & knew how to use them. Right?
So these girls are calling Muslims sexist.
Good for them.
And the point about it being the problem of the viewer and not the wearer is spot on.
So shut the fuck up about students wearing MAGA shirts.
Ripped jeans are a girl thing.
Che t-shirts are the male equivalent.
“They put the onus on girls to not be distracting or not call attention to themselves instead of putting the onus on all students to respect everyone’s body.”
Girls, get it through your heads: boys respect your body by being distracted. Can't have that in school.
"made them responsible for boys’ actions."
It's not their "actions," it's what happens. Schools should minimize distractions.
"It was about fashion!"
And that settled it. Surely, rules ought to give way to "fashion."
Actually it was about me, me, me. Very 60s. Still is.
Since when has modern fashion not been connected to sexual allure and even sexual provocation? the jeans are ripped to show off skin that would otherwise be covered. It looks good precisely because it shows off skin not normally seen in non-ripped jeans. Its provocative.
Maybe teenage girls ought to think about that very deliberate aspect of the fashions they choose, instead of blaming buys when they violate the rules they knew about in the first place. Maybe wearing provocative clothing is a form of passive aggressive sexual harassment of boys? Maybe you'd have to be a teenage boy to understand that.
And I thought that sexual harassment was in the impact and not the intent?
“I'd been sent to the vice principal many times, but I got passed up to the principal, perhaps because I defended my choice. The vice principal took the rules-are-rules position, even though the rule wasn't being enforced to the letter. I was just going too far.”
But did you receive a swat? Did you play Eileen Dover and get a swat?
Sophia should have told them she was non-binary.
Was Ann's mother a member of the Harper Valley PTA?
I have this old fashioned notion that school should prepare a young person for real life. There are formal and informal dress codes in real life, so they should exist in school. School should mirror the expectations of a business office. That's the point of saying no ripped jeans. Your boss won't let you wear them either.
Blair, if we are going for business casual, then there would be dress code stipulations for the boys too.
Based on what I see daily at my local HS and Middle School, boys nearly universally wear clothes you wear to the gym or beach and not an office
I think it's important to remember that women don't dress to impress men, they dress to impress and fit in with other women. This girl really isn't dressing to be sexy; she's dressing to be trendy.
It depends on what you want kids to accomplish in school.
Do you want kids to focus on academics and skills?
Or do you want girls to show their ass to all the boys?
And then get mad at the boys when they have the audacity to look or comment or be distracted when that is the obvious intent of the clothing being worn?
That would be fine if the girls and women would accept commentary. But they don't. And if a particularly unattractive man/boy gives you a compliment or asks you on a date well then we sue everyone and yell at men for being pigs.
Boys are dropping out of school at much higher rates than girls. Boys grades and achievement are lower at every level of education. Boys suicide rates are 4 or so times higher. 20 times as many of them end up in jail.
But fuck them. Obviously girls are unfairly targeted in schools. Girls are suffering! No matter where they are in the world girls make it all about them.
Except in Afghanistan. The women in Afghanistan get completely ignored by these people.
It is the men that made American women the most privileged coddled beings in the history of the universe who are the constant target of these people.
Miniskirts: "they looked cute."
But it "wasn't about the boys," not a bit!
I'll accept that that's how you remember it now, but please. I thought that, around here, we were supposed to respect the science!
85 million years of primate [there's that word again!] evolution, driven by procreation and survival, and yet the way sexually-mature females try to appear around sexually-mature males has nothing to with ... sex?
I too lived through high school, a year or two before you, and that's not how I remember it! Of course, I was one of the boys. We had our own ideas about miniskirts, and those ideas (fantasies?) had a lot to do with sex.
Vice-principal Althouse sent me home in 1970 for wearing shorts.
My school required girls to wear navy blue skirts and white or blue tops. Jewelry was not allowed. The purpose was to minimize the income disparities between the really rich kids (2/3 of the school) and the scholarship kids. No one complained.
The boys were not allowed to wear gym shoes or blue jeans. We did not complain because some of the faculty wanted a full-time sport coat requirement which was only in force on specified days.
It was quaint and no one was damaged by the dress code.
The school has long changed the rules.
5 inches above the knee?!
Althouse you shameless hussy!
In most of the families I know of, when Dad objects to Daughter's fashion choices most often the pushback comes from Mom.
Google prom dresses.... ripped jeans? Feh.
Would a teenage Althouse today wear a mask at school? Especially if you had a doctor's note stating that you shouldn't. And if "shelters and drug rehab facilities" were exempt but schools were not.
Looks like an equal protection and privacy problem to me. Federal court in Nebraska will answer these questions thanks to DDB, civil rights lawyer!
“In school, they think that the boys are just drooling over our shoulders and our thighs,” Sophia said. “They aren’t. They don’t care.
Sophia is a middle school student. Sophia is not a boy. Sophia is wrong.
Sophia is as clueless as the parent who put honey on her kid so she could get a picture of it with the cute bear. Fortunately, middle school boys have more self-control than bears.
“85 million years of primate [there's that word again!] evolution, driven by procreation and survival, and yet the way sexually-mature females try to appear around sexually-mature males has nothing to with ... sex?”
“I too lived through high school, a year or two before you, and that's not how I remember it! Of course, I was one of the boys. We had our own ideas about miniskirts, and those ideas (fantasies?) had a lot to do with sex.”
I was one year ahead of Ann in HS, and agree 100% with that. We loved miniskirts first for the chance that we might see something underneath the miniskirt. That was probably my major focus in class in high school, hoping to see something interesting there. And second, that a girl wearing something that might give us a glance at a her undergarments might be willing to expose more if we got together.
Uniforms for school children is the better solution.
"It was about fashion." And fashion has often been about disrupting normal life in order to attract attention to yourself. We get to flaunt it if we've got it, but if you react like we want you to react, that's on you. Even if we haven't got it, we follow the fashion set by those who do. Not every middle-school girl behaves that way, but some do - and some boys as well, although maybe not until a little older.
Slipped me notes under the desk
While I was thinkin' about her dress
I was shy I turned away
Before she caught my eye
I was shakin' in my shoes
Whenever she flashed those baby-blues
Something had a hold on me
When angel passed close by
Those soft and fuzzy sweaters
Too magical to touch
To see her in that negligee
Is really just too much
The self proclaimed "party of science" could follow the science and conclude that a conservative approach, school uniforms, is a solution.
But if you (AA) had nice legs and a great ass, then the principal had a point : )
Don't even get me started on what young girls of all ages are wearing these days re: yoga pants.
Mao jackets for everyone!
"5 inches above the knee"
We need pictures......for research purposes.
As someone pointed out …
Back when I was a kid we’d feel sorry for kids so poor that they came to school wearing jeans with holes in them.
Today they’d feel sorry for kids whose parents could only afford jeans without holes in them.
Or would they? I have been developing a very low opinion of today’s teenagers, with their artificial empathy towards people less well off than themselves — as long as the poor people know their place!
"Sophia was asked to put her hands down by her thighs to measure if the rip in her jeans was lower than her fingertips. It was not."
One other factor to consider is not everyone is Vitruvian. There was a female swimmer in my hs class who was in constant conflict with the principal over this because she had very long arms and no store sold shorts that were short enough to pass the test. It was especially funny because she wasn't that hot so it's not like there was much danger of her tempting boys or whatever.
Having been a teenage boy myself, I found that clothes were a pretty trivial factor in noticing your female peers. They can wear pretty much anything, revealing or not, and you'll still notice them.
The principal shocked and offended me my making a plea on behalf of the boys. Did I understand what they were going through?!
Don't you understand what African Americans are going through when you wear that Confederate flag t-shirt? NO! It's about fashion!
When a man is accused of sexual harassment, the woman gets the benefit of how the various actions or comments were perceived by her to convince the public or a jury that harassment occurred. The man can talk all he wants about his intent, but it's always trumped by the woman's perception of a hostile environment.
But in cases like these, the woman or girl gets all the benefits of what her intention was in wearing the revealing clothes. The man's perception, catalogued by several other commenters as a result of millions of years of evolution, is disdainfully dismissed. The man is actually condemned for his perception.
"It was about fashion!"
Keep saying it and you'll eventually convince yourself.
Don't even get me started on what young girls of all ages are wearing these days re: yoga pants.
After I retired from work I signed on to teaching advanced IT classes at the local university as an adjunct. One class all the women showed up wearing yoga pants and tight tops with spaghetti straps. If they were trying to find out whether their septuagenarian professor was a dirty old man who graded on the curves, the answer was negative.
Ann keeps circling back to the story. Maybe she’s trying to convince yourself. Of course a young pretty woman in a mini skirt is going to be a huge distraction to the young men who are in school and presumably trying to get work done, but who like any normal person would prefer to look at a pretty teenage girls thighs. Pretending that the male sex drive is not a very powerful force for good or for evil, which responds at a deep and sub rational level to visual stimuli, and which should be treated with respect and care, if you want civilization to work, is foolhardy. Also, why is school a place for fashion? It should be a place for academic and athletic excellence. Uniforms are a good idea. They exist for a reason. They take the focus off of status competition in clothes a d in look or in wealth, and move it to things were people are on a level playing field. If you really believe in egalitarianism, then there was no place for mini skirts in high school. At some level Ann knows all this.
In societies where all power is held by old men, intimate flashes are brutally outlawed....and rape is tolerated.
Prof in miniskirts? Pix, or it didn't happen.
My best friend had a girl cousin from California living with his family one year. His twin older sisters were beautiful, but this girl was next-level, and though short skirts were common at Overton High her little spotted number in calfskin had guys following her around and moaning.
And there was Joan S in English class, teasing every guy with her squirming attempts at modesty . . .
I had a radical feminist colleague at the library, who did a lot of classroom teaching. She used to say that the scantily clad coeds ought to be considerate of the young men--and of middle aged lesbians like herself, and dress a little more modestly.
Enough with the argument that it is the burden of the rest of the world to look elsewhere when someone from the entitled classes exposes themselves.
a hole in her pants
but my glance was not askance
pocket pool fever
She’s just the girl
She’s just the girl
The girl you want
Relive 1967, imagining Althouse walking by in a miniskirt, with all the boys' eyes following intently. Imagine Althouse sensing the attention, but not actually liking it, because she's not that kind of girl.
And we're all young again, for just a moment.
"Education, properly a drawing forth, implies not so much the communication of knowledge as the discipline of the intellect, the establishment of the principles, and the regulation of the heart." [Webster 1913]
The appeal about what it is doing to the boys seems to be an abdication of the goal of education. Teaching the boys to control the emotional response would be more proper. I wonder if the principals should not simply thank the young ladies for their voluntary contributions toward the education of not just the boys, but all those students who might need to learn to regulate their animal responses their manner of dress might provoke.
The punitive response to the young ladies implies the school is more concerned with their breeding rather than their education.
"Breeding commonly relates to the manners and outward conduct." [1913 Webster]
"But mom, daddy is such a stick in the mud! Why won't he let me wear this skirt?"
Because Daddy remembers being a teenage boy too.. and remembers what he thought about those girls, and what he wanted to do to those girls. Was he thinking "oh, I love how smart she is, and her personality and smile are so charming?" Nope! It was all "I could rip that skimpy little thing right off...."
And Daddy's might enjoy looking at other ladies... but boy, we get protective of our own wives/daughters. Because we know what other men are thinking!
Yes, all caveman still, but dude, that's my daughter and I don't want her to be dressing like a slut. Because I want her to be a lady.
I'll think of that next time I see some guys pants lower than a spineless moderate democrat. Fashion!
In 1969 I knew a young man who was approached at the laundromat in Ithaca's college town to trade his torn jeans for 2 pairs of new jeans. He assumed it was some sort of fetish thing so was reluctant but the guy had a business card and said he was going to take the torn jeans to NYC and sell them to a boutique. He had a car and the trunk was filled - new jeans on one side and torn jeans on the other. The swap was made. He told this story very humorously. I have wondered if that was Tommy Hilfinger or some other entrepreneur. I am amazed that torn jeans are still a thing. I think we are way overdue for a return to formality in dress though I myself am wearing khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
How are they dealing with "yoga pants"?
This was my running battle with my daughter before she graduated. I told her she was absolutely right, the dress code was biased against girls, but that we live in a world of reality rather than wishes, and boys were more likely to be distracted by girls' exposed skin than girls were by boys' exposed skin. It wasn't fair, I told her, but it was the way things were, presumably because school administrations had determined that, unfair and biased as it was, it worked better than the alternative.
Or else they were just doing what had always been done.
The thing is, rightly or wrongly, girls possess more, and more widely dispersed, zones of titillation to boys (also erogenous zones to the girls themselves). What would boys have to expose or nearly expose in order to have the same effect on girls that a cute girl's glimpsed lower buttcheek or upper or sideboob has on a (hetero) boy? Sure, a nicely formed torso is dandy to see, but even as a teenager I lacked the erectile tissue for it to cause me significant problems during school.
I did, however, once see a guy in my freshman religion class (Catholic high school for my first two years) apparently getting himself off by pressing his parts against the underside of his desk. So yes, I think adolescent males are dealing with different hormonal effects than adolescent females.
I think a lot of commenters have forgotten what school was actually like. As a teen, one hoped to visit among the opposite sex, but one lived among one's friends. Boys didn't dress to impress girls; they dressed to be like their friends and hoped that girls would notice. Girls were the same way; they really were just ordinary people. A teenage boy might convince himself that the girls in his schools are temptresses who were competing to show off for him, because that suited his ego and helped to deal with the fear of approaching them. An adult male should know better. To put it in grown-up terms: No, the waitress isn't hitting on you.
No, the waitress isn't hitting on you.
She is, however, working her tip.
I, not that tip.
Narr said: "She used to say that the scantily clad coeds ought to be considerate of the young men--and of middle aged lesbians like herself, and dress a little more modestly."
Damn right! Let me add plain old middle aged women. There comes a point in your life as a post-menopausal woman when you don't have those hormones flooding your brain and you have come out the other side, as it were. IMHO we are the WORST in terms of leering over young women, not in a 'I want to possess you' way but more of a 'wow I remember being like that what happened where did my life go?' way or 'damn I could have worn the hell out of that outfit with my (formerly) great ass and (formerly) tiny waist.'
“What would boys have to expose or nearly expose in order to have the same effect on girls that a cute girl's glimpsed lower buttcheek or upper or sideboob has on a (hetero) boy?”
A crowd of 10,000 at their concert.
“ Was he thinking "oh, I love how smart she is, and her personality and smile are so charming?" Nope! It was all "I could rip that skimpy little thing right off...." ”
They’re not mutually exclusive. And surprisingly often it is the former. Boys/young men can be very idealistic when it comes to sexual attraction and ascribe virtues where none exist.
I recall once during my elementary school days in the 1960s, Sister Mary Camilla uttered a low, strangled, "Oh my God!" when the locker door swung open and the 8th grade boys, mostly naked while changing for gym, were exposed to her lingering female gaze.
I recall my 10 year old daughter's all-girl soccer team being told by their adult male coach, as he pointed to the locker room door 15 feet away, each to grab a green jersey from the box and to put it on before the game, because the other team had the same white color shirts as we were wearing. Every small girl got their shirt, then they all, as group, immediately disrobed there at the edge of the playing field and put on their new jerseys. The coach looked at the seeveral parents gathered around him, and muttered, "I'm going to jail because of your kids. I'm sure of it."
I recall the NRBs I used to get as a young boy. Check Urban Dictionary if you were never a young boy and don't know what that means. Life was confusing at times. South Park's Jimmy starred in an episode describing this problem quite well.
We all got problems. Live and learn, and let live and try not to die of embarrassment.
Boys in school lag behind girls in every way, and they have for decades. There are occasional news stories about it, but it doesn't change. No one cares. But sure, ripped jeans are a problem, okay.
The more expensive the school…the stricter the dress code.
The more expensive the school…the stricter the dress code.
RESIST fashion pushers
My wife went to an all girl RC high school. I'm sure it helped still the competitiveness of the young ladies in regard to looking hot, but neither the woolen skirts and sweaters in winter nor the pastel summer whatever-they-were-called could obscure the essentials from boys.
At my high school, two years of compulsory Army JROTC had us wearing dark green wool uniform pants and coats two days a week in the winter, and cotton khakis when it got warm. Overseas caps. Ties! Polished brass and gleaming black shoes.
They don't make public schools like that any more.
Wear gaudy colors or avoid display
It don't matter, it's all the same
'“In school, they think that the boys are just drooling over our shoulders and our thighs,” Sophia said. “They aren’t. They don’t care."' Someone knows nothing about boys. They are. They do.
You may choose to ignore that, or say it's all their responsibility, but don't be ridiculous.
There’s an apocryphal story about a principal who figured out how to deal with a girl who insisted on dressing fashionably slurry. In front of other students he pointed to her butt and asked “Is that for sale?”
“Certainly not!”
“Then why are you at such pains to advertise it?”
They put the onus on girls to not be distracting or not call attention to themselves
Are the boys dressing in ways that are "distracting" or "call attention to themselves"?
Or is it only the girls that are doing that?
Is the claim that there's no "dress code" for the boys? Are boys allowed to wear clothes with "high rips"?
The tears in the girl’s pants were so high her fingers touched skin when she held her arms down. Now mommy wants her to become a raging femme-insist.
All the adults are teaching this girl the wrong lesson, except, for once, the school board and administrators.
It is inappropriate to attend school in Daisy Dukes or their current equivalent, and the only reason for doing so is to attract male sexual behavior.
It is even more inappropriate to teach your little princess that she is a victim of systematic oppression and thus instill in her the belief that her value comes from being a tarted-up, yet grrrl power warrior, yet helplessly victimized by all males, yet constantly protesting about oppression type of person. Way to screw a kid up.
It is literally psychologically damaging that this behavior has attracted massive media attention and praise — the story is all over the news in Atlanta, and mom’s pushing it hard. There’s more exploitation than agenda in any of this. And the adults involved are only demonstrating an appetite for more attention for such gestures: my bet is that she’ll announce herself bi or want a top surgery once the praise over flashing her thighs dies down.
I know that school district and area very well. Her school is in a still-pricey place but near other district schools that are becoming urban hell-holes, as is a lot of Cobb County itself. Good thing somebody cares to maintain standards of conduct. Rapid demographic and economic change has seriously accelerated behavior problems, no matter how hard the Board and Regents Board spin the truth. So yes, so long as we’re all welcoming of this new diversity, which includes some pretty nasty attitudes towards female autonomy from both the top and the bottom of the economic ladder, thank goodness someone with half a brain is making sure she isn’t flashing her ass at males who come from several different backgrounds where such behavior is an open invitation. Your version of feminism doesn’t apply here. I wish it did. But it doesn’t. And I hope the next time this child makes the news, it is because she has accomplished something academically or done well in sports. Because that’s what we wanted, not miniskirts, right?
My comment should have read “dressing fashionably slutty”. I think I was the victim of autocorrect, and missed it in the proofreading due to the tears in my eyes watching Illinois getting beaten by Texas - San Antonio. I guess the Orange and Blue forgot about the Alamo. The certainly forgot about tackling and defending the pass.
Tina Trent said...
The tears in the girl’s pants were so high her fingers touched skin when she held her arms down.
When I put my arms down at my sides, my palm is at the level of the top of my crotch, and my finger tips don't go much below my crotch.
Thank you for making me visualize that, Tina.
Is that proportion the same for most women / girls? Are we basically talking butt or crotch level tears here?
Easy solution, end co-ed education. Boys schools and girls schools. They can pair up for dances.
So yes, I think adolescent males are dealing with different hormonal effects than adolescent females.
I would like to think it was responsible for the poor choices I made back then.
Ann keeps circling back to the story. Maybe she’s trying to convince yourself. Of course a young pretty woman in a mini skirt is going to be a huge distraction to the young men who are in school and presumably trying to get work done
No woman must be made to feel responsible for, or bad about, anything, ever.
Back in the day Sister Joanicia told us that it is wrong to steal. And then she told us that it is wrong to tempt someone to steal. She said a man who knowingly leaves his wallet in a public place is wrong to do so -- not as wrong perhaps as the man who steals that wallet -- but wrong just the same.
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