It seems like you can’t open a browser window nowadays without confronting news that another school or university is catching flack over a dress code singling women out. But is there a way for schools and universities to tell students how to dress without it coming across as sexist?
For generations, dress codes in American schools hummed along relatively unchallenged and un-objected to, at least on a scale large enough to prompt anything to change. If a nun rapped you across the knuckles for rolling the waist of your uniform skirt and violating the fingertip rule, the most powerful people a savvy teen could complain to were her parents. Not anymore. Now, thanks to the ubiquity of the internet and the insatiable desire of the public to consume and share outrage, getting away with a bullshit sexist dress code is more difficult than ever. With that in mind, here are some surefire ways for schools to check themselves before wrecking themselves. If the answers to any of these questions are sexist, then yes, Virginia, your school dress code probably sucks.
Does the dress code specifically target women and not men?
The University of Texas-Austin Nursing School has removed dress code signs it posted earlier this week after critics rightfully pointed out that that the signs which banned such sartorial sins as visible cleavage and “low rise pants,” (which is insane because I have no idea where a person would even buy late 90’s Britney-style low rise pants 15 years after they stopped being fashionable) were sexist as hell. Revealing clothing “distracts” from the learning environment, say the signs. Distracts whom? The teachers? Maybe schools having difficulty with students who are “distracted” should consider disciplining the distracted entities rather than the students who dare wear a shirt that reveals top boob meat.
Look: I understand the desire a school might have to encourage students to dress respectfully and semi-professionally; out-of-the-ordinary or extreme clothing is distracting on a purely asexual level. Could you study next to a guy in a clown suit? Or a woman wearing an enormous Pharrell hat that plays music? I couldn’t. The key is to make it clear that both men and women need to adhere to any rules put in place, and that the rules are to ensure student focus is on the instructor rather than on other students.