No all those things are in the dress code - its that the dress code is selectively enforced. No sagging is part of the dress code, but it is NEVER enforced. No hats is in the dress code, but its not enforced. Which I have said - the boys dress code restrictions are there, they are not ENFORCED. The girls dress code restrictions are there and are only SELECTIVELY ENFORCED on certain girls (which never included my own daughter).
My fist is at half-mast because I’m not down for selective enforcement, but I’m still confused. If they were enforcing all the rules equally, would you still have a problem with the dress code? Would your daughter?
So what’s your problem with the dress code- I’m really confused. Is the problem that it’s a fine code but frustratingly sporadically enforced, or is the code itself bad and needs to be fought against?
I just feel like what ever issue is brought up you take the contrary position. Granted I don’t recall every word you’ve posted, but I’m struggling here.
This was your first post:
You’ve told us they all love her at the school, but here’s she’s troublesome. It was the principle of regulating how girls dress themselves that was the issue not the enforcement, it was just for a special event but she’s off it for the rest of the year… I’m just confused.
I get you can’t put everything in a post, but it seems contradictory.
I’m not so sure you want to really push that line of reasoning. Why are shorts that reach the middle of the hand okay but not ones that are wrist-length? If wrist-length is okay, why not half an inch above the wrist? If 2-finger-wide straps are fine, what’s wrong with 1-finger straps? If 1 finger is okay, why aren’t spaghetti straps okay? What’s so different about spaghetti straps vs. strapless? You can carry that argument until somebody’s ass is hanging out the bottom of their pants and half their boob is hanging out the top of their shirt. I mean, sure, you’re going to draw the line way before that point, but there are other parents out there who aren’t, parents who figure if it ain’t gonna get you arrested for indecent exposure, it’s fine to wear anywhere. That’s why the school can’t, as you advocate for, let the parents be the arbiters of appropriate dress. The school has to draw a line in the sand, ideally one that leaves them a little bit of wiggle room for something to be a little bit outside the regs without being totally inappropriate.
And any time you have to draw a line like that, on something that’s incremental and there’s not really any significant functional difference between adjacent increments…well, that line is going to be somewhat arbitrary. There’s just not any help for that–any one place is really just about as good any other, so you just have to pick one and move on. And, inevitably, people who would have picked a different one are going to kvetch.
So I’m not really with you on bitching about the girls’ dress code restrictions. Having bottoms long enough and tops big enough there’s no way for you to flash your undies (or make it clear you’re not wearing any) and pass it off as an accident is not, in and of itself, an unreasonable standard. I mean, yeah, they could write the restriction so that it says no visible underwear, but then you run into the issue of explaining to Parent A why their daughter with the D-cups can’t wear the exact same narrow-strapped tank top as Parent B’s kid who’s an A-cup, and the issue of explaining to kids and parents that no, Student C really does need to wear a bra and/or panties. And if you think the current situation is slut-shaming and giving girls negative ideas about their bodies, try envisioning how either of those conversations would go over.
I’m right there with you on bitching about uneven enforcement, though. That’s just bullshit. I don’t think the answer to that bullshit is to do away with the dress code, though, but rather to set reasonable standards for both sexes and then enforce them evenly and fairly.
I have to side with Dangerosa on this one. Boys (and men) have to learn that women deserve a certain baseline dignity and respect, no matter HOW she’s dressed or WHAT kind of makeup she wears or does not wear. Ultimately this means a woman should be able to go out in public dressed only in a leather sex harness and a clit ring that has a tiny bell attached if that is what she CHOOSES to wear (I am talking about the distant future here) and should hear no catcalls or hooting or be subject to any official censure. (People can, of course, not like her clothing, but they still owe the woman wearing the clothing fundamental respect.)
Clearly, we are a long way from this, and progress is going to be incremental. But it can start with not having the default dress code for women be “anything that won’t get the boys excited.” Let the boys get excited. But teach them to control their excitement. Because the OTHER end of this line is the Middle Eastern women forbidden to appear in public at all unless covered head to toe in one of those hideous tent things they wear.
The school dress code issue is a tiny, tiny element in that battle, but let’s get on the right side, the all-American, progressive side: Dangerosa’s side.
I didn’t say they were pertinent. I’m saying don’t get mad when people make judgments on what you’ve told us, by saying, “but you don’t know the whole story!” We’re not mind-readers – we’re only able to comment on what you’ve posted. If you don’t like that, that’s not our fault.
I’m sorry but can you point to the rule that says everyone must read every users posting history before they post because I can’t find it?
You mean the side where there should be no dress code for her daughter but there should be one for her son?
I though we were all about gender equality on this board?
Personally, I think middle school is tough enough as it is. Some girls look like women, some like little girls still. The ones that haven’t developed often feel bad, the ones that have developed may not yet have learned how to choose clothes that fit well, mom hasn’t bought them a bra yet or are embarrassed by being different. Girls are scared of getting their period in school and leaking or mad because they haven’t started yet. The boys are just dealing with out of control hormones that can lead to spontaneous erections and poor impulse control.
Maybe we can just give the boys and girls a break and have the students dress a little modestly while everyone gets a handle on how to manage all the changes in their bodies and how their bodies behave. Then when they have a handle on it all they can start working on how to appropriately respond in a mature and adult way to the bodies of their preferred gender.
I really can’t tell if you’re joking Evil Captor.
It’s all very well and good saying in the future we shouldn’t care about how someone’s dressed at all, and fight the good fight of liberation and all that. And I have to say, personally, I think I could get used to a world where everyone is naked, without getting aroused all the time.
But the fact you’ve had to add the caveat “I am talking about the distant future here” concedes the point that in the meantime, and for many parents, that won’t fly. You can’t literally have students show up in sex harnesses and clit rings. A line needs to be drawn, and while you and Dangerosa seem to disagree with it…it seems reasonable to me, and to most of the parents I suspect.
I don’t get this. A line needs to be drawn, because…what? Otherwise kids go to school wearing nothing but a clit ring?!
As I already said, my school didn’t have a dress code, none of the schools I have taught at had dress codes and yet nobody went around wearing nothing but clit rings and the poor, poor boys managed to get through just fine.
Yes, once in a blue moon a girl wears something that is perhaps a little inappropriate. The world does not end. Most likely she feels somewhat self-conscious. Learning for yourself what to wear, what you feel good in, and what is comfortable in a safe environment - that’s what school is all about.
All this hysteria and control. Yuck.
A line needs to be drawn because otherwise students will go to school wearing nothing but clit rings? Have fun with your straw man – I said distant future.
I see it less as “hysteria” and strict lines than as clearly setting expectations so the boys and girls have an explicit idea of what is appropriate. Most dress codes I’ve seen leave a lot of room for personal style and expression. I’m sure most kids dress appropriately naturally and some schools it’s not an issue. But school isn’t always a safe environment. Some kids can be downright horrible and cruel, so having them all figure it out in their own doesn’t always work so nicely. What school is all about is academic learning and socializing. Presenting expectations for the academics and the socializing both is perfectly reasonable.
Again, you’re making this a girl-specific thing when it is not.
And yeah I’m sure some schools do just fine without having to set specific rules (but no doubt obviously sending someone home if they did dress to some ridiculous extreme).
However, as the OP has shown, some people feel victimized if that’s the case, so other schools prefer to set rules up front so everyone’s clear and everything’s fair.
I don’t see any problem with that.
You brought up the idea of someone wearing a sex harness (which I don’t even know what is) and clit rings – that’s the very opposite of a straw man.
And as for distant future, frankly your point was incoherent. The exact sentence was: “Ultimately this means a woman should be able to go out in public dressed only in a leather sex harness and a clit ring that has a tiny bell attached if that is what she CHOOSES to wear (I am talking about the distant future here)”.
So…back in the current day…we shouldn’t care if a student lets it all hang out, because one day, we won’t?
Okay, assuming this is a serious point. And leaving aside the sensationalism of the example. You cannot have it both ways. If clothes are a means of personal expression, a reaction of some sort is the point, is it not? Is this entire conversation not about children pushing boundaries, and the best way to set them? On one side, I see the bright line rule being advocated (and I tend toward this) and the other, an individually tailored approach that, while sounds good, is subject to limitation in manpower to administer and a lack of any sort of predictability of outcome.
We all agree that if the school has rules, they should be enforced fairly. But it seems some are advocating for no rules at all, and administrators to govern proper dress in a ‘I know it when I see it’ sort of way.
I’d argue that a dress code in middle school is even more appropriate than one for high school for these exact reasons. Kids glom on to the most ridiculous stuff at that age. I think my entire adolescence would have turned out a lot differently if we had all worn uniforms during those three years of middle school.
Because kids go to school to learn how the real world works. And in the real world, there are lines. If you cross the line, you get kicked out of certain establishments. You get fired from your job. You get arrested. School has never been a place where kids can do and say whatever they want, and with good reason. They are children. They don’t know what the deal is yet.
Would society be a better place if we could all walk around butt-ass naked? I guess, maybe. But we don’t live in that society right now. We aren’t going to be that society anytime soon, not if folks like my boss have their way. A school that doesn’t prepare kids for this reality isn’t doing good by them.
Well, it does keep getting mentioned. But yeah, ok, I also got distracted by boys with sexy biceps, and how their bodies moved under their t-shirts and I managed somehow.
It is still a different thing for girls though. There is so much in our culture that tells them that their worth is defined entirely by how much they manage to project themselves as sexual objects, with another side telling them that if they are sluts they are utterly worthless. Both of these sides are very extreme and very clearly felt by teenage girls. This is not equal to the pressure on boys of that age to wear sagging trousers or rude t-shirts. There is not a huge message going out to them that they are utterly worthless as human beings if their t-shirt isn’t rude. Maybe they’re not quite as cool, at most. So the rules are both more difficult for girls to abide by and more socially contentious for them. There is simply more at stake, so in equally enforcing a dress code you actually ask more of girls.
Teenagers’ search for boundaries does not automatically mean that we should set them and enforce them. We should set them for the dangerous things, so that it is taken seriously. For the other stuff it usually works a whole lot better to go “meh” and it soon becomes uninteresting.
The search for those boundaries is part of the difficult adult stuff they need to work out, and letting them mess up and look like total idiots in a safe environment is part of that. It sorts itself out in the end. The downside is that over the course of a week when they were 15 they embarrassed themselves, big deal. OTOH, if one of your huge big-deal boundaries is how many fingers a strap should be you will have very little credit when trying to convince them that doing meth is a bad idea.
I’m just looking at the future. Compare the sort of clothing women wore to the beach at the turn of the 20th century to the clothing they wore to the beach at the turn of the 21st Century. (Caution: one thong bikini visible on page, which is about an endurance sporting event, so may be NSFW in some work venues but it’s not really a porny thing so no spoiler box.)
This was the product of a century of cops chasing women who were indecently clothed by the standards of a hundred years, and the mores changing resulting in cops NOT chasing women off the beach in what were formerly “indecent” outfits.
Now granted, there is good reason for scanty clothing being more practical as beach attire than the semi-burkhas worn in 1900, but school attire is very much an artificial thing, being worn almost exclusively indoors. Over time the same tendency toward permitting freedom of expression will beat out the oppressors … but it probably will take a long time. Maybe a century, I dunno.
So you think that not enforcing strict rules on how to dress results in adults unable to dress appropriately for work? 
Because that is demonstrably not what happens. I work in The Hague at the moment, and I manage to get dressed. And it’s not like anyone is telling me what to wear to work now. I take it from social cues and examples around me, a skill I learned at school.
Kids don’t know what the deal is yet, so they mess up a little and look like idiots occasionally. It’s ok, they don’t die and they tend to work it out in the end.
Read my post on beachwear and get back to me on this if you think you still have an argument.
My point is that we should respect women no matter what they do or don’t wear in the way of clothing. We should teach boys and school administrators this lesson early on. Rabbit costume, Victorian beachwear, tennis outfit, business suit, thong bikini … it JUST DOESN’T MATTER … the basic respect needs to be there, no matter what. Women should not be forced to wear whatever the boys will allow them to via absence of harassment.
Am I getting mad - or are you projecting? I don’t like it? Really, I don’t? Really???
How do you KNOW these things?