Blog Post #4

I used to live in Jacksonville before I came to UF, and during my junior year of high school the dress code changed. It used to always be that girls could wear skirts/dresses as long as they were less than four inches above the knee, and girls could also wear tank tops (since it's hot, of course; it's Florida). However, during my junior year, the dress code changed to where girls could no longer wear tank tops or leggings. Apparently, they were too "distracting" to the boys. Of course, nobody liked this change. At first, it was just annoying, but the more that girls thought about it, the more offensive it became. Instead of teaching girls to embrace their bodies and to be comfortable with themselves, the school was basically saying that boys' attention spans were more important. Also, since girls were sent to the dean's office if they were out of dress code, it took away from their class time. Instead of girls focusing more on school, the school was making them focus more on what they were wearing. During my senior year, I dislocated my knee and I had to wear a brace. However, my brace did not fit over or under any pair of my jeans, and it was about to be winter so I couldn't keep wearing dresses and skirts. I decided to wear leggings instead because that was the only thing I could wear with my brace and not get too cold. Of course, I got dress coded. When I talked to the dean, I obviously wasn't very happy about it, and I started ranting that it was the only thing that I could wear. I think I kind of caught him off guard a little bit and he let me go back to class. After that, I wasn't caught for dress code again (I wore leggings for another three months). The boys in my classes still passed, no one was offended that I was wearing leggings, and literally nothing changed because of the leggings. The school overreacted by making that new dress code in the first place. Whoever's idea it was wanted students to be more focused on school instead of what they were wearing, but it had the opposite effect since girls were getting sent out of class to go change.