Female school students everywhere both scoff at and fear dress codes. They are put under pressure to dress appropriately so that they are not considered a “distraction” to the other students around them, because it is so scandalous for woman to have shoulders and thighs!

Let’s be real here, dress codes are kind of ridiculous. If it is eighty degrees outsides, and the buildings air conditioner is broken in some rooms, do you really expect female students to wear ski parkas so no one can see how provocative our shoulders are? I didn’t think so. Now, dress codes are not completely outrageous because there are those girls who take it too far. If I can see your butt because of your shorts that is kind of awkward, especially if I’m walking up the stairs behind you. So for that, it seems suitable. But when did a girl’s shoulders become a provocative symbol?

It is also unfair when a girl gets called out for wearing a tank top but then the guy next to her, wearing a tank top with the same shoulder strap width, doesn’t get called out for it. What is it that is so inherently wrong about a woman’s body that we are taught to cover it up? In a perfect world none of this would be a problem, but sadly we do not live in a perfect world.

Here is a solution: rather than teaching woman that we are vile, and looking to distract our fellow – often male – students, it should be a two way street. If woman are being taught that we should be respectful by covering our bodies, men should also be taught to respect a woman no matter what she wears or how much shoulder she is showing. It needs to be a unified decision so everyone can be happy.

When asked about their experience, a Nashoba student said, “I was standing in line at lunch wearing a regular tank top, and my hair was covering my shoulders, when [one of the teachers] walked over and asked me to step aside with [them]. I did, and [they] wouldn’t even look at me as they asked if I had something to cover my shoulders. I said ‘yes’ and [they] asked me to go get it from my locker and put it on.”

This is completely unfair. The lunch lines often take a while, and there are only twenty-seven minutes in a lunch period. By doing this she easily loses up to ten minutes, if not more, of that lunch period while she is hurrying off to go get something to cover her shoulders so she won’t be considered “indecent”.

After all the leaps and bounds our country has been making in matters such as gay and transgender rights, who knows, maybe coming up with a little bit of a better dress code is somewhere in the future.