The School Dress Code

11/30

Ms Purcell

Periods 5/7

School Dress Code

We’ve all seen it, don’t lie. Boys and girls alike, making sexist jokes in the hallway and laughing like it’s funny. See boys objectifying girls, and vice versa, as if it isn’t an action that is humiliating and ridiculous. Young and impressionable, we have been taught from a young age to fight each other and bully each other with a simple saying: “Girls rule, boys drool! Boys rule, girls drool!” Regrettably, the idea is displayed on T-shirts at Target and Justice, and it’s tearing schools apart. This mindset of the superior sex is a horrible misconception of the world implanted by ignorant adults to make ignorant children. And the most prominent ignorant thing in schools yet: dress code. Innocently,

Many people have seen boys walk into school with shirts so baggy they could see their entire chests, but if a girl were to do that while wearing a bra, she would get sent home. So what’s up with that? Sexism: the favoring of boys over girls. School administration would rather send a girl home for showing her collarbone so she didn’t distract the boys than tell boys not to stare. On the other hand, people believe that the school dress code is something that stops a school from looking like a total dump, and creates an image of the place. However, the dress code is actually from a long past of seeing males as dominant rather than equal. In today’s society, we are trying to get equality. In places like America, jobs and laws are equal yet people still see women as inferior. As stated by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique, “The feminists had destroyed the old image of woman, but they could not erase the hostility, the prejudice, the discrimination that still remained.” This shows that there are many feminists, and we have finally worked together to create a new image of women in some places. Still, sexism still thrives and grows like bacteria, similarly to under a kitchen counter where all the food collects until someone cleans it up. Of course, with the right help and tools, someone always scrubs away the dirt. Society needs to be cleaned so they treat everyone with the same amount of care and

An attractive child still in school is a child until they turn eighteen. The idea that any adult or older peer could find them in the least bit distracting or attractive because of their body being show is horribly creepy. Those with opposing views may claim that dress code is helping education because they don’t focus on their looks, just their studies. To show, from 18 Significant School Uniform Pros and Cons, “Because a school uniform limits the options a student has for clothing, there is less pressure to get through the morning routine. This often allows students to sleep a bit more because less time is required to get ready.” Though this is completely true, a larger idea of a uniform is to make sure student are properly covered. Uniforms are way of objectifying girls and boys, so there is at least no unfairness in that. Still, there is no reason why anyone should have to cover up because it makes adults feel uncomfortable. Teaching children to respect people of all ages is extremely important. Treat others how they should be treated: appropriately. From a first-hand account, Lindsay Merbaum, a teacher, “Male colleagues would sometimes approach