Essay On School Dress Codes

478 Words2 Pages

School dress codes are something that have been in place for a long time. These dress codes can involve things like clothes, hairstyles, and accessories. But dress codes can vary on their requirements and some can be less strict than others. About 93 percent of schools around the US have dress codes. Most dress codes focus on making sure that students aren’t wearing inappropriate, revealing, or distracting clothes. Most schools state that they are just trying to keep their students safe by establishing a dress code. But a majority of dress codes are not inclusive to everyone. Such as people that have different cultures and people from the LGBTQIA+ community. Dress codes also can hold back people from expressing themselves fully and freely. …show more content…

With some dress codes making it against school rules for girls to have bra straps showing, wear tank tops, have more than a singular piercing in each ear, wear certain length shorts, and wear even somewhat tight clothes. According to the website Education Week they state, “That’s because a lot of school dress codes are gendered, and over 90 percent ban clothing worn predominantly by girls.” This shows that most dress codes don’t even show a focus or interest in what boys wear and how what they're wearing could cause problems. This matters because it shows how sexist the dress codes of most schools truly are. Most schools like to talk about how they just don’t want the clothing that girls are wearing to be a distraction. But schools should be less focused on the girls' clothing being a distraction and be more focused on how men are sexualizing simple things like bra straps, legs, and shoulders. The website rethinking schools states a point on this topic that should be brought up more often the website states, “Instead of publicly shaming girls for wearing shorts on an 80-degree day, you should teach teachers and male students to not overly sexualize a normal body part to the point where they apparently can’t function in daily life.” Schools should be more focused on how men are sexualizing these things. And should be more focused on changing how men think about these simple things than changing how females are supposed to