the principal at my school made an announcement yesterday that the girls need to start covering up and then i found this in the hallway
BOOM.
Last month, a New Jersey middle school banned girls from wearing strapless dresses to prom. Administrators claimed that the dresses were “distracting” — though they refused to specify exactly how or why. Parents reacted strongly to the rule; some supported the dress code while others deemed it “slut-shaming.” On Friday, the school compromised by allowing girls to wear single-strap or see-through-strap dresses.
This is no isolated incident in the United States. Across the country, young girls are being told what not to wear because it might be a “distraction” for boys, or because adults decide it makes them look “inappropriate.” At its core, every incident has a common thread: Putting the onus on young women to prevent from being ogled or objectified, instead of teaching those responsible to learn to respect a woman’s body. Here are five other recent examples:
1. A middle school in California banned tight pants. At the beginning of last month, a middle school in Northern California began telling girls to avoid wearing pants that are “too tight” because it “distracts the boys.” At a mandatory assembly for just the female students, the middle school girls were told that they’re no longer allowed to wear leggings or yoga pants. “We didn’t think it was fair how we have all these restrictions on our clothing while boys didn’t have to sit through [the assembly] at all,” one student told local press. Some parents also complained, leading the school’s assistant principal to record a voicemail explaining the new policy. “The guiding principle in all dress codes is that the manner in which students dress does not become a distraction in the learning environment,” the message said.
2. A high school principal in Minnesota emailed parents to ask them to cover up their daughters. A principal in Minnetonka, MN recently wrote an email telling parents to stop letting their daughters wear leggings or yoga pants to school. He says the tight-fitting pants are fine with longer shirts but, when worn with a shorter top, a girl’s “backside” can be “too closely defined.” The big risk of having a defined backside, he thinks, is that it can “be highly distracting for other students.”
3. Two girls in Ohio were turned away from their prom for being “improperly dressed.” Laneisha Williams and Nyasia Mitchell were barred from prom this spring for wearing dresses that administrators considered “too revealing.” The girls say that they didn’t believe they were violating a dress code that said dresses couldn’t be too short or show too much cleavage. But one administrator told local news that the high school girls were only allowed to wear dresses that had “no curvature of their breasts showing.”
4. A kindergarten student in Georgia was forced to change her “short” skirt because it was a “distraction to other students.” It’s hard to imagine that a kindergartener’s outfit could be “a distraction to other students,” but a mother in Georgia told locals news there that her daughter had been outfitted in someone else’s pants — without parental permission — after the principal deemed the skirt the young girl was wearing too short.” The girl had apparently wore the skirt, and accompanying leggings, just one week before without incident.
5. Forty high school girls were sent home from a winter dance in California after “degrading” clothing inspections “bordering on sexual harassment.” A school board member’s daughter was among the 40 girls turned away from Capistrano Valley High’s February dance for wearing dresses that either exposed their midriffs or were cut too low. Before the dance, girls were apparently required to flap their arms up and down and turn around for male administrators’ inspection. The school issues image guidelines for appropriate dress on its website — though the images were nearly all of women, and the only male image depicted proper attire. One girl alleges that the principal told her, “Not all dresses look good on certain body shapes.” A grandmother of one of the girls who was turned away from the dance also said that a teacher remarked about her granddaughter, “What mother would allow her daughter to wear a dress like that?” Apparently the school did receive some praise, though, from the parents of two male students.
When most Americans think about “rape culture,” they may think about the Steubenville boys’ defense arguing that an unconscious girl consented to her sexual assault because she “didn’t say no,” the school administrators who choose to protect their star athletes over those boys’ rape victims, or the bullying that led multiple victims of sexual assault to take their own lives. While those incidences of victim-blaming are certainly symptoms of a deeply-rooted rape culture in this country, they’re not the only examples of this dynamic at play. Rape culture is also evident in the attitudes that lead school administrators to treat young girls’ bodies as inherently “distracting” to the boys who simply can’t control themselves. That approach to gender roles simply encourages our youth to assume that sexual crimes must have something to do with women’s “suggestive” clothes or behavior, rather than teaching them that every individual is responsible for respecting others’ bodily autonomy.
reasons I’m glad I’m not in high school anymore: this shit right here
This is TOTAL. FUCKING. BULLSHIT. I would be more articulate but it’s 5am. This makes me so angry.
guys should start wearing tight pants then. and giant v neck or half unbuttoned shirts
see if those schools ban them or not.
Rape culture claims another victim: A teen ends her life after a photo of her alleged gang rape goes viral.
Not being assaulted is not a privilege to be earned through the judicious application of personal safety strategies. A woman should be able to walk down the street at 4 in the morning in nothing but her socks, blind drunk, without being assaulted, and I, for one, am not going to do anything to imply that she is in any way responsible for her own assault if she fails to Adequately Protect Herself. Men aren’t helpless dick-driven maniacs who can’t help raping a vulnerable woman. It disrespects EVERYONE.
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| — |
There are two arguments I’ve noticed
So basically we have to prepare ourselves all the time, but if we ever give a man the sense that we view them as a misogynistic/violent threat - that’s unfair hmm… (via newwavefeminism) |
What in the actual f*ck is this world coming to? Seriously. Suspension isn’t enough. This man doesn’t deserve to be on the air. *grr* :(disgusting. this cannot be tolerated.
Suspended? He suggested a man have his daughter raped. Get the dude outta there for good.
I don’t know if rape jokes encourage rape culture. I don’t care. You still shouldn’t tell them.
Statistically, if you have told a rape joke to a group of more than five people, one of the people you told it to was a rape survivor, possibly of multiple rapes. They will not necessarily disclose this to you; rape apologism is endemic in society and most rape survivors are cautious about whom they tell. Some may even be too ashamed of their rape to admit it to anyone, or because of rape-minimizing narratives like “men can’t be raped” and “I consented to oral, so I couldn’t have been raped” may not admit it even to themselves. The fact remains: if you’ve told dozens of rape jokes in your life, then you have almost certainly told a joke that minimizes or trivializes rape in front of a survivor.
And if you put as your Facebook status “I totally raped at Halo today” for your two hundred Facebook friends to see, statistically, you have just reminded thirty-three people of one of the worst experiences of their entire lives.
To describe how well you did at a video game.
Good job!
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| — | An Addendum, On Rape Jokes. (via goddesshyperion) |
(via imgTumble)This is from the slut walk. One of the arguments is that girls ask for rape because they wear slutty clothes, short skirts, tight, low-cut tops. This girl is an example of the fact that rape victims can look like anyone, you, me, this girl. Rapists. Dont. Discriminate.
Forever reblog.I promised a long time ago that I’d reblog this whenever I saw it on my dash. No regrets, it breaks my heart every single time.
an incredibly important message, rape is rape. no one is ever asking for it. a woman has the right to dress how ever they want - it is society that identifies risque dressing as ‘asking for it’, and in my opinion, that way of thinking needs to be diminished.
always reblog
That way of thinking shouldn’t be diminished: it should be destroyed.
always always always reblog.
very powerful.
Forever I will reblog.
this must have taken so much courage.
reblog this every time I see it
forever reblog. any time it’s on my dash
Forever reblog your hearts out, but please, please take notice that this individual is a BOY. I’ve known him for almost 3 years (in person) and he is one of the most incredible young men I have ever met. Just please, please recognize the fact that he is a young man, and not a young woman.
reblogging for image and all this very important commentary ^^^
feelfreetotakethis-personally:
This is disgusting. Especially the last two minutes or so. And to think that things like that happen all the time. It’s completely disgusting and terrifying. It’s ridiculous that I should have to clutch my pepper spray in one hand and hold each of my keys between my fingers like knives when I’m outside at night. It’s ridiculous that each of my sister’s boyfriends and old boyfriends felt obligated to get them pepper spray as a gift. We shouldn’t have to be frightened every time we’re out alone at night- or even when we’re not alone. I shouldn’t have to have a super heightened sense of awareness and be looking around me at all times just in case someone should attack me. I shouldn’t be expected to take cat calls on the street as a compliment when I’m simply walking and not wearing or doing anything provocative. I’m completely disgusted with our society and I’m glad that I have younger brothers instead of sisters and I’m glad they’re close with my mother because at least we can teach them how to treat women and they will most likely never have to worry about what I do or carry around pepper spray with them.
