How dress codes make things worse for high school girls

Crowds formed outside the dressing rooms at The Ultimate, a women's prom apparel store in Peabody, in 2014. Lauren Spencer / The Boston Globe

By Shannon McMahon @shanmcmahon_

May 14, 2015

3 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

In a tale all too familiar to suburban high school students forced to retire their leggings, yoga pants, and sleeveless shirts, another New England public school is placing restrictions on girls attire. This time, it’s for prom.

According to gender studies experts, that’s a bad thing.

Carrie Preston, a Boston University professor in women’s studies who focuses on gender and performance told Boston.com that dress codes rarely have a positive affect on students. “It’s certainly going to give women the idea that the exposure of their bodies is a negative thing,’’ Preston said. “There’s discomfort with the sexuality of minors, but these concerns are not best addressed by dress codes.’’

A high school in Shelton, Connecticut, banned backless, cut-out, and midriff style prom dresses eight days before the dance this week, drawing panic and anger from students and parents who say it’s too late notice to change the rules. But is the timing really the problem?

Shelton High School Headmaster Beth A. Smith told students she was reiterating longstanding rules. Shelton is hardly alone in placing sartorial strictures on female students. In February, Rockport High School deemed yoga pants and leggings too “distracting’’ to male students and banned them. The rule was ultimately reversed after the story spread.

Weymouth Public Schools also debated vetoing yoga pants and leggings this spring. In September 2013 male and female high school students in North Haven, Connecticut, protested talk that the school would ban the tight pants by wearing them in masses, and school officials assured them the rules would not change.

According to Preston, clothing and prom dresses are a form of self expression for young people, and those whose dresses have been vetoed are most likely feeling “stifled and censored.’’

“Usually dress codes are well intentioned,’’ Preston said. “But usually they have negative ramifications on, generally, women.’’

It’s unclear whether or not Shelton school officials will send prom attendees home if they show up in banned dresses, but the school’s dress code states: “Students who are in violation of the school dress code must change their clothing and are subject to disciplinary consequences, including being sent home.’’

“I think that would be extremely hurtful,’’ Preston said

Gender studies expert Helen Haste, a visiting professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, told Boston.com that schools can enforce dress codes, but should include the students in decision-making.

“They’re old enough to engage in decisions about what the boundaries should be,’’ Haste said. “Whether that’s should boys wear ties or should girls have midriffs.’’

But the dress code issue has also pervaded younger grades in middle and even elementary schools across the nation, including that of a five-year-old girl in Houston, Texas, whose story went viral after her rainbow sun dress violated the elementary school’s spaghetti-strap ban.

“I’m not surprised to see the dress code shaming come into my house. I have after all been sadly waiting for it since the ultrasound tech said, ‘It’s a girl,’’’ her father, Jef Rouner, wrote after the incident. “We still live in a country where someone can decide the shoulders of, and I can’t stress this enough, a five-year-old girl, are so distracting that they must be sent away and decently hidden.’’

Last year when legging and yoga-pant bans made headlines across the nation, #IAmMoreThanADistraction arose on Twitter. Launched by a New Jersey middle-school, the campaign pushes for more equal and up to date dress codes, as is still active on Twitter.

“Most of the time, dress codes for students are severe and excessive,’’ Preston said. “It indicates a cultural movement against the exposure of women’s bodies.’’