Can Clothes Actually Be “Distractions” in Schools?

On the third day of my senior year of high school, an administrator told me that if our school hadn’t suspended the dress code in light of COVID-19, I would have been in violation. I was wearing a dark red crop top that did not show cleavage or nipple. I had been wearing a sweatshirt over it, but had gotten hot during my first class and took it off. The administrator asked me if I had something to put on over my shirt, because, she said, I was wearing a sports bra and not a T-shirt. When I told her it wasn’t a sports bra, she told me that I was wrong and admonished that “there are a lot of teenage boys at this school.”

I was livid. Why should the presence of teenage boys in the school affect what I wear? What’s more, she added that other girls wear open shirts over crop tops to avoid being dress coded, essentially saying that if I covered my shoulders and arms, my outfit would have been acceptable.

One of the most annoying things about this whole encounter was that the day before, I had worn the same shirt in a different color, and no one had said anything, including her when I walked past her.

Her comments made me so self-conscious, as I had gained some weight over quarantine. So after a three-minute conversation with this administrator, whose name I still don’t even know, I had gone from feeling confident and happy with my body to feeling ashamed and self-conscious.

In her article about dress codes, author Jessica Valenti states, “sending the message to students that girls’ outfits provoke male behavior is a dangerous slippery slope.” As one young woman told Valenti, ‘I'm not responsible for some perverted 45-year-old dad lusting after me.’ Nor, Valenti added, should she be.

If being told to cover up their bodies makes girls feel bad, why do we tell them that? When we do this, we teach girls that they are only sex objects that distract men and that they deserve any harassment they receive. This also teaches boys that clothes are an invitation for harassment, which then intensifies rape culture. Why don’t we instead teach boys to respect women and not look at them as sex objects?