Brylee A. Miner, Dress Codes

Dress Codes

by Brylee A. Miner People in today’s world need to address their own biases and confront gender biases, racism and prejudice tendencies that judge people based on how they dress. As people start to reflect on their own biases, they will find that many school dress codes in handbooks across the country discriminate. School dress codes are sexist and restrict personal freedoms and religious or cultural expression. Proponents of school dress codes say they typically promote learning, safety, and an appropriate image of the organization. Many educators stress the importance of dress codes to ensure a safe and comfortable learning environment. Policies that are created to prevent students from wearing racially explicit clothing are just one example of when administration needs to hold students accountable for breaking that policy to ensure a safe environment for all students (Zhou, 2015). “Supporters also argue that uniforms help identify intruders on school property” (Carey, 2009). This example shows that dress codes like uniforms allow school officials to identify when a person is on a school campus that is not supposed to be there. With so many school shootings, dress codes including those requiring school uniforms are being enforced even more. Dress codes can limit acts of violence, allow students to concentrate on school activities, and make it easier to get ready for school. Many say school dress codes are needed to ensure a safe learning environment and provide a good image of the school district, but who do school dress codes really affect? School dress codes are nearly always sexist towards females. Many dress codes are just another example of how females are objectified and over sexualized in today’s society. It is the message behind the school dress codes, not the actual policy itself, that is the reason why the codes are discriminatory. “Woodford County is one of many districts across the country to justify female-specific rules with that logic, and effectively, to place the onus on girls to prevent inappropriate reactions from their male classmates'' (Zhou, 2015). Looking at the survey I conducted, 57.1% of the 21 people who took the survey stated that they felt dress codes discriminated against females (Appendix A). “Female-specific policies account for a disproportionate number of the attire rules included in school handbooks'' (Zhou, 2015). By writing policies that over-sexualize females’ bodies and attire it also steers males’ thoughts and opinions on girls to seem more sexual. Schools should be teaching females to be comfortable with their bodies. Many females already have issues with self-confidence and school dress codes can affect this. Females should be able to wear what they feel comfortable wearing without thinking they will be judged on how short their shirt is or how low their top is cut. Survey participants stated that dress codes are mainly made for girls and about covering up so they aren’t distracting to males. One researcher showed how “high school girls feel dehumanized when they are treated as mere distractions'' (as cited in Aghasaleh, 2018). “Dress codes blame the wearer for the onlooker’s perceptions or actions. They blame the girl for what the perverted boy is thinking” (Underlined, 2021). It has been stated many times that girls need to cover up since boys cannot control themselves. Schools need to be teaching the boys that this behavior is not tolerated. Dress codes also require staff in schools to be the judge of what is appropriate and what is not. Two female students could be wearing the exact same shirt and one could be dress-coded because her chest size is larger than the other students. Some dress codes in schools also require shorts or shirts to be to the length of a student's fingertips when arms are placed to the side. This length now changes depending on the length of a student's arms. Dress

codes that are more focused on the girls' attire show the female students they are the object and the males are the subject of their attention. School dress codes restrict personal freedoms with self-expression. “The creators of these dress codes simply want to make every student look the same when the reality is that every one of us is different and we deserve to be individual and independent people” (Underlined, 2021). In the court case from 1969, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School district, students sued the district because they were suspended for wearing black armbands to express they were against the Vietnam War. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it violated the students’ freedom of speech protections guaranteed by the First Amendment (Carreon-Sanchez & Schlanger, 2018). This landmark case was from the 1960’s but still is a great example of how some school dress code policies go against basic freedoms in the United States. Schools that try to restrict these freedoms could face backlash and even be penalized in court for going against these freedoms. There have been students suspended or sent home based on them not wearing the “atypical” gender clothing expected by their legal gender. “Gender non-conforming and transgender students have also clashed with such policies on grounds that they rigidly dictate how kids express their identities (Zhou, 2015). A dress code that tells a specific gender how they can or cannot dress violates a person's ability to express themselves. In today’s world we are seeing people be more accepting of the different ways people express themselves but within a school environment many policies exist that violate these freedoms. Personal freedoms and self-expression are restricted by school dress codes. School dress codes restrict people’s religious or cultural expression. Dress codes need to adapt to cultural and religious differences. They need to allow students to do their hair, wear clothing such as hijab and turbans to show these differences (Brown, 2021). “A Roman Catholic School in New Orleans came into the internet spotlight when a 6th grader was forced to leave the classroom, in tears, for having braided hair extensions, which were against the school’s hair policy” (Jones, 2018). A school should not be allowed to tell a student what their hair can or cannot look like. Especially when they push the student past the point of tears. There have been school dress codes that have defined how long a male student could wear his hair under grooming rules. “Some Native American male students have successfully sued in lower courts, asserting that they wear their hair long as part of their religious expression” (Carreon-Sanchez & Schlanger, 2018). For a school to create a grooming rule restricting the length of a person’s hair is ridiculous. How does a person’s length of hair or even color of hair affect the learning environment? Some dress codes have even restricted jewelry being worn by students. Rosary beads have even fallen into these restrictions. Religious or cultural expressions should not be restricted based on a school dress code policy. Preventing distracting clothing by making a policy does not prevent men from being distracted and is not the women’s job to prevent. When looking at research many are not trying to eliminate dress codes altogether but to simply make policies that are relevant to the change in clothing styles, value gender expression and are culturally diverse (Brown, 2021). There are many students from different races, body shapes, genders and backgrounds that are represented in this world. School districts have a hidden curriculum when looking into dress codes. Students are forced to look at if they are acting like they should, dressing like they should, acting ladylike, wearing masculine clothing or something that is not distracting to the academic success of others. School dress codes need to go alongside the changes in this world rather than trying to restrict the natural changes in society.

References

Aghasaleh, R. (2018). Oppressive Curriculum: Sexist, Racist, Classist, Homophobic Practice of Dress Codes in Schooling. Journal of African American Studies. March 2018, Vol. 22: 94108. Brown, L.M. (2021). Girls against dress codes. Rethinking schools. https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/girls-against-dress-codes/ Carreon-Sanchez, S., & Schlanger, P. (2018). Religion equity and school dress codes. IDRA Newsletter. https://www.idra.org/resource-center/religion-equity-and-school-dresscodes/ Carey, H.F. (2009). Dress codes. The First Amendment Encyclopedia, Presented by the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1208/dress-codes Jones, S.(2018) . Do school dress codes discriminate against girls? Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/do-school-dress-codes-discriminate-againstgirls/2018/08 Neville-Shepard, M. (2019). Disciplining the female student body: consequential transference in arguments for school dress codes. Women's Studies in Communication. Feb2019, Vol. 42 Issue 1, p1-20. 20p. Underlined. (2021). Why dress codes are sexist. Underlined. .https://www.getunderlined.com/writings/why-dress-codes-are-sexist/ Zhou, L. (2015). The sexism of school dress codes. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/school-dress-codes-areproblematic/410962/