On Tuesday, Oct. 1, during a brain break, Assistant director Bridget Hughes pulled me out to warn me about the “‘suggestive nature” of my outfit. My outfit was deemed inappropriate by some teachers, thus getting reported, and leading to a warning that I can’t wear anything else that could be mistaken for lingerie.
I had questions and ended up missing about twenty minutes of my class; the expected reaction from me was probably compliance. I’d like to give credit where it’s due and say my thanks for being given the opportunity to ask questions and for the administration’s clear intention not to be sexist or generally problematic with the dress code.
However, harm was done, despite kind-hearted intentions. I would like the dress code to draw a clear line — beyond a subjective statement of what adults in the school think is suggestive for students to wear.
I used to struggle a lot with having a positive body image. Only in the last two years, thanks to Uni’s positive environment, did I start building the confidence to wear crop tops let alone corset tops. Only this year did I start truly appreciating my body and stop feeling scared to dress in clothes that I actually like, that express who I am — even when those clothes don’t hide my body. I was the first and only person so far (in, I believe, the past few years) to be dress coded for dressing “suggestively”.
Now, every day before school, I double check my outfits to make sure they won’t get me in trouble. More than that, I’m uncomfortable knowing that as I walk down the hallways, there are adults looking at my body and my clothes deciding whether or not I’m dressed suggestively. I know that the administration wants to prepare people for the real world. but I don’t think replicating its injustices is the way to go about it.
I think the best course of action is to change the student code of conduct and not have the rules rely on what teachers deem “distracting,” because that word carries a lot of sexist implications. I also think the rules should be clear, so that there’s less room for bias in dress coding, since our system is based on reports from teachers and students.
Examples of clear lines would be all the examples in the current Code of Conduct. All of these examples are about words and pictures that are explicitly violent, suggestive, or depicting illegal products for students (eg. beer). While I think dress codes as a whole are crazy and disproportionately looking at girls’ bodies and clothes, if we’re going to enforce rules that have rarely been enforced in recent years, they should be clear. With the current dress code, what one teacher may deem “suggestive” for the fifteen-year-old in their class, another teacher may not even notice, because the standards are subjective.
