September 6, 2017 • 43 mins
Do school dress codes actually make students more effective? E&B break down the research.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily, and you're listening to stuff Mom
never told you. Today, we are tackling a topic that
has been much requested by lots of y'all on Twitter
(00:26):
and in our inbox, and I have to say that
Bridget and I were super excited to dive into this
topic of school dress codes. I was especially excited about
it because this is one of those issues that teen
girls are killing it on social media over. They are
activists and creating protests and walkouts and organizing on this
(00:49):
issue in a way that I find just also inspiring.
UM from a you know, it warms this millennial feminist
heart to see the generation coming up after us just
owning this from an organizing perspective. Anything where tween girls
are leading the way in an activism situation, I'm always
for it, all about it, and I am weirded out
(01:11):
by the fact that after diving in a little deeper
into the weeds around the research behind this, I'm feeling
more torn than when I initially started. And let's back
up a little bit. We're going to unpack all of
the all the sort of emotional journeys that we've been on.
Both Bridget and I from UM are sort of political
(01:34):
perspectives on weather dress codes are a good thing or
not for high schools, uh and for high school age
girls in particular. But I just want you to know
that this is an issue that I thought was a
lot more clear cut, which is not at all clear cut.
And I think that's part of what makes this such
a hot button issue that I'm so excited to dive
(01:54):
in on. So let's start by just looking back at
why so many schools across the United States in particular
have implemented dress codes to begin with, This was a
thing that became really really in vogue in the nineties
and two thousands, the odds, especially in part due to
the tragic rise of school shootings and the rise of
(02:18):
gang violence in high schools, and so in the nineties,
dress codes began to be more commonly implemented in the
public school arena, not just their Catholic school counterparts, which
public schools found themselves being compared to um when it
came to parents looking at school choices UM. So public
schools wanting to be competitive in that arena, wanting to
(02:41):
keep their students safe, uh and and sort of reduce
gang violence from being more of a thing in school
shootings and all that crazy goth stuff that we were
all into, UM ball chain necklaces and Jengo jeans and
as exactly so, so the rise of the school uniform
(03:03):
or the school dress code to different things, right bridget
which we want to differentiate between UM. So, according to
these proponents behind the pushing of school uniforms, they were
going to prevent gang violence, encourage discipline, helps students resist
peer pressure, and when it comes to buying trendy clothes
that limited to or wherever, helping identify intruders in the school.
(03:25):
This was especially true after the rise of or after
the Columbines shooting, which was associated with what was known
as the trench Coat Mafia. So there was a clothing
element to that act of extreme violence that also added
to the anxiety around school dress. This also belies the
(03:46):
intent of diminishing economic and social barriers between students and
increasing a sense of belonging and school pride and attendance
at school. So there's this association between discipline and the
school dress code. So I know that this episode is
about dress codes, but I went to a school with
uniforms for pretty much most of my life, and I
(04:06):
actually love my uniform, And I found all of these
things to be the case. All of the positives that
proponents of UM school uniforms and strict dress codes say,
I found to be the case of my uniform. UM.
I don't know. We didn't really have a gang issue
that I was aware of in my school, but it
definitely made me less self conscious about the clothing that
(04:26):
I chose because I wasn't a very trendy dresser, and
so I really liked just having that be eliminated from
the dynamics of school. Right you already are dealing with
so much in terms of who's popular, who's not, who's rich,
who's not. Having uniforms for me totally helped eliminate those
barriers a little bit, like the equalizing Exactly what was
your uniform like? So we had UM it was a
(04:48):
Catholic school, so we had a plaid skirt, UM a
white Oxford. Mine was always oversized. I don't know if
that was a choice or my mom just I couldn't
be bothered. UM a green It was either a green
pullover or cardigan sweater and UM knee socks and brown
tie shoes. And on special events you had to wear
your dress uniform that was Oxford shoes and a green blazer.
(05:11):
And I lost my blazer sophomore year and I got
so many detentions because of it. I never had it
when I needed it, all right, So I mean that's
a pretty typical schoolgirl uniform, isn't it. And part of
my beef with all of this stuff uniforms and dress
codes is that it boils down to, here's how we
(05:33):
approve of women's appearance in public. This is what a
woman must look like. This is what a young woman
or a girl must look like. And all the reasons
I hate it when people benevolently police our speech is
part of what I hate about the focus on a
woman's physical appearance as being not only this benevolent. Let
(05:54):
me help you avoid boys unwanted attention by telling you
how to cover up your god given body, and and
this is somehow putting the blame on you as a woman.
But also it's just like, focus on what I'm trying
to say here, people focus on what's coming out of
my brain. I'm a student, I'm here to learn. Please
stop objectifying me, even if you're a well intentioned school teacher. Right,
(06:17):
it just makes it. It dehumanizes you for a second.
It takes you out of that learning environment and says, oh,
I'm only your shorts are too short. Yeah, And just
going back to what I was saying, if I was
had my own school, I would definitely have uniforms. But
in order to avoid the thing that you were just
saying all of the gross sexist, weird stuff that comes
from the strictly enforced school dress policies, I think it'd
(06:40):
be great if schools adopted unisex uniforms. A lot of
the schools in d C d CPS, you just wear
kind of loose fitting cat loose fitting khaki pants and
an oversized polo. Everybody wears that. I think that's better
than just even even though I loved my uniform. That's
better than saying, oh, girls in public should be in
a blazer in a skirt. How girls in public should
(07:01):
show up that they are dressed for learning even though
I really liked my uniform. That's interesting. I also find
it interesting when it comes down to the issue of
free speech. So these I these dress codes, this strict
adherence to certain dress codes has not always held up
in court because it really boils down to restricting students
right to free speech, which is a constitutionally protected right
(07:24):
in the United States. And I should note this is
really only true for the public school arena, because private
schools can do whatever they want. Right, No one's forcing
you to go to private school. But in two thousand
and seven, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld a lower
court's decision to let a Vermont's student wear a T
shirt that depicted President Bush surrounded by drug and alcohol images.
(07:44):
Oh I wish I could see the shirt. It related
to his glory days of doing cocaine. It was so
the school said, this shirt is all about drug references,
and the students said, no, this is a political message.
And the Supreme Court wayed in saying that the kid
was right and that this was part of his freedom
of speech and that it wasn't about inciting or encouraging
(08:08):
drug use, which is part of the nuance here. Interestingly,
the major cases on these issues have always dealt with
men or boys, which I thought was interesting. So that's
not girls students who are being defended and upheld. It's
boys making some sort of statement with an edgy shirt. Exact,
got it? And maybe that's changing. I sure hope it is.
But the major cases that have been dealt with on
(08:31):
the Supreme Court level, especially in the two thousand's, really
had to do with high school male students UM T
shirt messages themselves. So in both cases the one I
mentioned earlier, in a later case that came out of
the San Diego High school when they suspended a student
for wearing an anti gay T shirt message. The school
(08:54):
argued that the T shirt was hateful and inflammatory, but
the Supreme Court basically vacated or set aside the vision
of a lower court that upheld the students right to
wear that UM, saying it was his freedom of speech. Well,
that I find I find so interesting is that, and
I think we talked more about this later on, But
(09:14):
girls who are getting in trouble at school because they're
wearing a spaghetti strapped tank top, they're sort of being
punished for their bodies. These are boys who are wearing
shirts that have messages on them that you know, it's
their right to wear it. Courts that determined in terms
of free speech right. But it's interesting to me that
they are the ones who are having their rights reaffirms
that upheld, and young women who are you know who
(09:36):
is re affirming they're right to have their shoulders out.
Well luckily tween right now, because this this is all
done under the guise of helping students create a safe
space for learning where they can focus on education, and
that's you know, that is the intent behind a lot
of these rules. But the outcome is that women's body
(10:00):
are policed in a way that men's bodies are not.
And on top of it all, it completely locks the
schools into this binary concept of gender. So we have
to acknowledge for our non binary gender conforming folks that
school uniform policies and strict dress codes really erase their
ability to be have their freedom of speech upheld and respected,
(10:25):
um when they're not dressing according to what the male
dress code should be is or proclaims is the right
way for a little boy to address. So the first
part of this that I think is important for us
to acknowledge is whether or not the intent to create
a safelowning environment is actually being upheld. Is that what
school uniform policies are actually doing now. Like Virginia draw
(10:48):
who is an assistant professor at Youngstown State University, I
went into this process and to the research process for
this podcast, thinking that school uniforms did really do that
at all, thinking that they didn't actually help students focus.
But as she says, after doing her research, she says, quote,
(11:09):
I came away seeing that they do, at least at
these schools, they do, and I was absolutely floored. In
her research, which reviewed sixty four public high schools in Ohio,
she concluded that schools with uniform policies improved attendance, graduation,
and reduced suspension rates. She was unable to connect uniforms
(11:29):
with academic improvement because lots of other conflicting variables around,
like changing instructional methods and curriculum, but uniformly, to put
it that way, she did find a connection between creating
those kinds of disciplined, focused student environments and school uniforms.
(11:51):
Having grown up mostly wearing uniforms, it doesn't surprise me
at all. Um. I can't speak for the suspension rate
or anything like that, because my uniform actually was a
source of discipline for me, often forgetting things or not
having things I'm supposed to have on certain days. But
I think attendance is so important because if you get
up and you're often running late, like I was pretty
(12:12):
much every single day of my life, and still I am.
If you know that you just have to grab a
wrinkled skirt from the bottom of your closet, it's the
same skirt every day. In fact, I used to when
I was in high school. I would sleep in a
pair of boxer shorts, and I would keep my uniform
in the car, so I would wear boxer shorts under
my unifor I would just basically put the skirt out
in the car so I had to. I woke up,
(12:33):
you know, five minutes before the alarm and did nothing
to get dressed, and that really did help me get
to school on time and more often. It's an interesting
dichotomy between a lack of choice and the freedom from
not having to make that that's that's tough for me.
I'm having trouble, like I feel very um ambivalent over
(12:54):
this now in a way that I didn't when I
first started. When you first started, what did you think
about I thought dress codes were total bunk. Here's the thing.
I still feel that they are in the way that
they're actually policed, in the way that they're actually enforced.
But you can't argue with the positive facts here they
say that the research is muddled. They say that the
research is inconclusive. And that's true insofar as there are
(13:14):
other researchers, like assistant professor at the University of Missouri
David Bresma, who in his two thousand and four books
reached totally different conclusions, saying that there's no positive correlation
between uniforms and school safety or uniforms and academic achievement.
But then I see stats like this one from uh
(13:36):
Nevada Middle Schools in two thousand and eight and two
thousand and nine, where researchers at the University of Nevada
Reno set out to find out what a thousand, three
fifty seventh and eighth graders thought about the implementation of
school a dress codes. Now here's the thing. Even though
like me, the majority of students reported that they disliked
wearing uniforms, so this is not a dress code, to
(13:57):
be clear, this is a uniform policy. Fifty four percent
of them agreed that they could still express their identity
freely while wearing a uniform. Fifty agreed that uniforms saved
their families money, which is an important class consideration here,
but only said that there was less gaining activity, so
the students perception of violence not a big deal, saying
(14:20):
uniforms were not strongly you know, related to gain violence.
That said, when the researchers looked into school discipline and
local police records and compared them to the prior years data,
discipline referrals were down ten percent and there were sixty
three percent fewer police log reports graffiti, fights, and gang
(14:43):
related activity. Again, that doesn't surprise me at really. I
just I feel like when I and again I know
uniforms and we're talking about dress codes, but but we're
now you could have dovetailed into uniforms, but they're sort
of related. I think when I wore my uniform, it
was just very clear to every but that we were
there to learn, and we weren't like, we weren't there
(15:04):
to hang out with friends, or it wasn't the mall,
that wasn't after school activities. It was school. And I
think in general, a Catholic school setting is very can
be very regimented and very disciplined, and having that being
reinforced in your clothing just made that easier to internalize.
I think, and again I'm speaking purely from my personal experience,
(15:25):
so other folks probably very much. Do you have different
opinions about this topic, But these numbers don't lie, and
they don't surprise me at all. Yeah, I mean, I
really would like to see what else was happening in
these communities during those years of just go change, because
maybe there were confounding effects that were unrelated to gaining activities.
It's hard for me to think that this is as
(15:47):
simple as changing your outfit and it changes your whole
philosophy around violence, but maybe not. I was a public
school kid my entire life up until college, and for me,
I distinctly remember always feeling like I was gambling with
my school outfit of the day because I was a
(16:08):
tall I am a tall kid with long legs, and
I came to learn very early that shorts that would
get my shorter classmates not in trouble I were forbidden
for me to wear. So what that made me intensely
aware of is that my body was the problem. And
I was sent home on multiple occasions, and I distinctly
remember being called out of class and I'm thinking, who
(16:30):
the hell reported me? Right? Who reports me? I'm in
math class? Like, I don't frankly want to be here either,
but you're gonna pull me out of class, Have me
sit in the principal's office, Have me call my parents,
who have jobs and we're busy working and could be
doing lots of better things than fetching me a pair
of more appropriate shorts from school. Make me feel ashamed
(16:51):
that entire time I'm sitting there, and then make my
dad feel embarrassed, like I remember seeing that shame internalized
by my own father who brought me this pair of
shorts in the middle of the school day, and sort
of like I think he wanted to apologize on my behalf,
you know what I mean. Yeah, And I think it
really messed me. I don't like that feeling. I don't
have that either. And I think, for as much as
(17:12):
it sounds like I'm saying, ra ra school uniforms, RARA
dress codes, I think, even if the data shows that
dress codes or school uniforms can improve schools in all
these different ways, what difference does it make if these
wardrobe changes show all these improved benefits for schools, if
they are implemented in ways that are sexist, shame inducing,
growth that prevent you math student Emily from getting the
(17:35):
full day's math instruction that prevent your dad from having
to be able to, you know, complete his work day,
and that our shame inducing for both you and him.
See I guess you arguing for my side of this debate.
I just see that. I just see the new one.
So let's talk more about all the potential negative ramifications
of school uniforms and dress codes after a quick break,
(18:04):
so we're back, and we have to unpack not just
the purported benefits of school uniforms in strict dress codes,
but also what some of these negative, less easily measured
ramifications might be. Because for all the research out there
on school uniforms and dress codes, I have not seen
enough research on how this can potentially negatively impact women's
(18:27):
sense of self and the messages that we're actually giving
to all students when we tell women that they need
to cover up their bodies in a way that we
don't always tell men they have to do. So, the
first negative implication to me is that this actually makes
little girls and women students like me and math class
(18:47):
in seventh grade much more conscious of our bodies, and
it makes us feel self conscious because defining what's considered
quote offensive or inappropriate is where schools can promote prejudiced policies,
even if those biases aren't intentional. They're saying that for
students who attend schools like the Woodford County High School,
(19:09):
where women's shoulders cannot be exposed and anything that reveals
their collar bone is deemed too inappropriate or somehow offensive,
you know, we're really making girls feel self conscious, ashamed,
and uncomfortable in their own bodies, which I find to
be a huge problem. It is a huge problem. And
that goes into another big drawback of dress codes in
(19:30):
school uniforms is that they imply that girls are responsible
for not quote, distracting male counterparts and that men are
entitled to their bodies. And I found this quote about
Woodford County schools to be very very telling. It is
not really the formal dress code by itself that's so discriminatory.
It's the message behind the dress code. My principle constantly
(19:51):
says that the main reason for it is to create
a distraction free learning zone for our male counterparts. And
that's really, at the end of the day, what it
comes down to for me. We should not be implementing
the school policies that make women and women identified students
feel like it is their job to do anything in
order to help male students not be distracted. Male students
(20:14):
are responsible for their own reactions. If you are a
boy and you can't handle sitting in math class next
to Emily and her shot, that is on you. That
is a personal problem, and you need to figure it
out because it's on you to graduate, not her. And
I think these policies they do make it seem like, oh,
little Johnny can't help it. It's up to you to
change your behavior, change how you show up, and a
(20:34):
lot of times change your own comfort to make sure
that little Johnny can pass me exactly. And it perpetuates
this idea that boys will be boys, which is patronizing
and insulting quite frankly to the free will of men
and boys out there, And it also does them a
disservice in my opinion, of giving them this sense of
(20:55):
entitlement over women should be punished for their behavior vier
that incites bad behavior on men and boys parts. It
makes sense, It makes total sense. It reminds me so
much of the episode we did around nipples, where in
certain in one county, even though it was legal for
women to be topless. The police tried to stop them
from doing so because they were worried about the reaction
of male motorists. And again, male motorists, they are responsed.
(21:18):
They're the ones driving cars. They are responsible for their
own ability to drive a car. If they see a
woman topless and they crash their car, that is on them. Yes,
I think teen Vogue put it brilliantly, as teen Vogue
has a way of doing when they really asked, like,
what message are we sending to boys anyhow with this stuff.
Emily Lyndon put it perfectly when she wrote in teen
(21:41):
Vogue saying, you know what, I agree, boys probably will
find your body to be a distraction during class. Boys
are sexually curious as our people of all genders. No
matter what, we are going to be distracted by each
other's bodies sometimes. But why is that a problem. At
some point, boys are going to need to learn how
to be productive despite the presence of female bodies. They're
(22:04):
going to need to figure out how to be seated
next to someone with cleavage and still write that paper,
finish that math problem, set or do whatever it is
they have to get down without losing their cool. They
need to learn to manage distractions, but more importantly for everyone,
they need to learn to manage what they do when
they find themselves turned on by another person's body. There's
no avoiding it throughout their lives. Straight boys are going
(22:25):
to be turned on by women they see on the street,
coworkers and acquaintances. They need to be able to recognize
those feelings and then decide not to act on them.
And I think that's exactly it. You know, in life
as adults, we are distracted by each other. We live
in a society. I don't like this message that we're
sending boys that they can sort of pluck out these distractions,
(22:45):
whether they're sexual distractions or other correct distractions. We live
in a society. You have to learn how to deal
with it. I am distracted all the time by bodies,
by other things, and you know what I do. I
deal with it. And I don't think we should be
teaching boys to expect the society will cater to them
and their desires and distractions exactly. And it also sends
this message to little boys that we assume their naturally predatory,
(23:09):
which is disingenuous and not a good message to reinforce that, oh,
we don't expect you to have free will or self control.
You know that it's sort of justifies. It's like the
person who asks after someone reports being raped, well, what
were you wearing? Right? And I also think, honestly, if
you impact this enough, it's really insulting to boys. It
really does not send the message that boys can be respected,
(23:30):
that boys can be free agents of their own desires
and wills. It assumes that they're not to just be
in society the way anyone else is exactly, which is insulting.
It is insulting. And talk about learning disruptions. If we
want to help boys stay focused in this case, or
help all students stay focused, does pulling people out of
(23:51):
class because of dress code violations really achieve that end?
I mean, do you remember when you were in school
and someone would come in to give a note to
the teacher. The whole would be like, everyone stop and
look at someone's getting a note, Like the whole class
will come crashing down. As a former teacher, those kinds
of things are distractions. It's a distraction for the teacher,
for the person pulled out of class who's missing thirty
(24:13):
minutes of math or whatever, and for the students around you.
Everyone's time to be better spent on other things. Exactly.
In some instances, these girls were not only pulled from
class and asked to change, but if their parents couldn't
take the entire day off, some schools have them sit
in detention for the rest of the school day to
keep them from distracting their male counterparts. Because what they're
(24:35):
actually saying by that is her education is less of
a priority than the education of the boys who could
possibly be distracted. And that just to add another wrinkle
of enragement on that. For me, that seems so classist,
right if you were the kind of student who your
your parents doesn't have the kind of job or they
can just go or you know, maybe they give you
(24:56):
if you're if your parent is a is a low
wage worker and can't doesn't have the kind of job
where they can just decide to leave and come get
you or whatever, you are then forced to sit in detention.
So compared to that to a classmate who already has
the privilege of having a parent stay at home and
not work. Your parent can come and bring you an
extra pair of shorts, and you get to go back
to math class and go back to learning. But the
(25:17):
student who doesn't have that kind of home life, they
don't they have to sit in detention for the rest
of the day. Schools are supposed to be the great
equalizer of opportunity exactly. That's what you're what you're saying,
which is if we're going to actually provide a level
playing field for students through public education, we have to
live true to that and understand where classism can impact
(25:37):
the execution of that intention behind public education exactly. That
that's what I think is is troubling me so much.
It's the way that it's not not an equal playing
field along the lines of gender, along the lines of class.
It's very clear to me that there's a hierarchy of
who this works best for, and that is seemingly male students,
and who this doesn't work out for exactly. And I'm
(25:57):
sure parents listening and know the drill of you know,
having kids does sometimes mean getting that call in the
middle of the day from the principal's office or getting
the call from the school nurse when you have a
child who needs to be picked up right. It's like
of all the challenges that working parents face in today's society, which,
by the way, our work lives do not always cater
(26:17):
to parents needs and do not always understand when a
parent needs to pick up a sick child who's in
need of retrieval for a real, legit medical emergency. We
have to add this to the plate of working parents.
We have to add this on top of everything else
that schools are are deciding as a priority for parents
to worry about. It just seems not essential, and it
(26:39):
seems to me more of a distraction from their education
than the idea of creating a less distracting environment. And
also the shame that these girls, primarily who are pulled
from class experience can be doubly traumatic. Not only are
you missing out on your education, but you're then sitting
in the principal's office or some of these schools forced
those girls to wag a big oversized T shirts that
(27:02):
have lettering on them saying dress code violator. That is
some scarlet letter style exactly. And it gets even worse
around prom season. Jessica Valenti, one of my favorite writers
who shared this take in her column for The Guardian UK,
writes of a young woman in Virginia who was kicked
out of her prom because the father's attending the event
(27:26):
thought her dress was giving rise to quote impure thoughts.
What the hell this is a seventeen year old girl
who is sent home from her prom because a bunch
of leering dads were getting turned on like I had growth.
Every one of those dads needs to be like investigated
or something. I also can't imagine being a champerone as
a parent at an event like prom and have something
(27:48):
to say about a minor in that way. I can't
even wrap my head around. Now that's someone's well, this
is super, super real and common now. At prom in
thousand fourteen, and staff at Bingham High School in South Jordan,
Utah turned away a dozen girls whose dresses they deemed
to show too much skin. Even the girls who were
(28:08):
allowed to attend the dance had to go through the
ordeal of being scrutinized and judged because they were girls.
They write in teen Vogue about a hundred girls total
were stopped and examined. During this examination, they were like
told to raise their arms and turn around and like
bend over. This is not a prison cell, people, They're
not being searched, Okay, They're treated like criminals who are
(28:32):
already expected to be in violation and then having to
put on this disgusting performance in front of teachers who
are then judging how slutty their students are, and what
a stupid thing to like How is that not like?
How is that not setting teachers up to feel uncomfortable
and students to feel uncomfortable. I feel like, if you
don't feel uncomfortable in that situation, something up, Like if
(28:54):
you were like, oh, yes, my favorite part of prom
when the girls jiggle and see if a boom pops out,
you should be in a school exactly. I just think
what's awful is that the reason why these young ladies
are going through that is just for being a woman,
just for having a body. And I think, you know,
we wonder where we get these really messed up ideas
(29:14):
that we internalize about our bodies. We wonder where they
come from their rained in all levels of our society.
Absolutely bridget And one of the final negative impacts that
I really want to make sure we cover today is
the fact that dress codes like this completely erase the
presence of non gender conforming students. It forces a false
(29:38):
binary on student administrators who have to enforce this stuff
as well as make it even more uncomfortable and challenging
for students who identify as trans or students who don't
conform to the gender binary. Furthermore, according to a recent
study from the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network LGBT, students
(29:59):
will prevented from wearing clothing that were thought to be
from another gender, and that number was even higher for
trans students, nearly of whom have been prevented from wearing
clothes that differed from those designated for their legal sex.
That is outrageous to me. And again, we live in
a world where our world is diverse. We fall along
(30:19):
a you know, the spectrum of genders and the spectrum
of the way that we present this idea that you
can be that cut and dry with if you are this,
you wear that is so backward exactly. Transgender students nationwide
have been sent home for wearing clothing different than what's
expected of their legal sex, and others have been excluded
from yearbooks. And this includes male students who were adhering
(30:43):
to the female dress code violation standards in the research.
In Preparing for Today, I read about a transgender student
who was dressing up for a thematic day a throwback
Thursday Day, and he came in wearing a full wig
and address of sort of a throwback to nineteen fifties fashion. Notably,
the dress did cover his collar bone, and it the
(31:05):
skirt was beyond his knees. So even though it conformed
to the kinds of dress code rules that the girls
in the school, or those who identified as girls were
conforming to, he was still sent home by administrators. See again,
sometimes it seems like it's really not about helping kids
focus or making kids more safe. It's a putative thing
that's about reinforcing this very rigid set of gender ideals. Exactly.
(31:28):
That's what it's really about. It has something to do
with this arbitrary Oh if you can see, you're this
part of your body or that part of the body
who have to go home. It's about reinforcing this really
really rigid understanding of gender. And now these kinds of
dress codes are instituted in over half of public schools
across the United States. So when we come back from
a quick break, we're going to talk through what the
(31:50):
teens are doing to make a change on this front,
and how you can actually implement a dress code without
being a jerk, We'll be right back, and we're back,
and we are excited to talk through how teen girls
(32:10):
are going to save us all. Really, and teen girls
have been at the forefront of the pushback that is
rising and in the main streaming of feminism on high
school campuses nationwide. One of the ways in which teams
are pushing back on dress codes that are unfairly sexist
(32:32):
in how they're implemented, or anti trans students and anti
LGBTQ students is by using social media in a really
powerful way. Tweens and social media I would have thought exactly.
For evidence of this, just check out the hashtag I
Am more than a Distraction, which pulls up on Twitter
a ton of photos of students who are dressed seemingly
(32:54):
appropriately in a way that I wouldn't find distracting and
sent home nonetheless, So this is how parents as well
as students are saying, look at me like, this is
what gets me a high school seventeen year old girls
sent home from school, and I think when you see
some of these outfits, that's when it really becomes enraging.
One story that I could not wrap my brain around
(33:15):
was a student at Hickory Ridge High School in Harrisburg,
North Carolina, who at a four point or GP at
to full right to college. Who she was wearing. And
you know, if you look at the picture, it's fine.
It's a peasant top that kind of shows her collar
bone and kind of shows a little bit of shoulder,
basically wearing this completely fine outfit. Because of what she
was wearing, a police officer accosted her, threatened her with
(33:38):
arrest with his hand on on his gun. Right, it's
important to point out she of course as a woman
of color, so that's also part of it. And she
was threatened with having her scholarship revoked for wearing for
daring to wear a peasant top, right, I mean, they
actually gave her a two week suspension. She wasn't allowed
to graduate, and that put her scholarship at risk totally,
(34:00):
which is unbelievable that this is a girl who, by
the way, she was asked by an administrator to come
to the office at while she was eating lunch in
the cafeteria when this all went down. She didn't have
a blazer to put on, but her friend did, so
she got her friends blazer and put it on, and
they still treated her like a criminal. It's just disgusting
how this is being implemented. Yeah, And I think one
(34:22):
of the reasons why this I Am more than a
distraction hashtag is so powerful to me is that it
reinforces how punitive and arbitrary a lot of these policies
can be. Exactly exactly And remember that story about prom
where the women were paraded outside of prom and had
to walk through the gauntlet of being slut shamed by
their own administrators and school teachers. Well, that instance prompted
(34:44):
Sierra Gregorson to not only put up a change dot
org petition, but also to stage a walk out with
more of a hundred of her classmates to bring attention
to just how disgusting it was to be treated like
a sex object and few like you were being judged
as a sex object by your own teachers, in school
(35:04):
mates and classmates. And despite the media attention that was
garnered around these protests and these changed dot org petitions,
and how much this has spread like wildfire. In Sire's case,
you never really heard back from her administration. As happy
as I am to see these students really making a
lot of noise and advocating for themselves in this way,
it really shouldn't be up to them to create policies
(35:25):
that aren't awful. Um, And so what are some of
the ways that people can be better about dress codes
and uniforms and not how that be this awful, sexist,
gross experience for students exactly. I think that's a great question, Bridget,
because the the use of school dress codes can be
done well. Even teen Vogue admits as such the end
of their article on this Emily Rights listen quote. Not
(35:49):
all dress codes are harmful. Some schools have gender neutral
uniforms or guidelines that aim to teach students about what
will likely be expected of them once they leave school.
After all, our workplace guidelines for how to dress appropriately
at work that people have to learn about as well. Um,
She says, even adults adhere to certain unwritten dress codes
in different areas of life. So some of the ways
(36:11):
that schools can do this right is to first involve
students and parents early on in the formation of school
dress codes, and don't let one slut shaming parent like
decide to write the dress code for you. I think
this is absolutely something that gets more buy in from students.
When students are more involved in the decision making process
and the formulation of these rules. Another thing to consider
(36:35):
is removing really harmful language from policies, words like distraction again,
words that are going to make certain students feel like
their presence, their body something is wrong with them. Taking
those words out of the equation altogether. It can be
a great way of forming dress code policies that are
not harmful, toxic, and stupid exactly and taking out the
gender binary to exactly where you're at, and not holding
(36:56):
people who identify as women or girls to a totally
different standard it as boys. Right, just treat students like students,
that's what they are. I think it's especially important to
educate teachers, especially when it comes to things like gender
nonconforming students. Right. Teachers should know how to deal with
this in ways that aren't awful in toxic, that what
might seem innocuous and benevolent might actually make a student
(37:17):
feel uncomfortable because they're being objectified totally. And you really
never know what thing you could say that's going to
stick with a student for years. You don't know, some
something you might not even be thinking about can be
can be really shame inducing and harmful to a kid. Exactly,
not to mention distract from their ultimate goal, which is
to learn from you. They're at school to learn, So
treating all students with that level of respect is really
(37:41):
critically important. Yeah, and again, like I was saying earlier,
my ideal school uniform would have been one that's gender neutral.
I think gender neutral school uniforms can be is a
great alternative to having uniform policies that, you know, make
it very gendered. I think that's a great way to
do it in a way that's not so awful. Yeah,
I have I Still I don't think I can get
on board with uniforms. Still, I think you can be
(38:03):
chill about not objectifying students bodies without everybody having to
look the same. So there's a party of me that
just I see where you're coming from. But I also
find it unnecessary and impractical to the overarching aims of what,
especially a public school educational experience is supposed to be about.
Oh yeah, I definitely meant that more for non public schools.
I think that if you are a school, if you
(38:23):
are a private school that has a uniform, I think
that uniform That's what I'm saying. No, I totally agree
with you then, even though mine was a skirt, right exactly. Um. Also,
I mean we didn't even talk about how much of
a sex object the school girl uniform has become. I mean,
Britney spears hit me maybe one more time, right if
we were. I just think it's gross to have girls
(38:44):
parading around in outfits that people have sexualized. What's so
funny about that is that I think if there's anybody
from my high school listening, shout out to STHs, but
you would know that the girls, at least the girls
in my school, because we wore uniforms, we were the grossest, rankest,
most unwashed group of women you've ever seen in your life.
(39:04):
My my uniform was mustard staining for most of the year.
Um that that idea that you know, sexy Catholic schoolgirl,
I don't know where that came from. Not my school
came from a bunch of men. That's where more like unwashed, unshaven?
Is that skirt clean? What's that? Stay in school girl?
I love it? I love it well. I think the
(39:24):
last piece of advice we want to sort of share
here that I found really compelling is maybe flip the
script on the whole idea of school a dress codes
that overly penalized women for the way that their bodies
can be quote unquote distracting to men. Instead, consider training
the boys and the men, the administrators, the teachers not
(39:46):
to harass women. Or instead of blaming women's dress for
assault and harassment, for underscoring just how problematic that framing
can be, let's teach our boys how to stay focused,
how to be respectful, how to not judge uh, and
know that you know not everybody is going to look
exactly the way you want them to look all the time.
And I think at the end of the day, the
(40:07):
sooner we can get on board with that and allowing
not just freedom of expression, but allowing people's bodies to
not be offensively distracting to you, we can all get
down to the business of learning from each other. Definitely,
I want to have one more thing in there. If
you have a person in your school who seems to
be how can I put this. I think a lot
(40:29):
of school dress code enforcement comes from a place that
is stevie and gross and weird in a sexual way.
I think if you see that, don't be abad to
call that out. I read a lot of these stories
about male administrators and male chaperones at dances and stuff.
If that stuff seems weird, maybe it is. Yeah. Also
(40:50):
I've I've seen it in my experience from other women
coming down on This is the other thing. We never
really got to it in the episode, but before we
close out out, this also pits women against women. Remember
when I was saying about shorts, I was pointing at
my other classmate saying, well, she can wear it, and
you don't have a problem with her wearing these shorts.
But I, somehow this is a problem. We're wearing the
(41:10):
exact same thing. I heard that come up again and
again when I was watching testimony from girls who were
who made documentaries like student made documentaries around dress code
I know, right and technology tweens and social media hashtag
tweens and social media for the win um. But they
were describing how well she's wearing the exact same thing,
(41:31):
but I got in trouble for it. That makes me realize,
it's my body that's offensive. It's not the garment that's offensive.
And it does in my experience that enforcement, that power
trip that some teachers or administrators get can also reflect
an internalized misogyny of saying this is a good girl,
and this is a slut definitely, this is what a
(41:52):
good girl looks like, and this is I feel entitled
to basically slut shame women over the choices that they're
making about their own bodies. Isn't an interesting how we've
all internalized this stuff. Yeah, it's not cool. I just
think it dehumanizes the intellectual potential of a student to
make her feel the way that I felt, which was
(42:14):
ashamed and like I should be apologizing, And I just
I don't want other women or men, or those who
don't fall in that binary to feel objectivied in that
same way. That's not the kind of priorities that our
schools should be promoting, in my opinion. So we want
to hear from you on this. It's fraud. I hope.
I hope we don't sound like we just flip flopped
(42:35):
on this idea seventeen times, but it's how I feel.
I feel like this is such a fraud issue. I'd
love to shine a spotlight on any schools that you
feel are doing this well. As a parent, have your
kids come home or have you been called from the
principle's office about your kids dress this impacted your own
educational journey. We'd love to hear from you any other
(42:57):
questions you've got for them. Yeah, did you wear uniform
is when you were in school? Do your kids were uniforms?
How do you feel about them? Yeah? I'm probably one
of the only people who was super pro uniform. But
if you're not pro uniform, I want to know why. Yeah.
I we'd love to hear from me on this because
I know you were asking for this episode, and I
feel like it left me feeling more ambivalent than when
I started. But I think if anyone can save us
(43:19):
on this issue, it's between betweens, Betweens, teen Vogue, and
the internet, right, So send us a treat at mom
Stuff podcast shoot does a message on Instagram at stuff
Mom Never Told You, And as always, we love reading
your listener mail at mom Stuff at how stuff works
dot com.
Hey, this is Emily, and you're listening to stuff Mom
never told you. Today, we are tackling a topic that
has been much requested by lots of y'all on Twitter
(00:26):
and in our inbox, and I have to say that
Bridget and I were super excited to dive into this
topic of school dress codes. I was especially excited about
it because this is one of those issues that teen
girls are killing it on social media over. They are
activists and creating protests and walkouts and organizing on this
(00:49):
issue in a way that I find just also inspiring.
UM from a you know, it warms this millennial feminist
heart to see the generation coming up after us just
owning this from an organizing perspective. Anything where tween girls
are leading the way in an activism situation, I'm always
for it, all about it, and I am weirded out
(01:11):
by the fact that after diving in a little deeper
into the weeds around the research behind this, I'm feeling
more torn than when I initially started. And let's back
up a little bit. We're going to unpack all of
the all the sort of emotional journeys that we've been on.
Both Bridget and I from UM are sort of political
(01:34):
perspectives on weather dress codes are a good thing or
not for high schools, uh and for high school age
girls in particular. But I just want you to know
that this is an issue that I thought was a
lot more clear cut, which is not at all clear cut.
And I think that's part of what makes this such
a hot button issue that I'm so excited to dive
(01:54):
in on. So let's start by just looking back at
why so many schools across the United States in particular
have implemented dress codes to begin with, This was a
thing that became really really in vogue in the nineties
and two thousands, the odds, especially in part due to
the tragic rise of school shootings and the rise of
(02:18):
gang violence in high schools, and so in the nineties,
dress codes began to be more commonly implemented in the
public school arena, not just their Catholic school counterparts, which
public schools found themselves being compared to um when it
came to parents looking at school choices UM. So public
schools wanting to be competitive in that arena, wanting to
(02:41):
keep their students safe, uh and and sort of reduce
gang violence from being more of a thing in school
shootings and all that crazy goth stuff that we were
all into, UM ball chain necklaces and Jengo jeans and
as exactly so, so the rise of the school uniform
(03:03):
or the school dress code to different things, right bridget
which we want to differentiate between UM. So, according to
these proponents behind the pushing of school uniforms, they were
going to prevent gang violence, encourage discipline, helps students resist
peer pressure, and when it comes to buying trendy clothes
that limited to or wherever, helping identify intruders in the school.
(03:25):
This was especially true after the rise of or after
the Columbines shooting, which was associated with what was known
as the trench Coat Mafia. So there was a clothing
element to that act of extreme violence that also added
to the anxiety around school dress. This also belies the
(03:46):
intent of diminishing economic and social barriers between students and
increasing a sense of belonging and school pride and attendance
at school. So there's this association between discipline and the
school dress code. So I know that this episode is
about dress codes, but I went to a school with
uniforms for pretty much most of my life, and I
(04:06):
actually love my uniform, And I found all of these
things to be the case. All of the positives that
proponents of UM school uniforms and strict dress codes say,
I found to be the case of my uniform. UM.
I don't know. We didn't really have a gang issue
that I was aware of in my school, but it
definitely made me less self conscious about the clothing that
(04:26):
I chose because I wasn't a very trendy dresser, and
so I really liked just having that be eliminated from
the dynamics of school. Right you already are dealing with
so much in terms of who's popular, who's not, who's rich,
who's not. Having uniforms for me totally helped eliminate those
barriers a little bit, like the equalizing Exactly what was
your uniform like? So we had UM it was a
(04:48):
Catholic school, so we had a plaid skirt, UM a
white Oxford. Mine was always oversized. I don't know if
that was a choice or my mom just I couldn't
be bothered. UM a green It was either a green
pullover or cardigan sweater and UM knee socks and brown
tie shoes. And on special events you had to wear
your dress uniform that was Oxford shoes and a green blazer.
(05:11):
And I lost my blazer sophomore year and I got
so many detentions because of it. I never had it
when I needed it, all right, So I mean that's
a pretty typical schoolgirl uniform, isn't it. And part of
my beef with all of this stuff uniforms and dress
codes is that it boils down to, here's how we
(05:33):
approve of women's appearance in public. This is what a
woman must look like. This is what a young woman
or a girl must look like. And all the reasons
I hate it when people benevolently police our speech is
part of what I hate about the focus on a
woman's physical appearance as being not only this benevolent. Let
(05:54):
me help you avoid boys unwanted attention by telling you
how to cover up your god given body, and and
this is somehow putting the blame on you as a woman.
But also it's just like, focus on what I'm trying
to say here, people focus on what's coming out of
my brain. I'm a student, I'm here to learn. Please
stop objectifying me, even if you're a well intentioned school teacher. Right,
(06:17):
it just makes it. It dehumanizes you for a second.
It takes you out of that learning environment and says, oh,
I'm only your shorts are too short. Yeah, And just
going back to what I was saying, if I was
had my own school, I would definitely have uniforms. But
in order to avoid the thing that you were just
saying all of the gross sexist, weird stuff that comes
from the strictly enforced school dress policies, I think it'd
(06:40):
be great if schools adopted unisex uniforms. A lot of
the schools in d C d CPS, you just wear
kind of loose fitting cat loose fitting khaki pants and
an oversized polo. Everybody wears that. I think that's better
than just even even though I loved my uniform. That's
better than saying, oh, girls in public should be in
a blazer in a skirt. How girls in public should
(07:01):
show up that they are dressed for learning even though
I really liked my uniform. That's interesting. I also find
it interesting when it comes down to the issue of
free speech. So these I these dress codes, this strict
adherence to certain dress codes has not always held up
in court because it really boils down to restricting students
right to free speech, which is a constitutionally protected right
(07:24):
in the United States. And I should note this is
really only true for the public school arena, because private
schools can do whatever they want. Right, No one's forcing
you to go to private school. But in two thousand
and seven, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld a lower
court's decision to let a Vermont's student wear a T
shirt that depicted President Bush surrounded by drug and alcohol images.
(07:44):
Oh I wish I could see the shirt. It related
to his glory days of doing cocaine. It was so
the school said, this shirt is all about drug references,
and the students said, no, this is a political message.
And the Supreme Court wayed in saying that the kid
was right and that this was part of his freedom
of speech and that it wasn't about inciting or encouraging
(08:08):
drug use, which is part of the nuance here. Interestingly,
the major cases on these issues have always dealt with
men or boys, which I thought was interesting. So that's
not girls students who are being defended and upheld. It's
boys making some sort of statement with an edgy shirt. Exact,
got it? And maybe that's changing. I sure hope it is.
But the major cases that have been dealt with on
(08:31):
the Supreme Court level, especially in the two thousand's, really
had to do with high school male students UM T
shirt messages themselves. So in both cases the one I
mentioned earlier, in a later case that came out of
the San Diego High school when they suspended a student
for wearing an anti gay T shirt message. The school
(08:54):
argued that the T shirt was hateful and inflammatory, but
the Supreme Court basically vacated or set aside the vision
of a lower court that upheld the students right to
wear that UM, saying it was his freedom of speech. Well,
that I find I find so interesting is that, and
I think we talked more about this later on, But
(09:14):
girls who are getting in trouble at school because they're
wearing a spaghetti strapped tank top, they're sort of being
punished for their bodies. These are boys who are wearing
shirts that have messages on them that you know, it's
their right to wear it. Courts that determined in terms
of free speech right. But it's interesting to me that
they are the ones who are having their rights reaffirms
that upheld, and young women who are you know who
(09:36):
is re affirming they're right to have their shoulders out.
Well luckily tween right now, because this this is all
done under the guise of helping students create a safe
space for learning where they can focus on education, and
that's you know, that is the intent behind a lot
of these rules. But the outcome is that women's body
(10:00):
are policed in a way that men's bodies are not.
And on top of it all, it completely locks the
schools into this binary concept of gender. So we have
to acknowledge for our non binary gender conforming folks that
school uniform policies and strict dress codes really erase their
ability to be have their freedom of speech upheld and respected,
(10:25):
um when they're not dressing according to what the male
dress code should be is or proclaims is the right
way for a little boy to address. So the first
part of this that I think is important for us
to acknowledge is whether or not the intent to create
a safelowning environment is actually being upheld. Is that what
school uniform policies are actually doing now. Like Virginia draw
(10:48):
who is an assistant professor at Youngstown State University, I
went into this process and to the research process for
this podcast, thinking that school uniforms did really do that
at all, thinking that they didn't actually help students focus.
But as she says, after doing her research, she says, quote,
(11:09):
I came away seeing that they do, at least at
these schools, they do, and I was absolutely floored. In
her research, which reviewed sixty four public high schools in Ohio,
she concluded that schools with uniform policies improved attendance, graduation,
and reduced suspension rates. She was unable to connect uniforms
(11:29):
with academic improvement because lots of other conflicting variables around,
like changing instructional methods and curriculum, but uniformly, to put
it that way, she did find a connection between creating
those kinds of disciplined, focused student environments and school uniforms.
(11:51):
Having grown up mostly wearing uniforms, it doesn't surprise me
at all. Um. I can't speak for the suspension rate
or anything like that, because my uniform actually was a
source of discipline for me, often forgetting things or not
having things I'm supposed to have on certain days. But
I think attendance is so important because if you get
up and you're often running late, like I was pretty
(12:12):
much every single day of my life, and still I am.
If you know that you just have to grab a
wrinkled skirt from the bottom of your closet, it's the
same skirt every day. In fact, I used to when
I was in high school. I would sleep in a
pair of boxer shorts, and I would keep my uniform
in the car, so I would wear boxer shorts under
my unifor I would just basically put the skirt out
in the car so I had to. I woke up,
(12:33):
you know, five minutes before the alarm and did nothing
to get dressed, and that really did help me get
to school on time and more often. It's an interesting
dichotomy between a lack of choice and the freedom from
not having to make that that's that's tough for me.
I'm having trouble, like I feel very um ambivalent over
(12:54):
this now in a way that I didn't when I
first started. When you first started, what did you think
about I thought dress codes were total bunk. Here's the thing.
I still feel that they are in the way that
they're actually policed, in the way that they're actually enforced.
But you can't argue with the positive facts here they
say that the research is muddled. They say that the
research is inconclusive. And that's true insofar as there are
(13:14):
other researchers, like assistant professor at the University of Missouri
David Bresma, who in his two thousand and four books
reached totally different conclusions, saying that there's no positive correlation
between uniforms and school safety or uniforms and academic achievement.
But then I see stats like this one from uh
(13:36):
Nevada Middle Schools in two thousand and eight and two
thousand and nine, where researchers at the University of Nevada
Reno set out to find out what a thousand, three
fifty seventh and eighth graders thought about the implementation of
school a dress codes. Now here's the thing. Even though
like me, the majority of students reported that they disliked
wearing uniforms, so this is not a dress code, to
(13:57):
be clear, this is a uniform policy. Fifty four percent
of them agreed that they could still express their identity
freely while wearing a uniform. Fifty agreed that uniforms saved
their families money, which is an important class consideration here,
but only said that there was less gaining activity, so
the students perception of violence not a big deal, saying
(14:20):
uniforms were not strongly you know, related to gain violence.
That said, when the researchers looked into school discipline and
local police records and compared them to the prior years data,
discipline referrals were down ten percent and there were sixty
three percent fewer police log reports graffiti, fights, and gang
(14:43):
related activity. Again, that doesn't surprise me at really. I
just I feel like when I and again I know
uniforms and we're talking about dress codes, but but we're
now you could have dovetailed into uniforms, but they're sort
of related. I think when I wore my uniform, it
was just very clear to every but that we were
there to learn, and we weren't like, we weren't there
(15:04):
to hang out with friends, or it wasn't the mall,
that wasn't after school activities. It was school. And I
think in general, a Catholic school setting is very can
be very regimented and very disciplined, and having that being
reinforced in your clothing just made that easier to internalize.
I think, and again I'm speaking purely from my personal experience,
(15:25):
so other folks probably very much. Do you have different
opinions about this topic, But these numbers don't lie, and
they don't surprise me at all. Yeah, I mean, I
really would like to see what else was happening in
these communities during those years of just go change, because
maybe there were confounding effects that were unrelated to gaining activities.
It's hard for me to think that this is as
(15:47):
simple as changing your outfit and it changes your whole
philosophy around violence, but maybe not. I was a public
school kid my entire life up until college, and for me,
I distinctly remember always feeling like I was gambling with
my school outfit of the day because I was a
(16:08):
tall I am a tall kid with long legs, and
I came to learn very early that shorts that would
get my shorter classmates not in trouble I were forbidden
for me to wear. So what that made me intensely
aware of is that my body was the problem. And
I was sent home on multiple occasions, and I distinctly
remember being called out of class and I'm thinking, who
(16:30):
the hell reported me? Right? Who reports me? I'm in
math class? Like, I don't frankly want to be here either,
but you're gonna pull me out of class, Have me
sit in the principal's office, Have me call my parents,
who have jobs and we're busy working and could be
doing lots of better things than fetching me a pair
of more appropriate shorts from school. Make me feel ashamed
(16:51):
that entire time I'm sitting there, and then make my
dad feel embarrassed, like I remember seeing that shame internalized
by my own father who brought me this pair of
shorts in the middle of the school day, and sort
of like I think he wanted to apologize on my behalf,
you know what I mean. Yeah, And I think it
really messed me. I don't like that feeling. I don't
have that either. And I think, for as much as
(17:12):
it sounds like I'm saying, ra ra school uniforms, RARA
dress codes, I think, even if the data shows that
dress codes or school uniforms can improve schools in all
these different ways, what difference does it make if these
wardrobe changes show all these improved benefits for schools, if
they are implemented in ways that are sexist, shame inducing,
growth that prevent you math student Emily from getting the
(17:35):
full day's math instruction that prevent your dad from having
to be able to, you know, complete his work day,
and that our shame inducing for both you and him.
See I guess you arguing for my side of this debate.
I just see that. I just see the new one.
So let's talk more about all the potential negative ramifications
of school uniforms and dress codes after a quick break,
(18:04):
so we're back, and we have to unpack not just
the purported benefits of school uniforms in strict dress codes,
but also what some of these negative, less easily measured
ramifications might be. Because for all the research out there
on school uniforms and dress codes, I have not seen
enough research on how this can potentially negatively impact women's
(18:27):
sense of self and the messages that we're actually giving
to all students when we tell women that they need
to cover up their bodies in a way that we
don't always tell men they have to do. So, the
first negative implication to me is that this actually makes
little girls and women students like me and math class
(18:47):
in seventh grade much more conscious of our bodies, and
it makes us feel self conscious because defining what's considered
quote offensive or inappropriate is where schools can promote prejudiced policies,
even if those biases aren't intentional. They're saying that for
students who attend schools like the Woodford County High School,
(19:09):
where women's shoulders cannot be exposed and anything that reveals
their collar bone is deemed too inappropriate or somehow offensive,
you know, we're really making girls feel self conscious, ashamed,
and uncomfortable in their own bodies, which I find to
be a huge problem. It is a huge problem. And
that goes into another big drawback of dress codes in
(19:30):
school uniforms is that they imply that girls are responsible
for not quote, distracting male counterparts and that men are
entitled to their bodies. And I found this quote about
Woodford County schools to be very very telling. It is
not really the formal dress code by itself that's so discriminatory.
It's the message behind the dress code. My principle constantly
(19:51):
says that the main reason for it is to create
a distraction free learning zone for our male counterparts. And
that's really, at the end of the day, what it
comes down to for me. We should not be implementing
the school policies that make women and women identified students
feel like it is their job to do anything in
order to help male students not be distracted. Male students
(20:14):
are responsible for their own reactions. If you are a
boy and you can't handle sitting in math class next
to Emily and her shot, that is on you. That
is a personal problem, and you need to figure it
out because it's on you to graduate, not her. And
I think these policies they do make it seem like, oh,
little Johnny can't help it. It's up to you to
change your behavior, change how you show up, and a
(20:34):
lot of times change your own comfort to make sure
that little Johnny can pass me exactly. And it perpetuates
this idea that boys will be boys, which is patronizing
and insulting quite frankly to the free will of men
and boys out there, And it also does them a
disservice in my opinion, of giving them this sense of
(20:55):
entitlement over women should be punished for their behavior vier
that incites bad behavior on men and boys parts. It
makes sense, It makes total sense. It reminds me so
much of the episode we did around nipples, where in
certain in one county, even though it was legal for
women to be topless. The police tried to stop them
from doing so because they were worried about the reaction
of male motorists. And again, male motorists, they are responsed.
(21:18):
They're the ones driving cars. They are responsible for their
own ability to drive a car. If they see a
woman topless and they crash their car, that is on them. Yes,
I think teen Vogue put it brilliantly, as teen Vogue
has a way of doing when they really asked, like,
what message are we sending to boys anyhow with this stuff.
Emily Lyndon put it perfectly when she wrote in teen
(21:41):
Vogue saying, you know what, I agree, boys probably will
find your body to be a distraction during class. Boys
are sexually curious as our people of all genders. No
matter what, we are going to be distracted by each
other's bodies sometimes. But why is that a problem. At
some point, boys are going to need to learn how
to be productive despite the presence of female bodies. They're
(22:04):
going to need to figure out how to be seated
next to someone with cleavage and still write that paper,
finish that math problem, set or do whatever it is
they have to get down without losing their cool. They
need to learn to manage distractions, but more importantly for everyone,
they need to learn to manage what they do when
they find themselves turned on by another person's body. There's
no avoiding it throughout their lives. Straight boys are going
(22:25):
to be turned on by women they see on the street,
coworkers and acquaintances. They need to be able to recognize
those feelings and then decide not to act on them.
And I think that's exactly it. You know, in life
as adults, we are distracted by each other. We live
in a society. I don't like this message that we're
sending boys that they can sort of pluck out these distractions,
(22:45):
whether they're sexual distractions or other correct distractions. We live
in a society. You have to learn how to deal
with it. I am distracted all the time by bodies,
by other things, and you know what I do. I
deal with it. And I don't think we should be
teaching boys to expect the society will cater to them
and their desires and distractions exactly. And it also sends
this message to little boys that we assume their naturally predatory,
(23:09):
which is disingenuous and not a good message to reinforce that, oh,
we don't expect you to have free will or self control.
You know that it's sort of justifies. It's like the
person who asks after someone reports being raped, well, what
were you wearing? Right? And I also think, honestly, if
you impact this enough, it's really insulting to boys. It
really does not send the message that boys can be respected,
(23:30):
that boys can be free agents of their own desires
and wills. It assumes that they're not to just be
in society the way anyone else is exactly, which is insulting.
It is insulting. And talk about learning disruptions. If we
want to help boys stay focused in this case, or
help all students stay focused, does pulling people out of
(23:51):
class because of dress code violations really achieve that end?
I mean, do you remember when you were in school
and someone would come in to give a note to
the teacher. The whole would be like, everyone stop and
look at someone's getting a note, Like the whole class
will come crashing down. As a former teacher, those kinds
of things are distractions. It's a distraction for the teacher,
for the person pulled out of class who's missing thirty
(24:13):
minutes of math or whatever, and for the students around you.
Everyone's time to be better spent on other things. Exactly.
In some instances, these girls were not only pulled from
class and asked to change, but if their parents couldn't
take the entire day off, some schools have them sit
in detention for the rest of the school day to
keep them from distracting their male counterparts. Because what they're
(24:35):
actually saying by that is her education is less of
a priority than the education of the boys who could
possibly be distracted. And that just to add another wrinkle
of enragement on that. For me, that seems so classist,
right if you were the kind of student who your
your parents doesn't have the kind of job or they
can just go or you know, maybe they give you
(24:56):
if you're if your parent is a is a low
wage worker and can't doesn't have the kind of job
where they can just decide to leave and come get
you or whatever, you are then forced to sit in detention.
So compared to that to a classmate who already has
the privilege of having a parent stay at home and
not work. Your parent can come and bring you an
extra pair of shorts, and you get to go back
to math class and go back to learning. But the
(25:17):
student who doesn't have that kind of home life, they
don't they have to sit in detention for the rest
of the day. Schools are supposed to be the great
equalizer of opportunity exactly. That's what you're what you're saying,
which is if we're going to actually provide a level
playing field for students through public education, we have to
live true to that and understand where classism can impact
(25:37):
the execution of that intention behind public education exactly. That
that's what I think is is troubling me so much.
It's the way that it's not not an equal playing
field along the lines of gender, along the lines of class.
It's very clear to me that there's a hierarchy of
who this works best for, and that is seemingly male students,
and who this doesn't work out for exactly. And I'm
(25:57):
sure parents listening and know the drill of you know,
having kids does sometimes mean getting that call in the
middle of the day from the principal's office or getting
the call from the school nurse when you have a
child who needs to be picked up right. It's like
of all the challenges that working parents face in today's society, which,
by the way, our work lives do not always cater
(26:17):
to parents needs and do not always understand when a
parent needs to pick up a sick child who's in
need of retrieval for a real, legit medical emergency. We
have to add this to the plate of working parents.
We have to add this on top of everything else
that schools are are deciding as a priority for parents
to worry about. It just seems not essential, and it
(26:39):
seems to me more of a distraction from their education
than the idea of creating a less distracting environment. And
also the shame that these girls, primarily who are pulled
from class experience can be doubly traumatic. Not only are
you missing out on your education, but you're then sitting
in the principal's office or some of these schools forced
those girls to wag a big oversized T shirts that
(27:02):
have lettering on them saying dress code violator. That is
some scarlet letter style exactly. And it gets even worse
around prom season. Jessica Valenti, one of my favorite writers
who shared this take in her column for The Guardian UK,
writes of a young woman in Virginia who was kicked
out of her prom because the father's attending the event
(27:26):
thought her dress was giving rise to quote impure thoughts.
What the hell this is a seventeen year old girl
who is sent home from her prom because a bunch
of leering dads were getting turned on like I had growth.
Every one of those dads needs to be like investigated
or something. I also can't imagine being a champerone as
a parent at an event like prom and have something
(27:48):
to say about a minor in that way. I can't
even wrap my head around. Now that's someone's well, this
is super, super real and common now. At prom in
thousand fourteen, and staff at Bingham High School in South Jordan,
Utah turned away a dozen girls whose dresses they deemed
to show too much skin. Even the girls who were
(28:08):
allowed to attend the dance had to go through the
ordeal of being scrutinized and judged because they were girls.
They write in teen Vogue about a hundred girls total
were stopped and examined. During this examination, they were like
told to raise their arms and turn around and like
bend over. This is not a prison cell, people, They're
not being searched, Okay, They're treated like criminals who are
(28:32):
already expected to be in violation and then having to
put on this disgusting performance in front of teachers who
are then judging how slutty their students are, and what
a stupid thing to like How is that not like?
How is that not setting teachers up to feel uncomfortable
and students to feel uncomfortable. I feel like, if you
don't feel uncomfortable in that situation, something up, Like if
(28:54):
you were like, oh, yes, my favorite part of prom
when the girls jiggle and see if a boom pops out,
you should be in a school exactly. I just think
what's awful is that the reason why these young ladies
are going through that is just for being a woman,
just for having a body. And I think, you know,
we wonder where we get these really messed up ideas
(29:14):
that we internalize about our bodies. We wonder where they
come from their rained in all levels of our society.
Absolutely bridget And one of the final negative impacts that
I really want to make sure we cover today is
the fact that dress codes like this completely erase the
presence of non gender conforming students. It forces a false
(29:38):
binary on student administrators who have to enforce this stuff
as well as make it even more uncomfortable and challenging
for students who identify as trans or students who don't
conform to the gender binary. Furthermore, according to a recent
study from the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network LGBT, students
(29:59):
will prevented from wearing clothing that were thought to be
from another gender, and that number was even higher for
trans students, nearly of whom have been prevented from wearing
clothes that differed from those designated for their legal sex.
That is outrageous to me. And again, we live in
a world where our world is diverse. We fall along
(30:19):
a you know, the spectrum of genders and the spectrum
of the way that we present this idea that you
can be that cut and dry with if you are this,
you wear that is so backward exactly. Transgender students nationwide
have been sent home for wearing clothing different than what's
expected of their legal sex, and others have been excluded
from yearbooks. And this includes male students who were adhering
(30:43):
to the female dress code violation standards in the research.
In Preparing for Today, I read about a transgender student
who was dressing up for a thematic day a throwback
Thursday Day, and he came in wearing a full wig
and address of sort of a throwback to nineteen fifties fashion. Notably,
the dress did cover his collar bone, and it the
(31:05):
skirt was beyond his knees. So even though it conformed
to the kinds of dress code rules that the girls
in the school, or those who identified as girls were
conforming to, he was still sent home by administrators. See again,
sometimes it seems like it's really not about helping kids
focus or making kids more safe. It's a putative thing
that's about reinforcing this very rigid set of gender ideals. Exactly.
(31:28):
That's what it's really about. It has something to do
with this arbitrary Oh if you can see, you're this
part of your body or that part of the body
who have to go home. It's about reinforcing this really
really rigid understanding of gender. And now these kinds of
dress codes are instituted in over half of public schools
across the United States. So when we come back from
a quick break, we're going to talk through what the
(31:50):
teens are doing to make a change on this front,
and how you can actually implement a dress code without
being a jerk, We'll be right back, and we're back,
and we are excited to talk through how teen girls
(32:10):
are going to save us all. Really, and teen girls
have been at the forefront of the pushback that is
rising and in the main streaming of feminism on high
school campuses nationwide. One of the ways in which teams
are pushing back on dress codes that are unfairly sexist
(32:32):
in how they're implemented, or anti trans students and anti
LGBTQ students is by using social media in a really
powerful way. Tweens and social media I would have thought exactly.
For evidence of this, just check out the hashtag I
Am more than a Distraction, which pulls up on Twitter
a ton of photos of students who are dressed seemingly
(32:54):
appropriately in a way that I wouldn't find distracting and
sent home nonetheless, So this is how parents as well
as students are saying, look at me like, this is
what gets me a high school seventeen year old girls
sent home from school, and I think when you see
some of these outfits, that's when it really becomes enraging.
One story that I could not wrap my brain around
(33:15):
was a student at Hickory Ridge High School in Harrisburg,
North Carolina, who at a four point or GP at
to full right to college. Who she was wearing. And
you know, if you look at the picture, it's fine.
It's a peasant top that kind of shows her collar
bone and kind of shows a little bit of shoulder,
basically wearing this completely fine outfit. Because of what she
was wearing, a police officer accosted her, threatened her with
(33:38):
arrest with his hand on on his gun. Right, it's
important to point out she of course as a woman
of color, so that's also part of it. And she
was threatened with having her scholarship revoked for wearing for
daring to wear a peasant top, right, I mean, they
actually gave her a two week suspension. She wasn't allowed
to graduate, and that put her scholarship at risk totally,
(34:00):
which is unbelievable that this is a girl who, by
the way, she was asked by an administrator to come
to the office at while she was eating lunch in
the cafeteria when this all went down. She didn't have
a blazer to put on, but her friend did, so
she got her friends blazer and put it on, and
they still treated her like a criminal. It's just disgusting
how this is being implemented. Yeah, And I think one
(34:22):
of the reasons why this I Am more than a
distraction hashtag is so powerful to me is that it
reinforces how punitive and arbitrary a lot of these policies
can be. Exactly exactly And remember that story about prom
where the women were paraded outside of prom and had
to walk through the gauntlet of being slut shamed by
their own administrators and school teachers. Well, that instance prompted
(34:44):
Sierra Gregorson to not only put up a change dot
org petition, but also to stage a walk out with
more of a hundred of her classmates to bring attention
to just how disgusting it was to be treated like
a sex object and few like you were being judged
as a sex object by your own teachers, in school
(35:04):
mates and classmates. And despite the media attention that was
garnered around these protests and these changed dot org petitions,
and how much this has spread like wildfire. In Sire's case,
you never really heard back from her administration. As happy
as I am to see these students really making a
lot of noise and advocating for themselves in this way,
it really shouldn't be up to them to create policies
(35:25):
that aren't awful. Um, And so what are some of
the ways that people can be better about dress codes
and uniforms and not how that be this awful, sexist,
gross experience for students exactly. I think that's a great question, Bridget,
because the the use of school dress codes can be
done well. Even teen Vogue admits as such the end
of their article on this Emily Rights listen quote. Not
(35:49):
all dress codes are harmful. Some schools have gender neutral
uniforms or guidelines that aim to teach students about what
will likely be expected of them once they leave school.
After all, our workplace guidelines for how to dress appropriately
at work that people have to learn about as well. Um,
She says, even adults adhere to certain unwritten dress codes
in different areas of life. So some of the ways
(36:11):
that schools can do this right is to first involve
students and parents early on in the formation of school
dress codes, and don't let one slut shaming parent like
decide to write the dress code for you. I think
this is absolutely something that gets more buy in from students.
When students are more involved in the decision making process
and the formulation of these rules. Another thing to consider
(36:35):
is removing really harmful language from policies, words like distraction again,
words that are going to make certain students feel like
their presence, their body something is wrong with them. Taking
those words out of the equation altogether. It can be
a great way of forming dress code policies that are
not harmful, toxic, and stupid exactly and taking out the
gender binary to exactly where you're at, and not holding
(36:56):
people who identify as women or girls to a totally
different standard it as boys. Right, just treat students like students,
that's what they are. I think it's especially important to
educate teachers, especially when it comes to things like gender
nonconforming students. Right. Teachers should know how to deal with
this in ways that aren't awful in toxic, that what
might seem innocuous and benevolent might actually make a student
(37:17):
feel uncomfortable because they're being objectified totally. And you really
never know what thing you could say that's going to
stick with a student for years. You don't know, some
something you might not even be thinking about can be
can be really shame inducing and harmful to a kid. Exactly,
not to mention distract from their ultimate goal, which is
to learn from you. They're at school to learn, So
treating all students with that level of respect is really
(37:41):
critically important. Yeah, and again, like I was saying earlier,
my ideal school uniform would have been one that's gender neutral.
I think gender neutral school uniforms can be is a
great alternative to having uniform policies that, you know, make
it very gendered. I think that's a great way to
do it in a way that's not so awful. Yeah,
I have I Still I don't think I can get
on board with uniforms. Still, I think you can be
(38:03):
chill about not objectifying students bodies without everybody having to
look the same. So there's a party of me that
just I see where you're coming from. But I also
find it unnecessary and impractical to the overarching aims of what,
especially a public school educational experience is supposed to be about.
Oh yeah, I definitely meant that more for non public schools.
I think that if you are a school, if you
(38:23):
are a private school that has a uniform, I think
that uniform That's what I'm saying. No, I totally agree
with you then, even though mine was a skirt, right exactly. Um. Also,
I mean we didn't even talk about how much of
a sex object the school girl uniform has become. I mean,
Britney spears hit me maybe one more time, right if
we were. I just think it's gross to have girls
(38:44):
parading around in outfits that people have sexualized. What's so
funny about that is that I think if there's anybody
from my high school listening, shout out to STHs, but
you would know that the girls, at least the girls
in my school, because we wore uniforms, we were the grossest, rankest,
most unwashed group of women you've ever seen in your life.
(39:04):
My my uniform was mustard staining for most of the year.
Um that that idea that you know, sexy Catholic schoolgirl,
I don't know where that came from. Not my school
came from a bunch of men. That's where more like unwashed, unshaven?
Is that skirt clean? What's that? Stay in school girl?
I love it? I love it well. I think the
(39:24):
last piece of advice we want to sort of share
here that I found really compelling is maybe flip the
script on the whole idea of school a dress codes
that overly penalized women for the way that their bodies
can be quote unquote distracting to men. Instead, consider training
the boys and the men, the administrators, the teachers not
(39:46):
to harass women. Or instead of blaming women's dress for
assault and harassment, for underscoring just how problematic that framing
can be, let's teach our boys how to stay focused,
how to be respectful, how to not judge uh, and
know that you know not everybody is going to look
exactly the way you want them to look all the time.
And I think at the end of the day, the
(40:07):
sooner we can get on board with that and allowing
not just freedom of expression, but allowing people's bodies to
not be offensively distracting to you, we can all get
down to the business of learning from each other. Definitely,
I want to have one more thing in there. If
you have a person in your school who seems to
be how can I put this. I think a lot
(40:29):
of school dress code enforcement comes from a place that
is stevie and gross and weird in a sexual way.
I think if you see that, don't be abad to
call that out. I read a lot of these stories
about male administrators and male chaperones at dances and stuff.
If that stuff seems weird, maybe it is. Yeah. Also
(40:50):
I've I've seen it in my experience from other women
coming down on This is the other thing. We never
really got to it in the episode, but before we
close out out, this also pits women against women. Remember
when I was saying about shorts, I was pointing at
my other classmate saying, well, she can wear it, and
you don't have a problem with her wearing these shorts.
But I, somehow this is a problem. We're wearing the
(41:10):
exact same thing. I heard that come up again and
again when I was watching testimony from girls who were
who made documentaries like student made documentaries around dress code
I know, right and technology tweens and social media hashtag
tweens and social media for the win um. But they
were describing how well she's wearing the exact same thing,
(41:31):
but I got in trouble for it. That makes me realize,
it's my body that's offensive. It's not the garment that's offensive.
And it does in my experience that enforcement, that power
trip that some teachers or administrators get can also reflect
an internalized misogyny of saying this is a good girl,
and this is a slut definitely, this is what a
(41:52):
good girl looks like, and this is I feel entitled
to basically slut shame women over the choices that they're
making about their own bodies. Isn't an interesting how we've
all internalized this stuff. Yeah, it's not cool. I just
think it dehumanizes the intellectual potential of a student to
make her feel the way that I felt, which was
(42:14):
ashamed and like I should be apologizing, And I just
I don't want other women or men, or those who
don't fall in that binary to feel objectivied in that
same way. That's not the kind of priorities that our
schools should be promoting, in my opinion. So we want
to hear from you on this. It's fraud. I hope.
I hope we don't sound like we just flip flopped
(42:35):
on this idea seventeen times, but it's how I feel.
I feel like this is such a fraud issue. I'd
love to shine a spotlight on any schools that you
feel are doing this well. As a parent, have your
kids come home or have you been called from the
principle's office about your kids dress this impacted your own
educational journey. We'd love to hear from you any other
(42:57):
questions you've got for them. Yeah, did you wear uniform
is when you were in school? Do your kids were uniforms?
How do you feel about them? Yeah? I'm probably one
of the only people who was super pro uniform. But
if you're not pro uniform, I want to know why. Yeah.
I we'd love to hear from me on this because
I know you were asking for this episode, and I
feel like it left me feeling more ambivalent than when
I started. But I think if anyone can save us
(43:19):
on this issue, it's between betweens, Betweens, teen Vogue, and
the internet, right, So send us a treat at mom
Stuff podcast shoot does a message on Instagram at stuff
Mom Never Told You, And as always, we love reading
your listener mail at mom Stuff at how stuff works
dot com.
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