Gender-based dress code rules sexualize girls and tells them that they need to change themselves (both literally and figuratively) to make boys feel comfortable. Whenever I have been dress coded, whether it was for too short of shorts or too much shoulder or cleavage showing, it makes me feel like I am nothing more than a piece of prey - as though my own body wasn't mine. I had always known that dress code rules were unfair towards females, but I never realized that I could do something to change this. 

I was inspired by ninth-grader Riley O’Keefe of Bartram Trail High School in Florida, who spoke out when her, and 80 other students - all female, yearbook photo was digitally altered to make them appear more "modest". While this in itself is a demeaning act towards those young women, I was infuriated to learn that the school had allowed a photo of the boy's swim team, in which all of the athletes were only wearing swim trunks and soaking wet, to stay in the yearbook. 

This is a blatant display of gender-based double standards that occur every day, with females often getting harassed for what they choose to do with their lives and their bodies. Help me stop this inequality, and show everyone that we are unapologetically beautiful and refuse to hide any longer!