Where I live, the temperatures have risen from the mid-forties to the mid-seventies and eighties in the timespan of about a week. With this in mind, our principals took the opportunity to remind my high school of the appropriate rules for dress, stressing emphatically that shirt sleeves must – ABSOLUTELY MUST – cover the entire shoulder.
In the short term, this created a buzz around school, mostly from girls, who wondered, “Why is it just us who they target?” “Aren’t saggy shorts bad too?” “I thought the policy was that sleeves have to be three fingers wide, did they change it?” and above all, “Does this cover enough of my shoulder that I won’t get in trouble?”
What became evident, however, was that the answer to the last question depended more on who was wearing the shirt than the width of the sleeve. Girls who date, who are not upper-middle class, who have sex, who are not white, and who have lower grades are targeted far more often. I have seen teachers talk to an upper-middle class girl with good grades wearing spaghetti straps without mentioning it and then walk across the cafeteria to call out a girl with poor grades and a reputation for having lots of boyfriends wearing the same shirt.
The girls who get called out on this are those who lack popular support in school and who have low test scores. Many are seen as stupid sluts by the student body. With neither grades nor student support to back them up, the administration can safely chastise these girls for wearing “slutty” and “inappropriate” clothing without fear of backlash.
It is very disturbing, although not really surprising, that even the adults in charge of the school are complicit in widespread shaming of girls who aren’t considered essential enough. To pretend that the rules are fairly applied to everyone is dishonest. I am rapidly discovering, as I talk to school leaders more, that as long as the words look fair on paper, the manner in which they are enforced is less than important to some of them. As they see it, the people they are going after are hardly going to affect them in anyway.
The heads at schools wonder why these girls don’t seem to listen to them, why they ignore them and continue to do whatever they were doing before. But what do they have to gain from obeying the organization that sees them as nothing more than hopeless sluts?
So true. I know Lissa and I get away with fishnets because the teachers see us as good kids. Would taking full advantage of that out of spite be too petty? Hmm . . .
… that is creepy as hell. So glad we’re allowed to wear pretty much whatever we want (although, coming to school naked would probably be frowned upon…)