The following article was in the September issue of The Tiger Print. Read the article (even if you already have) and respond to it below. What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Consider all perspectives of the article while you respond.
I completely and absolutely agree with the girl who wrote this article. I have also been told I was dressing inappropriate and I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. As an exchange student from Austria, I can tell you that boys are indeed able to concentrate, even if they see a bare shoulder, thighs or a little bit cleavage.
The fact that this kind of attire is a "distracting learning environment" for male students, is just stupid to me. (Sorry to all the people who support this argument)
And even if that is the problem, wouldn't the right way to address this problem be by teaching boys ways to concentrate?
The female body gets objectified enough in the media, to continue this in school is awful to me. Young girls are confronted with objectified female bodies everywhere. That teachers and administrators continue the objectifying in school only makes it worse. Clothing is a way to express yourself, to find yourself. If a young girl feels comfortable in Spaghetti straps and Shorts, shouldn't she be able to wear these things? Especially in the country of freedom?
I am sure this school has bigger problems, than how girls dress. For example some classrooms that are leaking. Or the food served in the cafeteria.
There are more important problems, like mobbing, drugs, the schoolsystem in general, teachers who don't do a good job. I don't see a reason to talk about the way girls dress (I have not heard of a single boy being affected from this dress code, so I'm just not going to include them) when there's so many other problems.
It is also hard for me to understand, how teachers and administrators can see the problem of if a girl dresses inappropriate more pressing than teaching in a good way. I have seen way more skin in my school back home. I have seen girls dressing in shorter shorts and deeper cleavages. And guess what? I have not heard of a single person that couldn't concentrate because of that.
In fact, the dress code is just one more thing female students have to worry about, when there is already enough to worry about. Their grades, other's and their own expectations, dreams, college, their Future, their Past, their homework and the list goes on and on...
So, summarily, what buggs me the most about this dress-code, is how it teaches everyone that sexism and objectifying of women is okay, and it is basically a light form of what rape culture is.
We are putting the blame on women and girls who show their shoulders, their thighs. Administrators and Teachers are telling us to cover ourselves, because society has objectified our bodies so much, we can't show them anymore, because it is to distracting. Men have shoulders too. Boys at this school show their shoulders too. I don't see anyone complaining about them.
