In August, a group of eighth grade girls took part in an unusual protest in the

American state of Maryland.

The girls are students at Urbana Middle School in Frederick County,
Maryland. When they walked into Urbanas dining room in yellow, baggy tshirts, everyone cheered. The top school official required the group to wear
the shirts after violating Urbanas dress code. But the girls added large
lettering to their clothing. It read: I am more than a distraction.
The t-shirt punishment is not written in Urbanas dress code; the school
official made it up. That is one reason why the girls carried out their protest.
The girls are part of a larger group of students in Frederick County who
believe dress codes unfairly target girls.
Also in Maryland, a young woman named Rachel Zuniga launched what
became a popular student petition at Linganore High School. Her campaign
questioned why many of Linganores dress code policies required girls to
cover up too much of their bodies.
School administrators say student opposition to dress codes is normal for the
first month or two of every school year. Yet, the last few years have witnessed
something different: a growing number of American girls expressing the belief
that those policies unfairly target them.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that schools have the right to
limit a students expression if they believe that it disturbs the learning
environment or violates the rights of other students.
But there often are conflicts between what the school officials believe is a
disturbance and what the students believe are their rights in a democracy.
Many students think that dress codes conflict with the policy
of gender equality an important idea in American democracy.
More Than A Distraction
Two years ago, a group of girls in South Orange, New Jersey launched an
online campaign to protest their high schools dress code. The campaign was
called #IAmMoreThanADistraction. It received attention nationwide from
girls who shared their experiences about what they believed were unfair rules
on students clothing. #IAmMoreThanADistraction even became a trending
topic on Twitter.

Since that campaign began, hundreds of petitions have questioned school

dress codes. And some students have walked out of school in protest, notes
The Atlantic.
Many girls are uniting under their opposition to dress codes. They say these
rules result in body shaming. The girls also say the codes excuse rape
culture, and support unhealthy ways of thinking about women that can lead
to sexual assaults. At the heart of it all, they say, is the belief that girls bodies
are a distraction.
Lauren Weis is the director of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at
American University in Washington, D.C. She agrees that some dress codes
target girls.
As I see it, the problem is that these kinds of codes sexualize and demean
girls bodies because they assume that girls and their bodies are a distraction
or a temptation to male students.
Other educators and sociologists also find dress codes rooted in a highly
problematic societal logic: that girls and women are the ones who need to
protect themselves from unwanted attention, says The Atlantic, and that
those wearing what could be considered sexy clothing are asking for a
response.
At Linganore High School, for example, a policy about leggings which are
usually worn by girls says they can be worn only if shirts worn with them
cover the students backside. This leggings policy is said to be common at
other American schools.
Zuniga disagreed with the leggings rule and other policies on clothing at
Linganore. She told the Frederick News-Post newspaper that her schools
dress code teaches males that it is OK for their wrongdoings against females.
VOA attempted to contact two administrators at Frederick County Schools,
but was told they were too busy to speak on the issue. VOA also reached out to
that same districts spokesman, but has yet to receive an answer.
Tom Saunders is the instructional director of middle schools for Frederick
County. Asked whether the dress code wrongly targeted girls, he told the
News-Post in August that mens clothing has mostly stayed the same over the
years.

He also said that middle school age students grow quickly, and therefore
clothing that was appropriate in the past may no longer fit. He suggested
that parents who do not agree with the dress code contact the head of the
school.
Social Media and Popular Culture
Lauren Weis believes a new social awareness is happening among girls, and
that some of it is the result of the popularity of what we might call pop
culturefeminism, she told VOA.
She said celebrities like Beyonc, Taylor Swift, and Emma Watson have
publicly promoted feminist ideas in ways that seem to make sense to young
women.
Media personalities may be partly responsible for this new recognition among
girls. But social media is also adding to the national discussion.
Last year, security officers at Vista Murietta High School in California
removed at least 25 girls from class for dress code violations, according
to Seventeen magazine. Most of the girls were told
their dresses or skirts were too short.
The incident took place on a day in June when the temperature was about 32
degrees Celsius. The schools policy says that dresses, skirts, and shorts must
be no shorter than 10 centimeters above the top of the knee.
Some Vista Murietta girls posted images on social media to show their
clothing the day they were dress coded and to show their schools clothing
policy.
Vista Murietta High Schools policy includes one list for boys and another list
for girls. Some of the policies for clothing length, for example, only apply to
girls.
One student posted a photograph on social media of a boy wearing very
short shorts, noting that girls are not permitted to wear shorts that length.
Weis believes that the Vista Murietta students and others are evidence of
something beyond gender: a larger social movement around inequality.
And in todays culture, theres so much more awareness of inequality, so,
inequality on the basis of gender or sexuality as well as race, class, economic
status, and, more recently in the news, so much discussion about sexual
assault and sexual violence, and young girls are paying attention.

Social media has helped young people reach a wider audience.

Girls at Linganore, for example, used Twitter for this goal. They started an
account called @Linganore Girls to support each other and work
against misogyny and body shaming.
At Farragut High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, student Holly Sikes started
a petition on Change.org, a social media site for launching national petitions.
Her appeal read, Are we as a county seriously willing to send a girl home
and depriveher of her education simply because her shorts are too short?
She also wrote that these rules promote victim blaming.
More than 3,700 people have signed her petition.
A spokesperson for Knox County Schools told WATE.com that parents and
students did not object to the dress code after a public school board meeting
on those rules.
Even so, some parents do object to school dress codes, and are using social
media to discuss their experiences.
A mother in Kansas, Kimberly Jones, became angry after her daughter was
forced to change into gym clothing at school. She posted a photo of her 11year-old daughters violation: a long shirt with leggings. The girl was new to
the school, Jones explained to People magazine.
Jones used Facebook to tell her story. She wrote that the school did not allow
her daughter to call her to bring her a different pair of pants.
Apparently, 13 year old boys cant control themselves around this, she said
jokingly about her daughters long shirt and leggings.
To Be or Not Be Gender Neutral
There is another group whose gender Weis believes is unfairly targeted:
students whose gender expression is different from their legally recorded sex.
She says that gender-specific dress codes may punish and humiliate them
and it does not create a good learning environment.
For example, earlier this year, CNN reported that a lunch worker at a high
school in Ohio denied a boy his meal because the boy was wearing a bow in

his hair. In fact, 19 percent of students around the country say they were not
permitted to wear clothing that administrators thought was inappropriate
for their gender. This number comes from a report called the 2013 National
School Climate Survey.
Weis calls the growing social movement around dress code a positive and
hopeful sign that young people today will be active in civic life in a way that
has not happened in many years.
Im Alice Bryant. And Im Phil Dierking.
Alice Bryant wrote this story based on a number of news reports and an
original interview with Lauren Weis. George Grow was the editor.
We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our
Facebook page.
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Words in This Story

t-shirt - n. a shirt that has short sleeves and no collar and that is usually
made of cotton
dress code - n. a set of rules about what clothing may and may not be worn
at a school, office, restaurant, et cetera
distraction - n. something that makes it difficult to think or pay attention
petition - n. a written document that people sign to show that they want a
person or organization to do or change something
disturb - v. to stop someone from working, sleeping, etc
gender - n. the state of being male or female
shame - v. to cause (someone) to feel guilt, regret, embarrassment, or
sadness for doing something wrong
logic - n. a proper or reasonable way of thinking about or understanding
something
appropriate - adj. right or suited for some purpose or situation
feminism - n. the belief that men and women should have equal rights and
opportunities
dress - n. a piece of clothing for a woman or a girl that has a top part that
covers the upper body and a skirt that hangs down to cover the legs
skirt - n. a piece of clothing worn by women and girls that hangs from the
waist down
length - n. a piece of clothing worn by women and girls that hangs from the
waist down

shorts - n. short pants that reach down to the knees

misogyny - n. hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women, or prejudice against
women
validate - v. to show that someone's feelings, opinions, et cetera, are fair and
reasonable
deprive - v. to take something away from someone or something
humiliate - v. to make someone feel very ashamed or foolish
bow - n. a knot that is made by tying a ribbon or string into two or more loops
and that is used for tying shoelaces or for decoration