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You’re Wearing That?

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVENESS WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY

From School Dress Codes

to Rape Culture By Claire Elise Katz July 28, 2021 No Comments

The email from my daughter’s elementary school principal

arrived one spring afternoon. It stated that effective
immediately for all elementary school students (K-6th grade),
halter tops and spaghetti straps were no longer allowed. Aside
from the inconvenience–I had just purchased several
sundresses, some with spaghetti straps, for my five-year-old
daughter–I was surprised not only by the content of the
message, but also by its apparent urgency.

During a meeting with the principal, we learned that the

precipitating event for the newly installed clothing ban was
that a 2nd grade boy had touched the bare back of a 2nd
grade girl without her consent. “And banning halter tops will
stop boys from touching girls without their consent?” we
asked. The principal, who identified herself as a feminist, was
taken aback by our question. For her, this cause and effect
seemed obvious: if you ban halter tops and spaghetti straps,
then boys will stop touching girls. This was in 2007 at an
elementary school in Chapel Hill, NC, a progressive university
community. Little did I know that this experience was just the
beginning of my dress code battles.

Returning in 2012 from a year living in Amherst, MA, my

daughter entered 6th grade, which was part of the
intermediate school. Neither my daughter nor I was prepared
for the rigid dress code that awaited us in the Texas schools–
for intermediate and middle schools, sleeveless shirts needed
to be “three fingers” across the shoulder and the “Hem lengths
of dresses, skirts, shorts, and skorts must be below each
individual’s fingertips. Clothing should meet fingertip length at
all times. If a student wears tight-fitting pants, he or she must
also wear clothing over them which meets the fingertip
requirement for length.” As the high school handbook states,
in addition to the fingertip length requirement, no sleeveless
shirts (no matter how many fingers across) were allowed.

Shirt with the words, “Do my shoulders turn you on?”

The official College Station school policy was more careful

about the reasons for the dress code: “We’re teaching them to
dress professionally. We want them to practice now so that
they are prepared later.” Occasionally a teacher or
administrator slipped, explicitly stating that the dress code
was in place because otherwise, girls would distract boys. The
blatant sexism, compulsory heterosexism, and rigid gender
binarism, in addition to the untruth about professional dress,
embedded in the dress code and its deployment was not lost
on me nor is it lost on the middle or high school students. The
normalization of the policing of girls’ bodies by way of clothing
often includes the normalization of the racism of policing black
and brown bodies, typically, though not only, by banning
dreadlocks or other hairstyles. Violating the dress code is
classified as a general conduct violation, which could result in
suspension from school.

Barbers Hill HS student refusing to cut dreadlocks

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I admit that before these encounters, I never really gave dress

codes much thought. Although the 70s and early 80s (my K-
12 school years) boasted fashion ideas that one would have
been justified in banning for aesthetic reasons, we
nonetheless wore tube tops, halter tops, and short shorts to
school without penalty. Yet, what started as a personal battle
to fight the dress codes in our school district because of their
negative impact on my daughters, developed into an
academic interest. At the same time that I was battling the
dress codes, I was writing a paper on education, technology,
and social control and researching a book chapter on the
Magdalen laundries. The themes in these two research
projects intersected with the dress code battle. Schools are
frequently the site of social control and the punishment for
deviating from school rules was often swift and severe.

Many of the girls sent to the Magdalen laundries were

accused of being “too pretty” or tempting boys into sexual
activity. They were humiliated and shamed for engaging in
sexual behavior; they were punished for the possibility that
they might engage in sexual behavior in the future; and they
were frequently blamed for a man having raped them. As I
worked through these research projects, I noticed that the
language used in the K-12 school dress code policies looked
strikingly similar to language used to refer to the women in the
Magdalen laundries.

Maggie Sunseri’s documentary, Shame: A Documentary on

School Dress Code, explores this theme along with the
general gendered discrimination in the language that
motivates and enforces school dress codes. Recent criticisms
of high school dress codes claim that not only are the dress
codes sexist but also that they “unfairly target girls by body-
shaming and blaming them for promoting harassment.” In
other words, similar to the girls who were sent to the
Magdalen laundries for being too pretty, girls in US high
schools are also shamed for what they wear (see Tanenbaum
or Easy A).

Lizzy Martinez was told to put two bandaids–like an X–over her nipples.

Sunseri states, “My principal constantly says that the main

reason for the dress code is to create a ‘distraction-free
learning zone’ for our male counterparts,” privileging the
learning environment for male students while also placing the
blame and responsibility for their ability to learn squarely on
the [covered] shoulders of the young women. These claims
are ubiquitous and appear in nearly every report about the US
high school dress codes. Repeatedly, the young women
interviewed for articles about the dress codes or who appear
in Sunseri’s documentary confess to the feeling of shame the
dress codes have on them.
Although at times when I discussed the dangers of the dress
code, I felt a bit like Chicken Little yelling that the sky was
falling: for me there was a clarity to its dangers. The dress
code was not simply a minor inconvenience nor was it only a
violation of self-expression for teens. The dress code, insofar
as the schools explicitly link girls’ clothing to modesty,
distracting boys, and unwanted touching, revealed itself to be
one of the most harmful rules for girls in K-12 schools. The
dress codes for girls are the introduction to and the
reproduction of rape culture in which girls are not only blamed
for the violence, in particular sexual violence, done to them
but also sent a message that there is something wrong with
them for just being girls.

The high school yearbook edited girls’ pictures to hide their

cleavage

As a feminist theorist working at the intersection of 20th-

century French philosophy and themes in philosophy of
education, I found the work of Althusser and Foucault
productive for thinking through the theoretical foundations and
philosophical implications of these dress codes. Kate Manne
offers another way to think about Althussser’s structures that
describe the respective roles of law and ideology as
mechanisms for controlling behavior (see especially chapter 3
in Down Girl).

Manne distinguishes between sexism and misogyny, two

terms that she argues have been wrongly used
interchangeably. For Manne, sexism is the belief that women
are inferior to men and they ought to be subordinate.
Misogyny is the enforcer, the laws or actions (outside of law)
that keep women down. Manne’s structure is especially
helpful when applied to the school dress codes. Sexism
produces the view that women should dress modestly—
women are temptresses, distractions, sluts, and responsible
for men’s behavior. Misogyny produces the dress codes that
enforce this view, not only through real punishments, e.g., in-
school suspension, but also through the threat that if they
wear this clothing, they are responsible for whatever violence
might happen to them. The shame produced by both the
negative views of women who dress this way (sluts) and the
codes (which make violators feel like sexual criminals) is
draped over girls like a piece of clothing they are unable to
remove.

With the exception of women and young girls who explicitly

reject the role of modesty in female subjectivity, the majority of
women and men who support and enforce the dress codes
actually believe in this criterion of modesty: even our principal
identified as a feminist. They use words like distraction or they
attempt to scare young girls with a claim that “boys will see
their undergarments” if their shorts are not long enough. The
concern is either that girls will function like sexual objects or
be ridiculed. While a school-based punishment hangs in the
distance as the ultimate enforcer—the concrete punishment
that scares the students into following the rules—the primary,
or underlying, enforcer of the dress code is the ideology. On
the surface the students think they are afraid of detention or a
suspension, but the more subtle controlling force is being
shamed, humiliated, and ostracized.

One can see the limits and the functioning of the ideology
when a young child says, “I don’t care” to the threat that “boys
will see you.” The child calls out the emperor’s no clothes,
pulls the curtain to reveal the wizard, or following Nietzsche’s
analysis from On the Genealogy of Morals, rejects the threat
of exile for a perceived transgression. What does an authority
do when the ideology is rejected? On the one hand, the power
is revealed to be ephemeral because although punishment
can occur, the primary aim—that is, to control girls’ behavior
through ostracism or shame—has been subverted. On the
other hand, the authority can take the fear-mongering one
step farther, telling these young girls that the dress code is for
their own protection, to prevent unwanted touching and even
rape.

As unfair as it is to make young women responsible for the

learning environment of young men, the danger that these
dress codes perpetuate rape culture should alarm the school
administrators, teachers, and parents. The converse claim
suggests boys and young men are not capable of controlling
their own actions (even animals can be trained) – that should
enrage young men.

Striking back at these claims, students at the Boston Latin

School argue that dress codes perpetuate rape culture rather
than prevent rape. Rather than making women less likely to
be touched without their consent, the petition started by the
students at Boston Latin School and those started by many
other schools charged that by making girls responsible for
boys’ behavior, “[the dress codes] contribute to rape culture
where victims are blamed for dressing provocatively.” I would
add that this logic also places young women in a dangerous
position by allowing them to believe conversely that if they
dress in the particular way demanded by the school—cover
up, dress modestly (whatever this means), and so forth—that
they will be safe from sexual violence, which we know to be
false. Additionally, a 3rd party is invoked to stand in proxy for
the boys who are distracted and the administrators who make
the rules. Everyone in the school from the lunch lady to other
classmates are deputized and pressed into service to enforce
the dress codes.

Althusser’s theory warns us, and many women already know

this from experience, that identifying and rejecting the
ideology is not always easy. Considering the dress codes, we
can also see how much these codes have been internalized.
From buying clothes to deciding which clothes to wear that
day, students are occupied, if not obsessed with the school
dress code. Students who have acquiesced engage in self-
surveillance. Yet, the opportunity for resistance is present
nonetheless. Emerging from their protest of a dress code in
New Jersey, several young women developed the hashtag
#ImMoreThanADistraction, which quickly went viral. (Images 6
and 7

The author’s daughter designed her own protest t-shirt

Linked to modesty, distraction, and non-consensual touching,

the dress code is identified with sexual morality. The dress
code communicates to these girls that by simply desiring to
wear these forbidden articles of clothing, they are violating a
moral norm and they should be ashamed. Having absorbed
the message that certain articles of clothing are immodest or
slutty, these young women often feel ashamed regardless
simply for wanting to wear the clothes that violate the dress
code. There must be something wrong with them, they think.

When students do wear this clothing to school, they either get

coded and take the punishment or they spend their time
crafting ways to avoid the school’s watchful eye. They enter
through doors that are not monitored or they pull their skirts or
shorts down just a little bit more. When the girls are singled
out for their clothing, they wear the stigma of having violated a
moral rule, of being guilty of a sexual transgression that is still
present today in 2021. They might be asked to wear school-
 issued clothing—sometimes the clothing is a jumpsuit just like
prisoners wear—or they might be given in-school suspension.

An example of the jumpsuit, and other school-issued clothing, girls are asked
to wear if they come to school wearing clothing that violates the dress code.

After numerous emails and meetings with principals, assistant

principals, and representatives in the school board office, in
2015, just before my elder daughter entered 9th grade and my
younger daughter entered 6th grade, I spoke to our school
board during an open meeting. Confessing to them that I was
intentionally wearing a dress that was by all accounts
“professional,” but which also violated the school dress code
(sleeveless and above my knee by more than the required
length), I shared with them that the students do not believe
the reasons they give nor do they believe that the school has
their best interests at heart. I argued that the dress code
increases the hypersexualization of girls in part by enlisting
everyone to watch, regulate, and report on what girls are
wearing. More people, not fewer, are now looking at my
daughters’ thighs, knees, and shoulders.

Additionally, while they were busy policing clothing, they

missed an opportunity to engage teenagers in discussions
about issues of concern to them: body image, clothing
expression, sexuality, shaming, gender and racial stereotypes,
the influence of the media in hyper-sexualizing girls, and
consensual touching. And finally, I asked them if they thought I
was not capable of advising my own daughters about their
choices in clothing.

My persistence forced the conversation among teachers and

administrators. Interestingly, the district office, persuaded by
my argument, could not persuade the teachers who remain
the primary supporters of a dress code. Although a dress code
remains in place officially, the district office asked the schools
to relax their enforcement of the dress code and to consider
safety as the overriding concern. Baby steps.

My elder daughter, now in college, faces the reality that

women between 18 and 24 are at an elevated risk and women
on college campuses at the highest risk for sexual violence.
The ideology that undergirds the dress codes leads directly to
this heightened risk of sexual violence. This ideology leads us
still, in the 3rd decade of the 21st century, to ask a woman
who is raped, “What were you wearing?” The sky is falling.

The Women in Philosophy series publishes posts on women

in the history of philosophy, posts on issues of concern to
women in the field of philosophy, and posts that put
philosophy to work to address issues of concern to women in
the wider world. If you are interested in writing for the series,
please contact the Series Editor Adriel M. Trott or Associate
Editor Julinna Oxley.

Claire Elise Katz

Claire Katz is Professor and Interim Department Head of Teaching, Learning, and
Culture in the School of Education and Human Development at Texas A &M University,
where she holds the title Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence. She teaches
and conducts research in two primary areas: (1) the intersection of philosophy, gender,
education, and religion and (2) K-12 philosophy.

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Boston Latin School, claire elise katz, Down Girl, dress codes, Louis
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