I would like to welcome back all of the Saint Xavier students, staff and faculty reading this article. I hope everyone had a wonderful summer and I am looking forward to another year of sharing ideas, news and opinions with all of you.
The Xavierite
With that being said, it is that time of year again…back to school. I always find myself buying a few new wardrobe items before each school year begins to give myself a bit of a fresh start.
As a 20 year old college student, I don’t have much to worry about when it comes to picking out my clothes. The University has few dress code regulations and my mom….well she wishes she could still tell me what to wear.
As I was perusing Facebook I found a very interesting piece of news regarding the dress code regulations at an Oklahoma high school. According to the Huffington Post, the story went something like this.
“A high school superintendent in Oklahoma is in hot water over some alleged comments she made about female students’ attire. At the end of school on Aug. 21, the first day of the new term for public schools, Superintendent Ronda Bass allegedly took aside a group of girls to discus inappropriate outfits she’d seen in the hallways.”
According to her, the first question she asked was… how many of you in here believe that there are female students on the campus today that are dressed completely inappropriate? Bass reports that most of their hands went up.
Seems pretty normal, right? Most high schools have dress codes and there’s bound to be a few violations, especially on the first day. But, according to a student witness, that’s not exactly what happened.
Within that same article, senior student explained that the first sentence the superintendent spoke to the group of young girls was “Have y’all ever seen any “skanks” around this school?” and then completed her chat with “‘I don’t want to see anyone’s ass hanging out of their shorts.’”
The student also added that the next day at school Bass asked her to bend over to check the length of her skirt leaving several girls humiliated and even in tears.
Now I’m no stranger to a strict dress code, I’ve had roughly 15 years of Catholic schooling. And believe me when I say, I understand the benefits of a dress code, it levels the playing field if nothing else.
But also believe me when I say it has gotten completely out of control when it comes to young girls. Throughout my four years at a small catholic high school, I watched the dress code guidelines for girls in the student handbook go from a paragraph or two to a couple of pages.
They would change or add a line or two the male side every once in a while, but the restrictions placed on women increased almost monthly.
It went from a few simple rules to keep everyone professional and comfortable to no shorts, no dresses, no capri pants, no yoga pants, no distracting hair colors, no rips or tears in clothing, no tattoos or piercings, no open toe shoes, no tank tops, not tube tops and finally, crew neck tops ONLY.
The girls section of dress should have just simple read “Cover your ENTIRE body with clothing, thank you.”
We weren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves and we certainly weren’t supposed to wear anything that would draw the attention of the male students. After all, they were there to learn.
Theguardian.com writes the story a young woman in Virginia who was removed from her prom because fathers attending the event thought her dress was giving rise to “impure thoughts.”
According to the article, “The administrators defended the dress code by saying girls shorts and spaghetti strap tank tops are “distracting” to male students and teachers.”
They’re right after all, what could possibly be more distracting than a glimpse of the female leg or shoulder (insert sarcastic eye roll here)?
We may think we’re protecting our young girls by ensuring that they’re bodies are covered, but we’re also sending them the message that their body is something that should be covered up, that if they show their legs or their arms they’re a “skank”.
As always, I very well might be wrong, maybe we just need to have a little more faith in our young men that they can focus on school and not the female anatomy.
But, I’m willing to bet that if we spent half as much time teaching our young boys to focus on their books and not the back side of the girl in front of them as we do tirelessly scrutinizing every detail of a young girl’s attire and appearance maybe things would be a little different.
Bridget Goedke
Senior Viewpoints Editor