Going back to school means back-to-school shopping, but wait ladies! Watch what you buy.  

“I think the dress code is objectifying the girls throughout the school and creates an unfair double standard,”senior Nicole Girardi said. “A boy can wear a tank top that reveals his arms and muscles, but when a girl does just the same, all hell breaks loose.  Shoulders are not sexy, and if boys think they are ‘distracting’ then they are the problem, not the clothing we wear.”

Boys at our school wear tank tops often, showing off the body that they are proud to have, while girls are shunned for doing the same exact thing.  Boys are able to wear tank tops that expose their shoulders, but a girl is not allowed to wear a top that shows her shoulders. A girl can be just as distracted by a male’s body as a male is from a female’s shoulder.

While it is more than understandable that a young woman must dress appropriately, some of the infractions outlined in our school’s dress code are unfair to students.

“Cleavage should not be visible” our student handbook states.  Hypothetically, let’s say that one female student decides to wear a new shirt she has bought.  Her body type does not show cleavage, therefore she does not get punished.  Meanwhile, a different female wears that same exact shirt, but the difference might be one of body type.  The second female is sent to the office, and is told she must change her outfit because it is a distraction.

The second female is appalled that another student can be wearing the same exact outfit, but her education in class is not interrupted.  This is a common ordeal that seems to happen just too many times at our school.

“I feel like the school dress code only applies to the girls at our school, and although it’s important everyone dresses appropriately, some rules take it to the extreme,” junior Izzy Ganas said.

A young lady should not miss time in class due to an outfit that a male student could find “distracting.”  Girls should not be so restricted from expressing their style through clothing, just because of the possibility of young men not being able to focus.     

The difference between a girl’s tank top strap width should not make the difference between what is considered appropriate or inappropriate.  Whether a strap is a spaghetti strap, or has the width of two fingers, does nothing except cover a bit more of a woman’s shoulder.                     

English teacher Alysia Puma offered a comment on why our school needs a dress code.

“It is important for a school to have a dress code so the environment is one in which we can focus on learning,” Puma said.

Additionally, Vice Principal Evette Chaney provided additional commentary.

“References on clothing to drug or alcohol, inappropriate remarks, vulgar statements or negative comments and biased pictures towards a person’s race, religion, gender, national origin or sexual orientation are harmful and harassing,” Chaney said.

While I do agree with Vice Principal Chaney, I also believe it is a humorous distraction to high school students if one is wearing an inappropriate piece of clothing that has to do with something that is not school appropriate. The offender is not sexualized via the enforcement of the infraction.

At the end of the day, I believe that while it is important to have some sort of guide for school clothing, there should be more leniency when it comes to students’ outfits.  No students learning experience should ever be interrupted if a shoulder is “too exposed” in the eyes of the student handbook.