{"id":1394,"date":"2013-05-08T05:53:53","date_gmt":"2013-05-08T05:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/?p=1394"},"modified":"2026-06-24T05:49:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T05:49:34","slug":"how-slut-shaming-has-been-written-into-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/?p=1394","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018Slut Shaming\u2019 Has Been Written Into School Dress Codes Across The Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

How \u2018Slut Shaming\u2019 Has Been Written Into School Dress Codes Across The Country<\/a><\/p>\n

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fairest-fairy<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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ejacutastic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Last month, a New Jersey middle school\u00a0banned girls<\/a>\u00a0from wearing strapless dresses to prom. Administrators claimed that the dresses were \u201cdistracting\u201d \u2014 though they refused to specify exactly how or why. Parents reacted strongly to the rule; some supported the dress code while others\u00a0deemed it<\/a>\u00a0\u201cslut-shaming.\u201d On Friday, the school\u00a0compromised<\/a>\u00a0by allowing girls to wear single-strap or see-through-strap dresses.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cdistraction\u201d for boys, or because adults decide it makes them look \u201cinappropriate.\u201d 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\u2019s body. Here are five other recent examples:<\/p>\n

1. A middle school in California banned tight pants.<\/strong>\u00a0At the beginning of last month, a middle school in Northern California began telling girls to avoid wearing pants that are \u201ctoo tight\u201d because it \u201cdistracts the boys<\/a>.\u201d At a mandatory assembly for just the female students, the middle school girls were told that they\u2019re no longer allowed to wear leggings or yoga pants. \u201cWe didn\u2019t think it was fair how we have all these restrictions on our clothing while boys didn\u2019t have to sit through [the assembly] at all,\u201d one student\u00a0told local press<\/a>. Some parents also complained, leading the school\u2019s assistant principal to\u00a0record a voicemail<\/a>\u00a0explaining the new policy. \u201cThe guiding principle in all dress codes is that the manner in which students dress does not become a distraction in the learning environment,\u201d the message said.<\/p>\n

2. A high school principal in Minnesota emailed parents to ask them to cover up their daughters.<\/strong>\u00a0A 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\u2019s \u201cbackside\u201d can be \u201ctoo closely defined.\u201d The big risk of having a defined backside, he thinks, is that it can \u201cbe highly distracting for other students<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Two girls in Ohio were turned away from their prom for being \u201cimproperly dressed.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0Laneisha Williams and Nyasia Mitchell were barred from prom this spring for wearing dresses that administrators considered \u201ctoo revealing.\u201d The girls say that they didn\u2019t believe they were violating a dress code that said dresses couldn\u2019t 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 \u201cno curvature of their breasts showing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. A kindergarten student in Georgia was forced to change her \u201cshort\u201d skirt because it was a \u201cdistraction to other students.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s hard to imagine that a kindergartener\u2019s outfit could be \u201ca distraction to other students,\u201d but a mother in Georgia told locals news there that her daughter had been outfitted in someone else\u2019s pants \u2014 without parental permission \u2014 after the principal deemed the skirt the young girl was wearing\u00a0too short<\/a>.\u201d The girl had apparently wore the skirt, and accompanying leggings, just one week before without incident.<\/p>\n

5. Forty high school girls were sent home from a winter dance in California after \u201cdegrading\u201d clothing inspections \u201cbordering on sexual harassment.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0A school board member\u2019s daughter was among the 40 girls turned away from Capistrano Valley High\u2019s February dance for wearing dresses that either exposed their midriffs or were cut too low. Before the dance, girls were apparently required\u00a0to flap their arms up and down<\/a>\u00a0and turn around for male administrators\u2019 inspection. The school issues image guidelines for appropriate dress on its website \u2014 though the images were\u00a0nearly all of women<\/a>, and the only male image depicted proper attire. One girl\u00a0alleges<\/a>\u00a0that the principal told her, \u201cNot all dresses look good on certain body shapes.\u201d A grandmother of one of the girls who was turned away from the dance also said that a teacher remarked about her granddaughter, \u201cWhat mother would allow her daughter to wear a dress like that?\u201d Apparently the school did receive some praise, though, from the parents of two male students.<\/p>\n

When most Americans think about \u201crape culture,\u201d they may think about the Steubenville boys\u2019 defense arguing that\u00a0an unconscious girl consented to her sexual assault<\/a>\u00a0because she \u201cdidn\u2019t say no,\u201d the school administrators who choose to\u00a0protect their star athletes over those boys\u2019 rape victims<\/a>, or the bullying that led\u00a0multiple<\/a>\u00a0victims<\/a>\u00a0of 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\u2019re 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\u2019 bodies as inherently \u201cdistracting\u201d to the boys who simply can\u2019t control themselves. That approach to gender roles simply encourages our youth to assume that sexual crimes must have something to do with women\u2019s \u201csuggestive\u201d clothes or behavior, rather than teaching them that every individual is responsible for respecting others\u2019 bodily autonomy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(although honestly, wearing leggings as pants is fucking godawful and is a fashion trend that needs to die a fiery death like yesterday. Tacky as fuck and ugly as hell. but seriously? Even as much as I hate people wearing leggings as pants, that STILL DOESN\u2019T MAKE IT OKAY TO MAKE POLICIES LIKE THIS. Jesus Christ.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Shut up and read it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How \u2018Slut Shaming\u2019 Has Been Written Into School Dress Codes Across The Country fairest-fairy: ejacutastic: Last month, a New Jersey middle school\u00a0banned girls\u00a0from wearing strapless dresses to prom. Administrators claimed that the dresses were \u201cdistracting\u201d \u2014 though they refused to specify exactly how or why. Parents reacted strongly to the rule; some supported the dress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-link"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2389,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions\/2389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.grunk.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}