Certainly they do. But it isn’t the boys sexualizing and objectifying I object to - its the institutionalization of it.
Back in my high school days, all the girls dressed like Marcia Brady. Skirts so short that the slightest movement exposed their undies. We all managed to cope, the girls didn’t get molested and the boys all managed to get through class. Now leggings are inappropriate? Geez- compared to high school in the 1970s, those are burkas.
What’s confusing, I think, is your use of “institutionalization” to mean something like the opposite of what it usually means.
Well, they’re not pants. The issue is whether they’re apprpriate to wear in public without anything over them, the way, say, pantyhose or briefs are not.
From what I’ve seen, the “tights are not pants” battle has been lost and leggings are now considered sufficient cover, but until recently it’s been an open question.
As I understand the OP, her thesis is that “appropriate” is itself a judgement that we should not be making.
While the linked article makes some good points and I’m generally on its writer’s side, I think she, and some girls and women, may be underestimating the effect of visual stimulation on males.
The issue isn’t that your body is “more sexual,” it’s that boys’ eyes are more sexual than girls’ eyes. I think it’s been well established that males, as a general rule, are more responsive to visual stimuli than females are. The average man, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is way more turned on just by seeing an attractive, scantily-clad member of his preferred sex than the average woman is.
That said, this fact should never be used to blame or shame females nor to excuse inappropriate behavior by males.
You as an individual can make it. I find all sorts of things “inappropriate” - black, red or white worn by women at weddings. Jeans at a funeral. Hats worn by men indoors. Visible tattoos at a job interview (unless you are interviewing at a place where that would be appropriate - a tattoo parlor, a motorcycle shop). I don’t think its the place of school administrators to decide whats inappropriate for someone else’s daughter to wear, when the issue isn’t HER behavior, but the behavior she might incite in others due to her dress.
I think, to some extent, the school is part of the enforcement of community norms that you talk about. I see young people and schools as two opposing cultural forces which wrestle with each other and hopefully find a sensible middle ground which the students take away when they leave. Perhaps more simply, they’re also places that don’t just teach academic subjects but also what is expected in the “real world”. Kids need to learn somewhere what it’s like to be on someone else’s time and to at least keep up the appearance of following their rules, stupid or not.
Maybe, but that shouldn’t be OUR problem as women. That’s sort of your problem - to have the self control necessary to ignore that visual stimulation and act appropriately. Many men do it - most men I know do it. Even teenage boys manage to do it - I have a fifteen year old son and while he’s been in trouble for other things, its never been inappropriate behavior to his female classmates, and his grades have never suffered due to “mmm, boobies.” To say that the way a fifteen year old girl dresses is so distracting that boys lose their brains is frankly, not giving the majority of the boys enough credit.
There are a ton of rules the school doesn’t bother to enforce…swearing is a big one. That’s a cultural norm. Sagging pants on boys. Talking over the teacher. Why are they choosing to enforce this one, but the teachers are complaining about boys getting up and walking out of the classroom, and they can’t do anything about it? Apparently, behavior that is “male centric” (swearing, questioning authority) we will over look, but when its “female centric” behavior (questionable fashion choices) we must put a stop to it.
It is the place of school administration to decide what is appropriate in school. Counting on parents to be responsible for any aspect of their childrens education has led to the awful state of education in this country. I’m not paying taxes so kids in my town can have a public fashion show, they should go to school to learn and anything that distracts from that is wasting my money.
That said, I don’t think it matters what kids wear to school. When I entered the 7th grade the school dropped the dress code altogether. This was grades 7 through 12 in one place so there were hot senior girls coming to school in their pajamas. There were no problems. The next year in a different school every girl was wearing see through blouses with the pockets covering their breasts, and then hot-pants followed after that. They were wearing mini-skirts the whole time. I loved the view, and checking out the girls gave me something to do in class because I wasn’t going to pay attention to the teacher anyway. Except for the Spanish teacher, every guy was paying very close attention to her.
As for the OP, you have rejected the idea of fair and equal rules for boys and girls at school because of your personal belief that slut shaming has been institutionalized. I hate to tell you this, but slut shaming was invented by women, guys love sluts. These girls dress this way with intent of distracting the opposite sex, don’t blame the guys because it works.
- Cordelia: Well, does looking at guns make you wanna have sex?
Xander: I’m 17. Looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex. *
In this case, regardless of who invented it, its being done by the school administration. The boys - as you said - probably enjoy it. The girls want to dress like this (or be permitted to - I suspect that a lot of the girls that are making these points on the internet are the geeky t shirt and jeans wearing proto feminists and not the scoop neck top wearing temptresses - if my daughter and her friends are any indication - they aren’t fighting for their right to wear leggings.)
My daughters dress code is that shoulders must be covered. Shoulders…wtf? But only girls, boys can wear muscle shirts. Skirts and shorts must be below fingertip length, even with leggings or tights (ever try and find a pair of girls gym shorts that long? not easy… boys basketball shorts come that long, girls basketball shorts - particularly on a skinny girl where you are buying the smallest pair so they actually stay on, are shorter than that).
OP, ‘slut shaming’ doesn’t mean what you think it means.
“Even if it actually wasn’t stupid, why was it weirdly in quotation marks, as if it were a well-known quote?” - Fuzzy Dunlop
If we’re still living in the same district when my 7 year old daughter reaches middle school, she’ll be attending Haven M.S. in Evanston where the leggings controversy is going on.
The fuck??? How about we “deal with it” by teaching the boys involved it’s unacceptable. And if they won’t be taught, by suspending them.
Do you have a problem if there is a single dress code that applies to both sexes? That is other than the no dress code idea? As I said before, I don’t think it matters much, but I see no problem with school administration setting a reasonable dress code that is not gender specific.
It’s possible to discipline boys for bad behavior and at the same time enforce a dress code appropriate to the environment. Schools should and do have wide latitude when it comes to disruptions to the education environment.
What they’re trying to do (albeit perhaps ham-fistedly, and I’m not defending the particular restrictions of this dress code) is address or prevent a problem. I don’t think many people would consider rules against nooses, white hoods and blackface to be examples of “institutionalized racism.”