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Zack Myrick

Ms. Blommer

English 1010

13 May 2014

Issue Exploration Project:

Should Dress Codes be Implemented in High Schools?

Self-Reflection

I delved into this issue exploration project extremely tentatively. There are many, many

reasons for my timidity and they almost hindered my ability to write this piece at all. I was so

terrified to launch myself into a topic that I was not already extremely passionate about for I am

an overly passionate person, it would be no surprise to know. The idea of such an enormous

piece also horrified me as I doubt my own capabilities when it comes to writing and tend to over

think things quite a bit.

Being such a passionate and fiery human, I find myself immersing my own beliefs in the

issues that interest me. When I become involved with a topic I take it very personally and even

begin to bend the narrative of said topic to match my own perspective. Because of this it is

difficult for me to stay objective. And this piece really challenged my ability to do so. It really

taught me that not even something as simple as clothing is black and white. The world is full of

grey and that is where complex thought and problem solving happens. The theme of what I

learned seems to be: embrace the compromise.

Before I discovered this life changing nugget of knowledge however, my process for

writing this piece was not necessarily what most would call totally academic. There was a lot of

rolling around in bed, moaning over the page count, losing my train of thought, or even my

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laptop freezing. Looking back on it I am sure that the entire process would have gone by so

much quicker if I had just relaxed and breathed.

The daunting concept of the research paper is what truly held me back. But I can honestly

say that whenever I sat myself down, gave myself a riveting pep talk about motivation, and

forced myself to just puke it out onto the laptop (saving the editing for later), I got some pleasant

progress done. So unlike the seamless and emotional pouring of my soul, all done in one sitting

with my personal memoir or my teeth bared, race to the finish line night before experience with

my visual analysis, this piece comes in somewhere around the middle. And I think that is good. I

see myself working best under pressure with a due date looming overhead but it is always

comforting to have time for cleaning and editing. This seems to me like a healthy and poignant

turn in my writing process; a hybrid of my two most utilized methods.

With the end of this process here I am quite proud of my work on this project. It was a

rough going at first but I really think I pushed through and effectively used some pieces of

knowledge learned throughout the year in this course. I would sincerely hope my audience

notices my attention to detail while supporting all of my claims made about my sources, for

instance my explanation of Natalie Smith’s use of pathos with Ceara Sturgis’ story and its effect

on dress codes on page fourteen. I also really felt my comparison of that particular piece’s

rhetoric and Eliana Dockterman’s, continuing onto page fifteen, was also a great example of

evaluation. To me that synthesis of information felt a lot more effortless than I thought it would.

Another set of claims I feel I successfully supported were the ones pertaining to the Garrets

Metal Detectors’ marketing campaign on page sixteen. It felt like the evidence was concrete that

they used the boy pulling out the guns in order to scare the thought of a dress code into the minds

of school administrators and I felt I communicated that well. The last piece that I enjoyed was

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my own rhetorical devices employed in my commentary section with my inclusion of a personal

experience with dress code on pages eighteen through twenty. The use of pathos is what grabbed

my attention most in the sources I analyzed so I felt that an appeal to emotion was most effective

in my own commentary. That being said I definitely think that there are pieces of my paper that

indeed leave more to be desired. My introduction and conclusion, on pages nine and twenty-one

through twenty-two respectively, feel extremely clunky and tacked on. This might be because

they sort of are. I was having a massively horrendous amount of trouble with opening the paper

in a clean and organic way. It just always felt extremely contrite and repetitive. Same goes for

my conclusion. It felt awkward and matter of fact, not much narrative or voice weaved

throughout it. If I had more time to clean and edit my piece further I would most definitely focus

on those two components of the paper.

This research project really does feel like a complete consensus of everything that was

taught in the English 1010 course. It forces the students to use each component of the class in

order to complete a well written piece. I can really see the progression of the course as a whole,

why each project was done and even the purpose of the order of their completion. Looking back

each large writing piece was just preparation to lead the students with knowledge at their backs

to this monster of a paper. The critique was an easy way to introduce one to the idea of picking

something apart but the opinions were still allowed almost as a crutch. The memoir was an

effective way to build the voice, one the students would hopefully employ in a more nuanced

fashion throughout this piece. The visual essay taught the students how to focus on and analyze

one item of their choosing which would help when they had to handle four at once. This final

project was a great merging of every piece of the puzzle with evaluation and synthesis joined in

to create a supported and complete academic research paper.

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Annotated Bibliography

Dockterman, Eliana. "When Enforcing School Dress Codes Turns Into Slut Shaming."

Time.Com (2014): 1. Business Source Premier. Web. 23 April 2014.

The article entitled, “When Enforcing School Dress Codes Turns Into Slut Shaming” by

Eliana Dockterman was published on March 27, 2014 on Time.com. In the article, Dockterman

explains to her audience how detrimental enforcing school dress codes can be to the young

female students in the education system. Dockterman uses many stories of girls around the

United States to illustrate her point and persuade her audience into agreeing with her.

Eliana Dockterman does a great job at appealing to the emotions of the intended audience

as they read her piece. With each successive story about this middle school aged girls, the reader

begins to feel for them and realize how unfairly they are being treated. Dockterman selects the

order of her story very carefully, starting with herself a bit, moving on to girls in trouble for

wearing leggings, and finally finishing with a small mention of a girl in trouble for shaving her

head for a friend with cancer. Each story gets a little more emotionally engaging than the last,

sucking the reader in to pay attention and agree with Dockterman’s point of view. However

Dockterman’s piece does include a very large fallacy of either-or. She suggest that dress codes

be changed or girls will be affected negatively no matter what.

I think this article is interesting because of the fact that it was published on the same site

and on the same day as, "How Ugly School Uniforms Will Save Education." It is even

mentioned in that article with a note of, “more” next to it. This makes me believe that one article

might be in response to the other. That could give some more depth to the sarcasm utilized in the

article about ugly school uniforms as that is something that Dockterman suggests at the end as a

solution to the problem.

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Luscombe, Belinda. "How Ugly School Uniforms Will Save Education." Time.Com (2014): 1.

Business Source Premier. Web. 21 April 2014.

The article, “How Ugly School Uniforms Will Save Education” was written by Belinda

Luscombe and published on Time.com on March 27, 2014. In the article, Luscombe sarcastically

presents to her audience why uniforms, ugly ones at that, are the answer to the entire dress code

issue. She presents the advantages of enforcing uniforms and all the great things they can do for

the schooling system, for the students themselves, and how the use of uniforms will fix all of the

problems that schools are having with dress code.

Luscombe’s piece takes on an extremely sarcastic tone. It is very clear with Luscombe’s

use of hyperboles, relaxed style, and word choice that she is poking fun at the ridiculousness of

the idea of such a solution. This appeals to the reader’s emotion with humor and irony at

presenting the so sure point of view in such a warped way. But this sarcastic tone does present a

fallacy in Luscombe’s article. It brings forward the red-herring fallacy because it makes uniforms

the focus of the piece when Luscombe is really attacking the ridiculousness of dress code in her

eyes.

I will use Luscombe’s piece because of its great use of comedy and sarcasm to persuade

the reader into agreeing with her that uniforms are ridiculous. I think this piece definitely brings

a fun, lighthearted, and different energy to the table that the other pieces have not. But my

favorite thing is that some of the points she makes are actually extremely valid when thought of

in a less hyperbolic way than Luscombe presents them. This is interesting and a more in favor

point of view in a roundabout way.

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Smith, Natalie. “Chalk Talks - Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in Public School Dress Codes:

The Necessity of Respecting Personal Preference.” Journal of Law & Education 41.1

(2012): 251-259. Print.

In the article, “Chalk Talks - Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in Public School Dress

Codes: The Necessity of Respecting Personal Preference” written by Natalie Smith in January

2012, she discusses the constitutionality of dress codes in high schools and the affects they have

on students. To inform her intended audience Smith presents each major point, bit by bit, in

sections. Each section is another piece of the puzzle and helps her argument such as the First

Amendment, court cases, and rationalizations for and against her.

The article is full of rhetoric that Smith uses to persuade her audience. First, Smith

clearly maps out where she is going to take the article. This lets the audience know what

examples and main points Smith will be addressing. There is then an extremely strong appeal to

emotion right at the beginning with the story of Ceara Sturgis. Smith intends to make the

audience relate to Sturgis and feel for her plight of being denied her freedom of speech by

painting her in a flattering light and then describing the hurt she was dealt. Smith also appeals to

the logic of the audience by referencing the First Amendment and bringing up the various court

cases that deal with dress code and its gender consequences. However, Smith does use the

fallacy, ergo—or cause and effect—with her claim that without self-expression teenagers will

not developed healthily.

I will use this article to emphasize the gender politics behind dress codes, the

consequences it has on the non-gender binary minorities in schools, and the pathos that the

author uses to portray that. It is a different point of view with a more emotional emphasis on one

person’s personal story at the beginning, making it a very pathos heavy piece with strong

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imagery and full details regarding the topic. The article also does a great job of using court cases

that involved dress codes to support the argument, increasing the article’s credibility.

Swan, Noelle. “High school dress code: The battle for keeping up appearances.” The Christian

Science Monitor: 23. (2013): ProQuest. Web. 21 April 2014.

The article by Noelle Swan entitled, “High school dress code: The battle for keeping up

appearances” was published on September 11, 2013 in The Christian Science Monitor. The piece

does not overtly express the author’s views on dress codes in high schools in America. However

Swan does summarize the positive and negative sides to establishing these dress codes. She

includes the details of teens needing to express themselves, the faults that come with clothing as

expression, the need for decency in society, the pressures presented by the media, etc.

Noelle Swan’s piece employs a strong appeal to logic with her many examples of the

pros and cons of dress codes. She brings up many different issues from each side to summarize

the topic and familiarize her intended audience with the material so that they can make an

educated decision on the matter, logically introducing each with ease. What makes Swan’s piece

truly credible and strong is the fact that both sides of the topic are presented in what appears to

be an equal amount. But taking a neutral stance on both sides leads to Swan employing the

fallacy of generalizations to each side’s struggles and flaws. It is very much downplayed and

made to feel less like an issue and more like a disagreement.

This piece’s strengths come from its more neutral view on the issue. It is a great summary

and look at the topic with not too much judgment placed on either side; it just strongly brings in

the many facets at play. I will use this periodical to emphasize this idea of not choosing a side,

simply stating the different ideas surrounding it.

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Workman, Jane E., and Beth Winfrey Freeburg. "Safety And Security In A School Environment:

The Role Of Dress Code Policies." Journal Of Family & Consumer Sciences 98.2 (2006):

19-24. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 22 April 2014.

In the article, “Safety and Security in a School Environment: The Role of Dress Code

Policies” published in April 2006 and written by Jane E. Workman and Beth Winfrey Freeburg,

the authors write about the results of a survey they performed about dress codes in high schools.

The survey was done by randomly choosing high schools handbooks to see whether or not high

schools considered dress code as a strategy to ensure safety. Their findings were conclusive and

84% of schools’ handbooks had evidence that dress codes were considered a strategy to ensure

safety.

Workman and Freeburg present their finding in a very academic and straightforward

manner. They give the reader each piece of information in a very orderly manner and appeal to

the logic of the audience by presenting issues that the reader needs to know—like definitions of

terms, certain background knowledge on the issue—in order to understand the results of the

survey. Because, however, the article is so fact based it does fall victim to the oversimplification

fallacy. Workman and Freeburg fail to mention the adverse effects that the dress codes have on

the students and make many assumptions that the schools are only concerned about the student’s

safety.

I will use this article because of the hard evidence it supplies. It tells the audience that on

average most schools believe that their dress codes are going to help protect their students; that

schools aren’t just enforcing them to take away their self-expression. I feel it presents a

viewpoint that my other sources are lacking and that is a more sympathetic look at why the

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school enforce dress codes. It is also a nice variety in medium, being a survey result piece. It

certainly creates a credible connotation because of the hard evidence right on the page.

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Introduction

Dress to impress. These are words that many people hear on a very regular basis, whether

it be in preparation of a job interview, getting ready for dinner with the in-laws, or even on the

way to school. Before most people leave the house they are presented with this phrase or

something like it, be it by someone else or by themselves. This is because clothing is an essential

piece of expressing who one is and how one behaves. But when those clothing choices bend and

change with media and society it becomes a bit more difficult to precisely decide which clothes

will indeed impress.

High schools around the United States have been employing dress codes since public

education became heavily popular. There has almost always been an expectation as to what

students should and should not wear, what was appropriate and what was not appropriate. But as

each decade passes and the younger generations demand more freedom, those lines become

harder to define. Dress codes have been heavily fought against since the 1960s as Jo B. Paoletti

states in Noelle Swan’s periodical, “High school dress code: The battle for keeping up

appearances.” Back then it was boys fighting for the right to long hair and girls wanting to wear

miniskirts. The point is: this is not a new problem.

The new problem is the generation high schools are now dealing with. Because kids are

as smart as they are, connected with the Internet and other technologies, it has to be expected of

them to demand a voice. And one way that many teenage kids use their voice is with their

clothing. With idols like Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and Skrillex who continue to push the

boundaries of fashion, it becomes very easy for young adults to emulate their styles in a form of

slight rebellion. So when school officials with beliefs shaped by the outdated attempt to tell these

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hotheaded teenagers what to wear, it is bound to become a very heated topic. It is like an

unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

With the issue just appearing to be about clothes and the wants of young adults to be

fashionable, it becomes easy to dismiss. That is not what is really complicated. What is truly

complicated about dress codes and their implications on students are the underlying

consequences dress codes cause: the safety of students in school, the unconstitutionality of

hindering a student’s First Amendment, the respect of authority, the leveling of the economic

classes in school, slut-shaming, and countless others.

Summary

In the article, “Chalk Talks - Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in Public School Dress

Codes: The Necessity of Respecting Personal Preference” written by Natalie Smith in January

2012, she discusses the constitutionality of dress codes in high schools, the affects they have on

students, where the details regarding dress code are drawn for people of non-gender binary

identification, and the affects they have on those particular students. Smith begins her piece by

introducing the story of Ceara Sturgis, a young honor roll, female student, who was openly gay

and whose picture was not placed in the yearbook due to her choice of wearing clothing

generally worn by males. To educate her audience—consisting of readers looking to familiarize

themselves with the topic—on the very complicated and precarious details, Smith

knowledgeably presents each major point that relates to Sturgis’ story. She first references the

First Amendment and how it affects dress code. Then Smith brings up the laws of equal

protection toward gender discrimination and its presence in high school dress code. Next, Smith

introduces when and why certain gender-based restrictions have been accepted in high schools

and are deemed appropriate, there is then a counter to this that explains why there are even

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exceptions to these restrictions. Finally, Smith concludes that restrictions are only lifted when a

student is taken out of their own gender group and placed in another, but when a student—like

Sturgis—opts to bend the lines between gender groups, without entering another, the restrictions

are kept in place. To Smith this is deemed unconstitutional.

Whereas Smith had a very anti-dress code stance, this next source is on the opposite end

of the spectrum according to the issue. In the marketing video from Garrett Metal Detectors,

used in Michael Moore’s documentary, Bowling for Columbine, in November 2002, the

producers of the ad demonstrate to the parents and school administrators watching that school

dress codes will make the students safer. The ad begins with a spokeswoman who is talking

about the benefits of enforcing a strict dress code. She then presents a normal looking student in

clothing that is not in the standards of the dress code. The student then demonstrates that the

clothing is unsafe by reaching into his clothes and bringing out weapon after weapon, all of

which the viewer most likely had no idea was there. While this is happening, the woman explains

that a relaxed dress code makes it easier to hide weapons and harder to identify intruders in the

school, that strict dress codes ensure safety. Then she goes on to explain what is against their

dress code policy: untucked shirts, baggy pants, and anything relating to gang activity.

This next piece, on the other hand, is more in the middle with the topic of dress codes.

The article entitled, “When Enforcing School Dress Codes Turns Into Slut Shaming” by Eliana

Dockterman was published on March 27, 2014 on Time.com and in it, the author attempts to

explain to her audience how dress codes in high schools can have a much more sinister effect on

girls and lead to “slut-shaming.” In the article, Dockterman first uses an anecdote from her own

life regarding a time that she herself was a victim of slut-shaming and its negative effects on her,

resulting from her teacher telling her she did not respect herself because of her clothing, in front

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of the entire class. Then Dockterman relates her own tale to a current event of students in

Evanston, Illinois and how the banning of leggings in their school because it distracts boys is in

and of itself slut-shaming. The point is made that making a girl feel responsible because of the

way boys looks at her is similar to making rape victims feel responsible for being raped. More

schools and their dress code stories are then added to the mix by Dockterman, including

kindergarteners being dress coded and a girl being reprimanded for shaving her head in support

of a friend suffering from cancer. Dockterman then proposes the benefits and disadvantages to

some hypothetical solutions to the issue including uniforms and same-sex schools. The

conclusion that Dockterman reaches is that dress codes are indeed necessary but that sex should

be taken out of the issue and girls should not be made to feel responsible for the actions and

misbehaviors of others.

The last source that will be analyzed, however, almost separates itself from the issue

completely. In the video entitled, The Problem with Jeggings produced by the sketch comedy

and entertainment company CollegeHumor and posted to their website collegehumor.com in

February 2011, the producers show the teenage viewers looking for a laugh, just ridiculous the

fashion trends are becoming. The video begins with a teacher coming into what looks like a high

school classroom and introducing himself as the substitute. The substitute, Mr. S, then informs

the students that the principal has banned the students from wearing the popular jean leggings, or

jeggings. A student then jumps up to protest that the jeggings are just jeans. From there student

after student rises asking if this or that completely outrageous clothing item is appropriate to

wear or not, when Mr. S tells them no they usually have something snarky to respond with. After

so many students enquire about their fashion choices, Mr. S gets visibly frustrated, slamming a

book on the desk, and then provides a long list of everything the students cannot wear anymore.

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The students finally relent and give up their battle, with that Mr. S gets back to his lesson, taking

his shirt off and revealing that he is wearing one of the items that he had told the students they

were not allowed to wear.

Source Analysis and Evaluation

Each source presents a viewpoint on the need for or against dress codes in high schools.

Each source also presents their intended audience with information to support their stance on the

issue. This information is filled with rhetoric to persuade the audience to think something,

perhaps agree, ponder the issue, or simply bring attention to the issue, etc. Some of these sources

use their rhetoric much more effectively than others; some of them are very strong in some areas

but weak in others.

What is interesting and very telling is that all four sources employ a strong appeal to

emotions in order to communicate their message to their respective audience. The article by

Natalie Smith, is no different. Smith expertly introduces the story of Ceara Sturgis, the

underlying subject of her piece and is quick to use the information to gain the audience’s ear.

Sturgis is painted as a first class student, doing all she can to make herself a better person and

striving to make the most of things. The audience is made to sympathize with her as Smith

emphasizes the fact that Sturgis is of the LGBTQ Community. It appeals to the audience’s

emotions to hear of a strong person who has overcome adversity, faced with more adversity.

Smith instantly has the reader on Sturgis’ side when they are informed of her struggles with dress

code because of how she chooses to express herself. This sympathy and fast connection instills

an almost need to fight alongside Smith for Sturgis’ rights to wear as she pleases and be included

regardless. This is similar to but more effective than Eliana Dockterman’s appeal to her

audience’s emotions. Whereas Smith focuses on one solid story filled with sympathy grabbing

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rhetoric, Dockterman shifts between multiple tales to catch her reader’s attention. This lack of

consistency makes her piece feel more disjointed and less easy to follow as she jumps from one

example to the next while Smith’s one example of Sturgis is much easier to follow. However

what does make Dockterman’s appeal to emotion still effective is the inclusion of her own tale

which Smith’s piece is lacking. Because she bears a piece of her own personal experience with

dress code and the resulting consequences, Dockterman herself creates a stronger connection to

her reader whereas Smith creates a connection between the reader and Sturgis. The example feels

a bit closer to home as if it could happen to anyone even possibly the reader themselves.

The other two source’s use of pathos is wildly different. CollegeHumor does not make

their audience sympathize with anyone but rather laugh at the entire situation as a whole.

Fig. 1 features a student appearing upset when her clothing is banned by dress code

CollegeHumor’s use of humor to bring a more lighthearted connotation to the issue is effective

in that it does not make their audience feel as if anyone is the bad guy when it comes to dress

codes. Even though CollegeHumor paints the teens in the video as brats with no fashion sense,

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evident in their crass remarks and out of left field clothing like those seen in Fig. 1, it also paints

the video’s protagonist, Mr. S, as a short tempered hypocrite with his outbursts and his wearing

of the outlawed clothing. With that, no fingers are being pointed and it is much easier to see

CollegeHumor’s point of view that both sides are mostly wrong in their approach to the issue.

Garrets Metal Detectors’ use of pathos, however, is on the other side of the spectrum and

yet it is equally as strong as CollegeHumor’s, if not stronger due to its shear ability to grab the

attention of the viewer. In their marketing advertisement, there is no humor present and instead

they employ an extremely heavy scare tactic to convince the schools watching that they too

should enforce strict dress codes. The use of a teenage student revealing gun after gun after gun

from his clothing is enough to terrify any school administrator and that is exactly Garrets Metal

Detectors’ intent. It heavily reduces the apparent disadvantages of a dress code because the

advantages—keeping the students safe and weapons away from school—are so blatant and

obvious when shown in that light. Once a school’s administration is shown this they will be

ready to listen to just about anything that Garrets Metal Detectors will tell them and a strict dress

code looks to be a small price when compared to Garrets Metal Detectors’ startling and shaking

piece of rhetoric.

Although an appeal to the audience’s emotion seems to be the most effective strategy of

each source, there are others. Smith does express a strong appeal to the logic of her audience.

With her inclusion of minute and extensive details, in order to explain why Sturgis’ treatment

was wrong, pulls the audience to look at the issue with a more sound judgment. The gradual

explanation of the history of dress codes, and the laws and protections that have stemmed from

it, takes away the emotion in the story and plants the questions of: why not? if someone has the

freedom to speak their mind with their words, why should they not have the freedom to speak it

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with their clothes? Smith is smart in that she brings in irrefutable pieces of evidence like the First

Amendment and the very ideals of the United States resulting in an appeal to the authority of

higher laws as well. It makes it much more difficult to justify a logical argument against her

own.

The inkling of doubt the hard evidence brings into the picture, strengthens and makes

Smith’s piece extremely effective in persuading her audience. This makes the logic Smith

displays much more effective than Garrets Metal Detectors’ advertisement because it appears to

have a lack of logos right from the beginning. It is indeed extremely hard to look passed the

overarching appeal to the emotion of fear that Garrets Metal Detectors uses in the advertisement

but once the viewer does, one will realize that the scenario displayed it not very rational. Each

heavy piece of information that the spokeswoman presents is unsupported and full of

generalizations. It is never stated where their facts have come from and fails to cite any credible

piece of information that proves their claims on dress codes. The huge fallacy of generalization,

suggesting that dress codes will reduce the threats of weapons and gang violence, is glossed over

by the images of the adolescent pulling weapons out of his clothing but it is indeed there. When

looked at logically the viewer will realize that if a student intends to hurt other students they will

find a way to bring a weapon one way or another regardless of what they are wearing; there are

other ways to smuggle in weapons. And possibly the most illogical piece of the advertisement is

the student himself and the hyperbolic amount of weapons on his person. When looked at with

the fear stripped away and a perceptive eye, the viewer will realize that, yes a student could carry

in all of those weapons, but would he not be detected? It lacks logic to think that a student could

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Fig. 2 features a student pulling guns from his dress code violating clothing

walk normally with a twelve gauge shotgun down his front and not be caught by the

administration with or without a strict dress code.

Commentary

I once knew a girl whom we will call Abbie for the safety of her privacy. Abbie was a

straight A student, heavily involved in extra-curricular activities, and a member of the student

body office at my high school. I personally watched Abbie get reported for violating dress code

many, many times in class and even in the hallways. Nothing she ever wore seemed to be overtly

inappropriate in my eyes. But it still happened at least every other week.

I would watch Abbie every now and then and wonder, “Does she just not care? Does she

not even realize that she is violating the rules?” It just seemed too common an occurrence to be

anything but suspicious.

And one day I realized why it felt off to me; I discovered the reasons behind why she was

singled out so much for the way she dressed.

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In class we would circle up, our instructor would take roll, and then talk about what was

on the agenda for the day. Abbie and another girl named Claire walked into class and hurried to

sit in the circle directly to my right. They had just come from a ballet class—that being

extremely common in the arts school I attend—so I hardly even noticed their matching spanks

and tights or Abbie’s tank top and Claire’s sweater. But as soon as our instructor called Abbie’s

name she stopped, looked Abbie up and down and requested her to stand so she could inspect

Abbie’s choice of attire. The instructor pointed out with a disappointed eye that tank tops were

against dress code, being as they showed too much skin. Before Abbie could ask to change into

something else, the instructor also asked her to demonstrate whether or not her shorts were an

appropriate length—protocol at the school delegates that all shorts must be no higher than one’s

fingertips. Abbie did as she was requested but the shorts failed to meet said protocol. Abbie was

all in all completely against dress code. I did not think too much about it until I looked down at

Claire and was reminded she was also wearing the same exact spanks and tights combination. To

add insult to injury I then regarded my own attire and realized that I too was wearing a tank top.

Were Claire and I subject to the dress code? The answer is no.

I have never been personally affected by dress codes in my entire career as a student in

high school. I have never been told to change a shirt, never been told my shorts were too short,

never been chastised for wearing a tank top. And that is where I think the problems with dress

code in our high schools take root.

It is fully within the power of an administration to limit what is appropriate and what is

not appropriate for school, as the principal of the high school that I attend wisely pointed out in

the interview I conducted: it is practice for professionalism in the working world. But like Eliana

Dockterman and Natalie Smith, I believe the moment the dress code interferes with someone’s

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own appropriately displayed self-expression or suddenly turns the problem into something it is

not really about—like slut-shaming—that is when I cannot agree with the enforcement of dress

codes.

Abbie was dressed coded because of the following reasons: A. Abbie is a female. B.

Abbie is an attractive female. And C. Abbie was already defined as a sexual object because of

her prior violations of dress code. When looking at the bigger picture these reasons are really all

one and the same.

Abbie was dress coded and I was not because in the eyes of our society females are

placed at blame far more than males are for their own bodies. As Dockterman pointed out in her

article, dress codes have heavily become about the need to not distract other students. Our

instructor’s first thought was that Abbie would be distracting the other students with her

shoulders showing and yet there was never a care in her mind about my supposedly same

violation of the dress code. Abbie was seen as more of a blatant distraction than I was, being

male.

Abbie was dress coded and Claire was not because in the eyes of our society girls with

Abbie’s appearance are more often sexualized. Whereas Claire is heavier set and shorter, Abbie

is tall and lean, Claire is much paler and Abbie is glowingly tan. Abbie was seen first and

foremost as a sexual object while Claire was seen more as a person because her appearance is not

what most generally notice about her first.

That is where dress codes cross the line from keeping students safe and teaching them to

be professional and discriminating based on gender and appearances. I certainly see the

advantages of a dress code and there are many but bringing sex into the equation should have no

place in the issue.

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Conclusion

As Dockterman said there have been many attempts at addressing the issue of dress codes

in order to please all sides. One widely used solution has been uniforms. Like Belinda Luscombe

pointed out in her satirical piece, “How Ugly School Uniforms Will Save Education” there are

advantages to uniforms. Although completely sarcastic, Luscombe does make a point that

uniforms could level out the gaps between economic classes in high schools. If each student

wears a uniform then it becomes difficult to differentiate which students are lower or higher

class. While uniforms do indeed take away the need for a dress code and often takes sex out of

the discussion, it completely hinders and puts an end all to self-expression and the voice of

students. This is why uniforms are a weak answer to dress codes. Without any self-expression—

which is extremely important to developing minds—students cannot explore who they are and

what they enjoy, they become clones of one another. Individuality is said to be what is searched

for in today’s professional world; what makes one stand out.

Another attempt at solving this issue has been same-sex schools. This too is a flawed

solution. With same-sex schools students miss out on the opportunity to interact with the

opposite sex while developing. This can in turn lead to interaction with the opposite sex

extremely difficult later in life resulting in anxieties, biases, and many other complications in the

work place. It is important for a young adult to acquire the skills of interaction with both sexes

while this development is happening.

The only solution that will satisfy both sides it seems would be a compromise. That is

much easier said than done though. According to the principal that I personally interviewed this

“compromise” would be, “If students just dressed modestly then we wouldn’t need to have a

dress code.” But that is not really a compromise at all. That is only satiating one side in truth.

Myrick 22

Like with the issue itself, with a compromise where does one draw the line? Students

could be allowed to wear what they want but what about those that will breach the trust of a

school’s administration by possibly wearing nothing at all? Or administrations could allow looser

restrictions but who’s to say it will suddenly be fair to every student? In the end it is about

respect, respect of the need for students to express themselves and their First Amendment rights,

and respect for high school administrations’ need to protect and teach professionalism to the

student body. But once again, like with every other aspect in the issue of dress codes: where is

the line drawn at even the idea of respect?

Myrick 23

Works Cited

Bowling for Columbine. Dir. Michael Moore. Alliance Atlantis Communications, 2002. Web.

Dockterman, Eliana. "When Enforcing School Dress Codes Turns Into Slut Shaming."

Time.Com (2014): 1. Business Source Premier. Web. 23 April 2014.

Luscombe, Belinda. "How Ugly School Uniforms Will Save Education." Time.Com (2014): 1.

Business Source Premier. Web. 21 April 2014.

Shulte, Paul. Personal interview. 30 April 2014.

Smith, Natalie. “Chalk Talks - Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in Public School Dress Codes:

The Necessity of Respecting Personal Preference.” Journal of Law & Education 41.1

(2012): 251-259. Print.

Swan, Noelle. “High school dress code: The battle for keeping up appearances.” The Christian

Science Monitor: 23. (2013): ProQuest. Web. 21 April 2014.

“The Problem with Jeggings.” CollegeHumor. CollegeHumor, 8 February 2011. Web. 25 April

2014.

Workman, Jane E., and Beth Winfrey Freeburg. "Safety And Security In A School Environment:

The Role Of Dress Code Policies." Journal Of Family & Consumer Sciences 98.2 (2006):

19-24. Education Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 22 April 2014.