I'm nyhcmaven84, an entrepreneur and writer very active on Alternet. Former tax advisor who was disturbed by the massive wealth disparity I saw and became morally opposed to the system I had to help keep in place, and the clients I was charged to advocate for.
This is rant I've actually had pent up a while. But I was finally able to articulate it upon being very angry and upset hearing about how Cameron Boland had her National Honor Society distinctions taken away from her over a SUNDRESS.
I also make the Angry Video Game Nerd look like a cream puff when it comes to saltiness: if F-words and their ilk offend you, you may want to sit this one out.
American girls have ten million schizoid standards forced on them from an early age about EVERYTHING.
Fashion is no exception. You know, you have to take pride in your appearance and not look like a slob or else you'll never get a job or a boyfriend or the other things you're supposed to strive for in Heteronormative Life Script(TM). It's your duty to look cute then graduate to beautiful.
Oh but wait! You're just a frivolous little ditz if you enjoy those things. Serious Girls only wear thrift store jeans and no makeup, but they're not TOO tomboyish. You are not allowed to enjoy intelligent pursuits and still dress to the nines.
Why am I making these statements?Because I'm fucking sick of how much attention gets paid to women's attire yet if THE WOMEN THEMSELVES pay that much attention to their own dress, they're dismissed as stupid, ditzy, frivolous, you name it. But yet other people, mostly male but sometimes other females too to be fair, seem to care an awful lot. Too much.
I was prompted to write about this upon reading this article on the bus earlier, recalling my own school dress code stupidity. See, girls of certain body types get picked on more than others. Remembering my own school years, in the summertime it was especially cruel on account of hot weather suitable attire apparently causing dogs and cats to live together in mass hysteria. Kids would also bully each other about who sweated the most, who was sent home, look at what the poor kids are wearing. But it was honestly the teachers and administrators who were the biggest bullies. My principal was this utterly ineffective dildo who enjoyed picking on me, a punk rocker with a single dad, because he could not solve any real problems. My wardrobe basically wrote half the dress code: no ripped stockings, no chains on clothing, spiked hair can't be X inches high, no advertising of bands. There were a few other punk boys at my school and they had their time in that stupid office too, but I didn't even commit many "real" offenses-- yet I spent more time there than they did.
I don't know what exactly the administration was trying to accomplish: trying to teach us that every single workplace was this restrictive and we can't enjoy being kids while we can? Please, I think they'd have heart attacks if they left the high school and attended Game Developers' Conference: it was the first time in my ADULT life I felt underdressed and under-tattooed. And by the dawn of my senior year in high school, I also had a half-paying scholarship to Pratt for fashion design. And look, I was a straight C student because I was 17 and didn't give a fuck. I somehow don't think the admissions counselor who was a renowned artist, who raved about my portfolio, would've given me the chance that he did if I followed rules to a T.
Then I remember my English teacher asking "How did you get into Pratt? That's a really good school." Thanks for the faith!
But unlike many subcultural girls in that time, I was actually friendly with a great many of the cheerleaders. Because I fought alongside them with the other side of the coin in our school's arbitrarily-enforced dress code: the part where all our male teachers and classmates are basically perverts who have wandering boners that it's up to us to keep under control by eschewing things like halters, short shorts, and spaghetti straps. When well, girls don't wear these garments to be the Succubus of Third Period Calculus: we're wearing them because it's a fucking crematorium outside. And well holy toad tits Batman, isn't it easy for these ineffective dipshits like the principal and his vice-Nazi to go around with yardsticks when they sit on their asses in air-conditioned offices all day while the rest of the school did NOT have the lovely arctic blast akin to that of a movie theater? Gee, maybe spending less on administrator salaries and the football team and putting that money to central air would cause people (who am I kidding, GIRLS!) to cover up so as not to offend the sensitive boner-happy eyes of everyone at the school.
So one day this girl in my English class, which was a stuffy sweatbox that was basically Dutch-ovening 30 angry teenagers to the point that we were marinating in our own sweat, voiced discontent with this pointless policy because she was upset she had to change into her gym t-shirt. She did it to avoid being sent home to change what with the temperature peaking to 92 degrees outside, I mean for crying out loud I think that getting into a car left in the sun in Phoenix would've been more comfortable than that damn class. So how did my English teacher, the same bright bag of falling hammers who pondered how I got into such a good school (gag me on the "good school" mindset but that's a rant for another time!) react? She says, "Well, some girls look cute in those kinds of tops but some should not be wearing them." You mean like the bigger girls? The ones who are more well-endowed than others? Girls who aren't white and middle class? I got home from school and told my father, who was already incensed from being pulled out of work over total bullshit earlier that week, and he said he wanted to get the paper on the phone and get that thundercunt teacher fired for making such a statement (Isn't my dad the best?)
And it makes me sad and angry to see this still goes on: you have girls constantly getting suspended for wearing "revealing" clothing, prom being ruined by these pearl-clutchers who think 17-year-old girls' dresses are unraveling the fabric of society and it's all over completely subjective bullshit: this young lady suspended for "having more to show than other girls". How sadly just like my English teacher who said "some girls look cute in those tops". And now we have this ultra egregious example of an Honor Society student having her title ripped away over SPAGHETTI STRAPS. It's not enough girls are being suspended or sent home, missing out on their education and rites of passage like prom, but now they have to be publicly demeaned and lose titles they rightfully earned. What is this, new Sharia law?
Funny, suspension didn't happen to the boy who was in my English class who wore a t-shirt saying "What's the difference between a woman and a beer? You can enjoy a beer any time of the month."
I have to implore you: What the HELL kind of message is this sending to young girls?
That they're going to spend their lives being scrutinized for how they dress and there is no escape, ever? That things like accomplishments, talents, passions, interests, dreams, and fears don't matter: they will forever be reduced to their bodies and how they clothe them? That it's purely their fault if perverted dads and/or male teachers gaze at them and have nasty thoughts before they can legally put their dicks in them? That oh well, boys will be boys, it's too much work to teach them to well...keep it in their pants? For chrissake a piece of inner tube can give a 17-year-old boy a boner. But no less, just what the hell kind of message are we imparting?
As my 30th birthday looms closer, I think of some incredibly stupid things that have caused media blitzes over the years. And...unfortunately this message we're sending to very young girls is in line with those dumb fusses. Because even if we take away occasions like proms, awards ceremonies, and graduations just EVERYDAY dress for women seems to be subject to too much unnecessary subjective crap: remember all the brouhaha over Michelle Obama wearing shorts? Hillary Clinton's PANTS, the denigration Marissa Mayer received when she posed for magazine pictures in designer clothing? Men never seem to have any attention drawn to the way they dress, unless you're referring to someone like Vanilla Ice and his pants causing paint on 50-story buildings to peel and let's face it, that's pretty rare.
Don't know about you, but I never knew a single sundress, lace sleeve, or missing back that ever caused a war or deficit, or an entire company to go up in flames. Maybe it's time our priorities as a society shifted away from what women wear. So, please: if you are a teacher or administrator who has taken disciplinary action against a teenager over a dress that will been seen for maybe 5-7 hours tops? I ask that you please avert your sensitive eyes that are gushing blood at the sight of taffeta and sequins. Put away your yardsticks and measuring tape, you are not a tailor. Concentrate on more important things such as how standardized testing is destroying the teaching profession and find ways to fight against it to better America's youth. Fight for alternative funding in our broken school system that doesn't hinge on property taxes and test scores. Kids only have a chance to be kids once. They have PLENTY of time in their adult lives to dress like an Alfred Dunner or Brooks Brothers display depending on the paths they choose. Maybe you should care a little less about how these kids dress and more about the alarming amount of young people committing suicide every year because of bullying. And by the way, I speak from personal experience: it's not just other kids who bully.
Because if you bully and body-shame a CHILD, you are garbage and deserve nothing more than an eternity of stepping on Legos. Full stop.