Dress code has been around in schools since the late 1960’s, and since then, there has been a lot of disagreement about it. One of the main reasons being it goes against people’s personal styles and forces them to buy a new wardrobe of “school appropriate” clothes. Some of the dress code is understandable, but it doesn’t make sense that some of the code, such as short shorts, are ignored, while “totally distracting” shoulders and noodle straps get dress coded immediately. I talked to one my classmates, sophomore Kayla Wiers, and she says she thinks teachers judge more on the person’s body shape intermixing with the clothes instead of the clothes themselves. She thinks, and I agree myself, that this is body shaming bigger girls, because the more petite girls that go against the dress code don’t get called out for it because they fit the look better.

Not only is the clothing part of the dress code the problem, but the people getting dress coded are almost always girls. Guys are never called out for sagging pants, or tank tops, but girls are constantly getting asked to change from exposing there smooth, sexy shoulders. Why aren’t guys asked to change when showing their shoulders? Are they not considered a distraction compared to girl’s shoulders? And if so, why is that? Another classmate of mine at Fraser, Leydi Duletzke, agrees that it is unfair guys don’t get called out not even half as much as girls do.

To see if guys actually find shoulders distracting, I took a survey out of 50 people (specifically males), and out of that number, 47 said they didn’t find shoulders distracting, and 3 said they did. So, percentage wise, 6% find shoulders distracting and 94%, which is where the majority of the votes went to, did not find shoulders distracting. This goes to show that most guys do not get distracted by girl’s shoulders, and that this dress code is not necessary, along with other rules that block girls self-confidence and creativity. The principal or school board of any school should acknowledge that people have their own styles, and body shapes, and should be able to do whatever they wish with themselves, and the people that keep getting distracted should learn how to ignore, because they are never going to go on with life if they get distracted by tiny little things like shoulders.