Review: When Enforcing School Dress Codes Turns Into Slut Shaming

The Time article, “When Enforcing School Dress Codes Turns Into Slut Shaming” was written in response to middle school girls in Evanston, Illinois protesting the right to wear leggings and yoga pants to school. The school administrators argued that the girls’ clothing was too distracting for their male classmates, but the girls are arguing that they should not be responsible for other’s thoughts and distractions. The article comes out in support of the girls, but despite the author including a personal experience in the beginning of the article and using an inflammatory title, they still present a reasonable even argument within the body of the article.

Including a controversial term like “slut shaming” in the title of an article about dress coding middle school students is a very conscious choice to make. “The argument being made by school administrators is not that distant from the arguments made by those who accuse rape victims of asking to be assaulted by dressing a certain way. We tell women to cover themselves from the male gaze, but we neglect to tell the boys to look at something else.” (Dockterman).  On the surface the title along with this quote seems to be implying school administrators are always looking to shame girls for what they are wearing in school. However, the author brings this point up to show how quickly calling young girls out on dress code violations can escalate to victim blaming. The author is not trying to paint these administrators in a bad light, but rather, make the connection between the arguments to educate readers on how the two subjects could be intertwined.

Personal experiences in articles tend to lend credence to the idea that the article is biased towards one side of the argument or the other, but in this instance, the personal experience lends to the author’s credibility on the subject. “I broke school rules- as just about every other teenage girl in high school did when they got dressed in the morning- and probably deserved to be punished. But this time, my teacher, tired of reprimanding girls for dress code violations every day, had decided to make an example of me in front of the class.” (Dockterman). The author is relating to these girls and others that have been dress coded in the past. The story also allows people who have not been dress coded an insight into how dress coding incidences can disrupt a person’s day and the ability to get an education.

In the spirit of engaging in a reasonable and even debate, the author does give the dress code enforcers the benefit of the doubt. “I’m sure the teachers mean well by encouraging girls not to think that they need to wear tight clothes in order to get attention from boys or emulate their favorite TV show characters.” (Dockterman); the author realizes that while it may not seem like it to those being punished, the teachers have the students’ best interests at heart. They do not go out of their way to shame the students; the teachers simply want to see them succeed.
     
In fact, the article goes onto agree with the teachers. “Some clothes are appropriate for school and some are not. But we ought to make that distinction without implying that a girl must be accountable for the sexual attention she gets.” (Dockterman). The author agrees that students should not wear certain things at school, but reminds that the wording used to communicate this idea should be neutral and not accusatory or shameful in any way towards the student.
     
Even though the title of this Time article has an inflammatory title and the author’s personal experience with dress coding there is still enough of a balance in the presentation that it is not fully one sided. Overall, this article is a credible source of information on the topic of dress coding in public schools.

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Works Cited

Dockterman, Eliana. “Dress Codes That Slut Shame: Evanston Middle Schoolers Protest.” Time, 24 Mar. 2014, time.com/36997/when-enforcing-school-dress-codes-turns-into-slut-shaming/.