I agree that they did it to get us off their back. but we weren’t looking for an exception for our daughter, we wanted to address a dress code that we feel tells the girls that legs are distracting - shoulders are distracting. This isn’t butts and boobs. This is thigh and shoulder.
And I think girls and boys should be taught to respect their own sexuality - AND, perhaps even more importantly - the sexuality of others. You treat people with respect - no matter how they are dressed - no matter if the issue is their gender or their race or their handicap. If they have tattoos or blue hair. You don’t make their dress or who they are an excuse for your own bad behavior towards them, towards others, or towards yourself. If they themselves are dressed in a manner that is disrepectful to you - then the administration has a responsibility to step in and address that disrespect. But what is disrespectful about a pair of shorts that hit mid hand instead of to the fingertips? What is disrespectful about a tank top that has sleeves two fingers wide instead of three? Why are this things disrespectful, but sagging, t-shirts with suggestive sayings, leggings, pajama bottoms, and sweatpants with suggestive sayings across the ass not disrespectful? When we talk about respectful dress - I think clean is a minimum requirement - but frankly, not all the kids come from functional households where clean clothes happen regularly - so clean isn’t a requirement. I also think hats should not be worn indoors - but they stopped enforcing that because it was “too hard” to confiscate hats every day. Why do you make a girl wearing shorts that reach her pinky change into her gym uniform for the day, where her shorts don’t reach her wrists and which probably hasn’t been washed in three weeks? Or cover her tank top with her gym t-shirt? Is that more respectful?
(The rule when we started this school four years ago was that you would have to pick up your kid or bring him or her clothes - none of the parents I know who have had the dress code enforced on their daughters have ever even HEARD anything from the school - the school just makes the girls change into their gym clothes and then doesn’t even call the parents to say “hey, those shorts - a little short. Can you leave them at home.”)
The rules in place do not accomplish the stated goal of the school - to foster an attitude of respect. As enforced - where they ignore the rules that are in place for the boys, but enforce the ones that are in place for the girls, they not only aren’t effective in meeting the stated goal, but are sexist. I suspect part of the reason the girls rules are enforced and the boys aren’t is that the girls rules are really only applicable in Minnesota for about fifteen total school days - a few days in the Fall when its still hot, and a few days in the Spring. The boys rules on sagging a hats the school needs to stay on top of 180 school days a year. That’s a bigger enforcement burden - so they’ve given up. Because you have a point - they have time to address a few girls who break the rules 15 days a year, but addressing it for the large percentage of the male population that sag or wear hats 180 days a year means more staffing.
Oh, to clear up another misperception I suspect people have - my daughter has never been asked to change into gym clothes. Even when her clothing technically violates the dress code (shorts a tiny bit shorter or sleeves a little too narrow), the code is selectively enforced on those girls whose dress is deemed provocative and actually distracting - or on the girls that are targeted - generally not the “good girls” (who aren’t being purposefully provocative) or the “bad girls” (with whom they have bigger fish to fry than dress code) - so the code isn’t much of a code at all. They are enforcing the “code” in the manner I’d want them to address improper attire - pull aside the girls who actually dress in poor taste. (Except, get their parents involved - the parents may not know that Lexi gets to school and changes into booty shorts and stripper heels and can get an entire face of makeup on in a five minute passing period - or there may be issues at Lexi’s house that the school should be reporting on. And do something other then their gym clothes - which aren’t any more respectful and encourage ridicule).
That being the case, get rid of the code and start addressing it the way its ALREADY being addressed - on a case by case basis. MOST parents know whats in good taste. MOST girls are dressing in good taste. They are already dealing with it on an individual level.
I know you aren’t a dumb person. And I know you have some memory of my posting history. Have I ever said anything offensive about Jewish people? Do you really think I’m serious when I say I don’t care what Jews think?
Shit, man. I’m sorry if I offended you because I like you as a poster and I don’t want you to be mad at me. But I slam the Christians all the freakin’ time around here, and I’m related to them! So I’m not about to pretend like I have special reverence for other religious rituals or beliefs. I’m completely equal-opportunity in my irreverence. Especially when I’ve got my tongue planted firmly in my cheek.
I think it is important for young people to learn how to pick their battles. I’m all for empowering kids, expecially young women, to question authority. But a dress code is not oppression. Preventing kids from showing bra straps does not cause girls to have body issues or make them engage in self-harm. We don’t need to be planting these notions in kids’ heads.
I don’t think she is being targeted or victimized by the school. In fact, they love my daughter, gave her the citizenship award and one for leadership for eighth grade “graduation.” They love me and my husband too, they ask us to sit on committees.
I would agree with all of this , and I don't think for a moment that gender or adoption has anything to do with why you treat your children differently. But I still think your support of your daughter has more to do with your disagreement with the dress code and nothing really to do with her being a geeky,lesbian, atheist female.
Let me explain with a few examples of what I mean.
1 Hypothetically, you have a different daughter. This one is a straight, Christian non-geek. She wants to wear the very same shorts and spaghetti straps you have been talking about. I think you’re going to let her wear them.
2 You have the same daughter , but the school dress code is so close to your standards that you could have written it. I don’t think you’re going to support your daughter’s request for an exemption.
3 Your son want an exemption , but he doesn’t want an exemption for saggy pants or wearing a hat indoors. He wants to wear something prohibited by the dress code, but that meets your standards. Maybe the dress code restricts hair length or earrings or clothing with any writing whatsoever on it , and you don’t have a problem with whatever it is he wants to wear. I think you probably are going to support him
I didn’t plant them - these are coming from her (I suspect via Tumblr, she hasn’t found Naomi Wolf or Bell Hooks yet, and I sort of hope she never finds Dworkin). And once these ideas are growing her her brain, should we not address them with the administration? Should I impose the mainstream reality of feminism on her already? Or should I let her develop her own views and adjust those as she comes in contact with reality.
Frankly, she - and a lot of young women like her - are going through what a lot of young women used to go through in their 20s when college opened up ideas to them. Now, the internet gives them easy access to those ideas a lot younger. They’ll have the passion that young women have for these issues (or young people have for whatever issues catch their heart) - and for a few of them - that passion will last and they’ll figure out how to help change the world.
The dress code at school is a safe place for her to challenge - to exercise her argumentation skills. Its local, its immediate, and the message being sent is important to her (her eighth grade presentation was on rape and women getting blamed for their own rapes - you shouldn’t have worn that, walked there, lived alone, held that job). All we did is send a message that supported the communications she had already made to the administration.
And the feedback we’ve gotten from the administration on her challenges has been very supportive. THEY agree we should keep sending our daughter in to fight the good fight (even if they never intend to change).
Depends on her motivation - do I believe she is doing it to be purposefully provocative - than no. But if its the same daughter, just one that is straight and Christian, YEP.
Nope, it’s a public university and we have several types of perfectly reasonable dress codes based on what individuals are doing around the university. Primarily, it’s no shoes and shirts, no admittance to class. Most of the rest relate to safety issues (i.e., no sandals in the chemistry lab, etc.) or academic honesty (in the larger classes there are rules against overcoats, hats with brims, etc., during tests). Student workers employed in campus offices are even expected to dress business casual (defined at a minimum of clean jeans and an uncontroversial T-shirt).
I had test anxiety in the seventh and eighth grades. If my parents had been curious enough to ask me about this, I would have told them that I hated exams so much that they made me want to run away from society and live as a recluse in the woods. And I woud have been sincere.
My parents wouldn’t have taken me seriously. And if I started citing Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth as vindication, they would have sat me down fast and helped me to get a grip. Because as a black woman, there are much worse things out than a damn pre-algebra exam. Equating the two does a disservice to the real struggle.
Self-harming is no joke. It’s caused by an individual’s emotional dysregulation, not a hem length policy. I really don’t see how you’re doing the kid a favor by cosigning social justice warrior ridiculousness.
But most of the arguments up to this point have been on principle rather than degree; that we shouldn’t force people to dress a certain way because of the reactions it would cause in others.
If it’s just a question of degree then, fine, where you set the line is different from the school. However, you must appreciate that the school cannot possibly be of the same mind as all the parents’? If I were headmaster I’d set the rules erring slightly on the side of strictness so as to cause minimum outrage (or indeed, just set a uniform).
And when you raise your daughter, you can make those decisions and take that stand. But you aren’t going to change my mind on how I choose to raise mine.
I’m not saying self harming is a joke - and given the self harming circumstances I’m referring to here that I’m not going to get into here because they don’t involve my own child - to imply I think so is VERY offensive. And since I know the circumstances - well, you are wrong.
I’ve believe I’ve said this about 97 times - drop the code which is not being enforced uniformly anyway and does not meet the stated objectives of fostering a respectful environment, address the true issues with parents involved. After all, when they take disciplinary action, they SHOULD already be calling the parents.
The problem is, in the absence of a formal dress code how do you see that conversation going?
"Mrs Smith, we’ve noticed that your daughter is dressing inappropriately at school.
What rule is she breaking?
Well, her manner of dress is causing a disruptive atmosphere.
Why are you singling out my child? Her best friend has the same outfit and she’s ok?
Well, on your daughter it raises some concerns…
No one told me she couldn’t wear that? I spent all the clothes money already.I’m supposed to get her new clothes now?"
Etc etc.
The rules should be uniform and conservative enough that even people and their children with more delicate sensibilities will feel comfortable going to their required school. We should err on the side of conservatism here, because the school should be as welcoming an atmosphere as reasonably possible. A child can dress any way they are are allowed to at home. In school, the rules are set. Distractions are not just about sex- hate language on a T shirt, ridiculous outfits (a chicken suit) to shock etc. A child can successfully get through their day wearing more conservative outfits.
If the problem is that they are unenforced, then that’s a legitimate beef. However the solution is not too do away with the rules. Without them the school’s hands are truly tied in enforcing any standard.
I really think one could also argue that the rationale of the dress code is an independent problem from the expectations.
There is a world of difference between “You girls need to stop dressing like sluts, the boys can’t handle it and it hurts their learning” and “This is a serious environment. We dress seriously. Play clothes are for play time.” Even if it’s the exact same code, I’d be fine with the later and furious about the former. I feel exactly the same way when black fashions are described as “threatening” and “violent” but white fashions as “idiosyncratic” or “artistic” or “alternative” or even just “dumb-looking”.
There are tons of ways school clothes can be inappropriate. If the only thing they are focusing on is female sexuality–something Dangerosa has made pretty clear–that’s really not at all cool.
If you don’t want people commenting on certain topics, maybe you shouldn’t bring those topics into the conversation in the first place.
If you don’t want to receive negative opinons on how you’re raising your children, then you should be more discrete about what details you share on a public forum–especially one devoted to people’s opinions.
I’m fine with the negative comments - but you aren’t changing my mind. And perhaps if you can’t take being told you are wrong, perhaps you should stop giving advice on things you don’t have the background information to comment on.
And my discretion is actually why people think they know things - no one here has been told the whole story, and people are filling in gaps in completely wrong ways - some of which I CHOOSE to address, and some of which I WON’T address - and no one will be told the whole story.
If Dangerosa or Brainiac would be kind enough to post the dress code so we can see how biased it is, I think this would help us understand their point-of-view. But I’m skeptical. I’m skeptical the school is focused on restricting female fashions to the exclusion of hate speech, sagging pants, visible boxer shorts, or other “distracting” attire. If the dress code really is biased, then I’ll be the first to throw up a fist in solidarity and sincerely apologize for giving Dangerosa a hard time.
They are tied now on enforcing any standard. If the parents refuse to dress their kid according to standard, the school still has an obligation to educate that kid. The ONLY solution is to get the parents involved and hope they agree with you. Which is one of the reasons that the standards are currently sporadically enforced. Because they don’t have the support of the parents.
This is a district that HOWLED when uniforms were suggested.