When families send their kids back to school each month, they make sure they have the basics: enough school supplies, a new handbag, and, of course, new clothes for the year ahead. However, the clothing parents purchase is occasionally spark disagreements among college staff.
That’s exactly what happened to one family in 2017! However, her position is common among students, specifically younger women.
A mother wrote a letter to the director of her daughter’s class, hitting back at the cruel dress script.
In 2017, Catherine Pearlman, a certified therapist, family mentor, artist, and mother, had enough of the stringent dress code in her daughter’s school and.
The personal- described “Sick of the Dress Code Mommy” demanded that the middle class superintendent, who flagged her daughter for a dress code violation, taking her daughter clothes shopping. After her daughter was sent home for the second day in a row for “dressing inappropriately for school,” she wrote an open letter to the “principal who flagged my daughter’s dress code violation.”
Pearlman’s daughter was forced to undergo “large mesh shorts that have been worn by only god knows who and possibly never washed.”
After her, Pearlman’s letter told the principal “to reward you for treating my daughter with such concern, I am cordially inviting you to take my daughter shopping”. She said that her daughter was” 5’7 “and 13 years old. She is more like her father, has extremely long legs, and arms, and “gives the main instructions on how to shop for her teenager.”
“She doesn’t like anything pink or purple or frilly. She avoids wearing pants because she is easily overheated. She will not wear a dress either. No item of clothing can have a logo visible because to her that’s not cool,” she explained. Additionally, Pearlman noted that her daughter’s “very long fingers” make it difficult to locate shorts that won’t send her to the principal’s office (On the plus side, the piano teacher claims those fingers are a plus).
Pearlman advised the principal to “don’t forget that you will have to find something in the stores that also meets your dress code requirements.” In instructing the principal on how to manage the proposed shopping trip, Pearlman advised.
Pearlman ended her letter with a post- script, stating,, “I forgot to thank you for making it clear to my daughter that her body is somehow a distraction, either to herself or to the boys… I believed she might have forgotten what the gym teacher had previously said because the boys can’t control themselves and aren’t in control of themselves. I appreciate how diligently you are in bringing the point home.”
Photo: cottonbro studio / Pexels
Her letter eventually went viral, and Pearlman posted an update on the dress code situation on Instagram.
Due to her letter, Pearlman said that the school district, which contained 50, 000 students, changed the dress code so it was no longer acceptable to say girls were a distraction to boys based on what they were wearing. The dress code “is also more flexible in what can be worn.”
The pendulum for school dress codes has swung far in a traditional direction, one that allows girls to dictate their appearance in the world.
There’s no denying that the focus is education, but it’s normal and typically expected that schools will have their own set of dress codes for students. School dress codes also unnecessarily, as well as LGBTQ+ students who don’t adhere to gender binary norms.
The success of Pearlman’s campaign to defend her daughter and all students demonstrates how biased these school dress code violations are, as they frequently target young girls whose attire is “distracting” to the young boys.
School dress codes may “reflect the sexist and harmful view that girls’ bodies are inherently vulgar or inappropriate, that boys will be “distracted” by girls’ bodies, and that girls’ dress and appearance need more regulation than boys.’
This has certainly been the case on more than one occasion, with girls being dress coded and wearing, sometimes as a result.
Of course, rules are meant to be enforced, and schools are entitled to create dress codes, as long as they aren’t explicitly discriminatory.
However, educators and administrators are telling girls there is something “wrong” with their bodies by shifting the focus to what girls are wearing.
So, not only does this teach girls to be self- conscious about their bodies, but by policing the clothing they wear, they can miss out on the most important part of school: learning.
The lesson being taught to them is that their bodies are a distraction, and they don’t deserve to sit in the same classroom or receive the same amount of education because someone might not like what they are wearing, which is humiliating in itself.
Dress coding girls for “showing too much skin” or wearing a “too short skirt” puts the blame on them, which further complicates their self-esteem and shows girls that their education is secondary to that of their male classmates.
Photo: Rosie Ann / Pexels
For Pearlman, her letter had such an incredible impact. The fact that the school district altered the dress code demonstrates how effective people are in bringing about grassroots, well-needed change.
However, it’s crucial to treat all students equally in order for other schools to change or change their own dress codes that unfairly discriminate against girls. Additionally, administrations can take time to from a culture that “reinforces disparate treatment of the genders” that “may have subconsciously affected” how people are treated.
Until then, here’s hoping that mothers like Pearlman continue to stand up against injustice.