There
is a constant pressure for girls to dress a certain way, and to act a certain
way. However, girls are not told of one direct way to be, but rather are given
conflicting options that create more confusion in their development. While
schools are telling girls to dress more conservatively, the media sends out
messages that girls can dress in whatever manner they chose, even if it is
revealing. The media ends up glorifying the same clothes schools are trying to
condemn. So while schools are trying to press harder on these girls to follow
the dress code, the media is trying twice as hard to validate those same
clothes schools are trying to steer away from. These conflicting messages not
only cause problems with how girls view themselves and other girls, but they as
well create problems with how society sees young girls and how society views
women. School dress codes and the media enforce an idea that “the female
body is spectacle, both something to be looked at, whether real or mediated and
to be looked through in the search for feminine identity.” (Body Messages 2)
They put girls on display to be scrutinized wherever they go, and to be judged
to whether they fit a certain mold within either the school standards or the
media’s standards.
Schools
incorporate dress codes to provide a sense of professionalism because it is a
learning environment. However, these dress codes vary from school to school,
and in some cases may enforce strict dress codes that create large boundaries
between what is appropriate and what is not. School dress codes provide a guide
to professionalism because education is linked to the working world in which
appropriate attire is required. School dress codes are also there to keep boys
and girls from becoming too wild, and being responsible for making appropriate
decisions in their attire. While girls should have the freedom to dress how
they chose, there is a limit to which they should dress responsibly. Provocative clothing may lead to other reckless sexual decisions, which dress
codes may devolve students from embarking upon.
 |
| This girl was sent home because her collarbones had been showing, and her school had a strict policy against such "revealing"attire. This shows how extreme dress codepolicies become on young girls. |
While school dress codes have
certain necessities, they are sometimes enforced in schools to such extreme
degrees that it creates an imbalance in the way boys and girls are being
treated in schools. Peggy McIntosh says that “[her schooling]
taught [her] to see [herself] as an individual whose moral state depended on
her individual moral will.” (McIntosh 1) So schools are teaching girls to take
better actions to care for themselves, and to take responsibility for the
consequences their decisions lead to. However, this becomes a problem when it is
applied to a girl’s decision to wear what she likes, because it is implying
that whatever attention or harassment they receive, it is actually their fault
and not the fault of the harasser. Girls are constantly told to cover up in order to prevent being a
distraction to the male students. They will even be sent home on occasion
because of “revealing” attire. This type of protocol implies that boys’
education is far more important than it is for girls. Not only does it place
girls’ education on a lower platform, but it also places responsibility on the
girls to control the hormonal urges of their male classmates.
However, adults who are teaching girls to watch what they wear,
should instead be teaching boys to control themselves around girls, whether or
not their outfits are physically revealing. Teaching girls and boys throughout
their life that it is the girl's responsibility to dress appropriately, will of
course cause problems in the future when those kids become adults and become
the society we live in. Women will critique other women to unhealthy degrees,
and judge them when instead they should be coming together to fight against
such criticism on females. Men on the other hand will harass women and not be
held responsible for their actions because they were taught that t it is the
woman who is responsible to be covered up. The idea that depending on “how a woman appears to a
man can determine how she will be treated,” is only reinforced with these dress
codes. (Berger 46) So boys may internalize ideas from school dress codes, and
start to believe that a woman’s worth is weighted by the clothes she wears. Woman
should be allowed to dress how they chose, and not fear that they will be
punished for doing so.
School
dress codes and the media are two extreme spectrums on how girls and women are
judged based on their clothes. On one spectrum girls are judged for being too revealing
with their clothes, while on the other they are judged for dressing too conservatively.
These are two molds in which girls have to try to balance, but when both
spectrums are fuzzy and too extreme, girls will end up being judged regardless
of what they wear. Jean Kilbourne writes, “Most teenagers are sensitive to peer pressure and find it
difficult to resist or even question the dominant cultural messages perpetuated
and reinforced by the media. Mad consumption has made possible a kind of
nationally distributed peer pressure that erodes private and individual values
and standards.” (Kilbourne 122) Teenagers and pre-teens absorb ideas that are projected
by school’s dress codes, and those by media images, so they end up not having
their own judgment of what is alright for girls to wear. Due to these
bombardment of ideas from the two spectrums, teenagers internalize such ideas
and react with judgment when they see girls not fit the mold one or the either
spectrum has created. School dress codes and media images essentially cause
teenagers to judge women, and it brings about such peer pressure to have to fit
into a certain mold to avoid such judgment.
Citation:
John Berger : Ways of Seeing
Peggy McIntosh : White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack
Maggie Wykes, Barrie Gunter : Body Messages
Jean Kilbourne : Beauty and the Beast of Advertising
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