Us women have been dealing with the excessive rules of dress code for years, and as each year passes, the schools continue to make it more strict, and mainly targeted at women. We’re tired of being sexualized and disrespected for wearing what we’re comfortable in. 

School administrators have been sexualizing women’s bodies since they were children. Girls across the entire country have tried to make a change in dress code rules and many others have made petitions to change them as well. Not to mention that over the past year and a half that we were remote, many of us have lost or gained weight, have changed styles, or wear certain articles of clothing to make the transition back to in person learning more tolerable. It’s a big adjustment from being able to turn off your camera on google classroom and create a comfortable learning environment whenever you want, to no longer having that option, leaving many to find security in what they wear.  On top of that, just by nature of the majority of what is sold in affordable mainstream clothing stores (crop tops, short summer shorts), many of us girls don’t have enough clothing options that comply with the dress code rules for  The riverside school district . Adults don’t understand the difficulties of finding “school appropriate” clothing since the mainstream clothing stores are always selling what’s currently in style or trending. Finding long shorts or full length tops that are still stylish is almost impossible in teen clothing stores. Men barely ever have to deal with this issue when shopping for clothes, since the type of clothing most of them wear isn’t cropped, has skin exposed/showing, or is too short for school. 

These messages were clearly meant for us female students and not the male, since the principal listed only dress code restrictions for girls. Instead of us telling kids to remember to wear their masks and stay safe during the pandemic we’re in, our school was more focused on what girls were wearing. Our school administrators this year are more focused on dress code rather than the actual issues we are dealing with, like wearing our masks at school since not all of the students are vaccinated, and mental health awareness since due to the pandemic, mental health has become a very important issue.