Photo: TikTok
What an unbelievable waste of this girl’s time.
By Hawthorn Martin — Written on Apr 17, 2023
It’s common knowledge that American public school dress codes are often laughably restrictive, especially for girls. For years, students have complained about the requirements for length, restrictions on leggings, tank tops, and more.
Despite public frustration with the code over the years, we have yet to see any meaningful changes to the system. However, that hasn’t stopped some from taking matters into their own hands.
One woman was called to pick up her younger sister from school for a dress code violation and refused to make her change her outfit.
TikTok user Arianna Hailey recorded her interaction with middle school administrators after being called to pick up her sister due to a dress code violation.
Her sister had gone to school in baggy pants, and a nice blouse with tasteful off-the-shoulder sleeves. The outfit looked like “something she would wear to church,” as her sister told school administrators. Arianna was immediately confused by the disciplinary action she was expected to agree with.
“What’s wrong with your outfit?” Arianna asked her sister, and was told that it was “her shoulders.”
Confused, Arianna turned to the administrators, asking what was wrong with her sister’s shoulders. An administrator and Arianna’s sister both explained the rules of the dress code, stating that the students weren’t allowed to wear clothes like spaghetti straps that revealed their shoulders.
Arianna then dropped the real question on them: “I’m just confused as to why shoulders are distracting.” A loud silence followed. No one was able to give her an answer.
“What is this gonna do?” Arianna asked. She pointed out that her sister could have taken any clothes from her closet, including a crop top, but that she preferred not to wear things like that.
“I’m honestly proud of you for not showing up to school looking homeless,” she joked, getting a laugh from her sister. Arianna emphasized that her sister had chosen a good outfit for herself, and she was proud of her for it.
The administrators did not agree, but they could not answer Arianna’s questions as to why the outfit would be distracting or inappropriate to fellow students, so she decided to sit and wait until she got the principal involved.
'You’re not changing,' She told her sister. 'You look really cute.'
After getting even more administrators involved, Arianna was simply told that it was a “shoulder issue”, and wouldn’t be able to change the minds of the authorities.
In frustration, Arianna ended her video by expressing her frustrations alone in her car, complaining about the audacity of the rules. The idea that her sister’s outfit was deemed inappropriate because of the possibility that another middle schooler would find it sexually appealing was ridiculous.
“I’m done,” she said. If not even a Sunday best outfit was good enough for the regulations, then what was?
Arianna isn’t the first to be infuriated by such strict codes.
Many students have pointed out that the codes tend to put more restrictions on girls than boys, usually with the claim that boys will be “distracted” by their wardrobe choices. This kind of thinking blames girls for receiving theoretical attention they may not even want, which is all sorts of messed up.
If a student isn’t able to focus on his homework because the girl next to him is wearing an off-the-shoulder church blouse, that is a problem with his self-control, not her body.
Others also have pointed out that some dress codes are implemented in order to protect students from their own teachers, but this is subject to the same logic. A child’s body is not a crime. A teacher who might be attracted to that is absolutely a crime.
If an administrator cannot be trusted to keep students safe from himself and requires a dress code to avoid doing harm, that person needs to be removed from the school system. As one commenter said: “punish the teachers for that problem, not the 9-year-old.”
Some schools have more restrictive dress codes than others, but there is usually a common theme that suggests that kids will dress provocatively, or otherwise “wrongly”, even as children, unless they are given tight restrictions on everything.
Thousands of comments on Arianna’s video rallied to defend her in her frustration against the school system.
“Schools are real quick to Dress Code the students,” one user wrote, “but ignore when bullying is going on all day and kids are ending their lives over it.”
Others agree that pulling students out of class to humiliate them for minor dress code issues disrupts their learning environment far more than seeing a partially exposed shoulder in a classroom.
One comment put it the best: “They pulled this girl out of class, taking away valuable classroom time… because it’s distracting to some boy? What about HER education? What about HER being “distracted” by this bs? Why is a hypothetical boy more important?”
Hawthorn Martin is a news and entertainment writer living in Texas. They focus on social justice, pop culture, and human interest stories.