A Beautiful Diorama

literaryreference:

You know how it is, right, ladies? You know a guy for a while. You hang out with him. You do fun things with him—play video games, watch movies, go hiking, go to concerts. You invite him to your parties. You listen to his problems. You do all this because you think he wants to be your friend.

But…

stoya:

I can actually remember every time a person at a convention or trade show has touched me inappropriately. My first year at the Venus Fair in Berlin there was a man who shoved two of his fingers into my panty-covered vagina. It was really fast, like he was standing there one second and the next I…

writerlyn:

interstellardiamond:

anxiousgrrrl:

synthaem:

Last month, a New Jersey middle school banned girls from wearing strapless dresses to prom. Administrators claimed that the dresses were “distracting” — though they refused to specify exactly how or why. Parents reacted strongly to the rule; some supported the dress code while others deemed it “slut-shaming.” On Friday, the school compromised by allowing girls to wear single-strap or see-through-strap dresses.

This is no isolated incident in the United States. Across the country, young girls are being told what not to wear because it might be a “distraction” for boys, or because adults decide it makes them look “inappropriate.” At its core, every incident has a common thread: Putting the onus on young women to prevent from being ogled or objectified, instead of teaching those responsible to learn to respect a woman’s body. Here are five other recent examples:

1. A middle school in California banned tight pants. At the beginning of last month, a middle school in Northern California began telling girls to avoid wearing pants that are “too tight” because it “distracts the boys.” At a mandatory assembly for just the female students, the middle school girls were told that they’re no longer allowed to wear leggings or yoga pants. “We didn’t think it was fair how we have all these restrictions on our clothing while boys didn’t have to sit through [the assembly] at all,” one student told local press. Some parents also complained, leading the school’s assistant principal to record a voicemail explaining the new policy. “The guiding principle in all dress codes is that the manner in which students dress does not become a distraction in the learning environment,” the message said.

2. A high school principal in Minnesota emailed parents to ask them to cover up their daughters. A principal in Minnetonka, MN recently wrote an email telling parents to stop letting their daughters wear leggings or yoga pants to school. He says the tight-fitting pants are fine with longer shirts but, when worn with a shorter top, a girl’s “backside” can be “too closely defined.” The big risk of having a defined backside, he thinks, is that it can “be highly distracting for other students.”

3. Two girls in Ohio were turned away from their prom for being “improperly dressed.” Laneisha Williams and Nyasia Mitchell were barred from prom this spring for wearing dresses that administrators considered “too revealing.” The girls say that they didn’t believe they were violating a dress code that said dresses couldn’t be too short or show too much cleavage. But one administrator told local news that the high school girls were only allowed to wear dresses that had “no curvature of their breasts showing.”

4. A kindergarten student in Georgia was forced to change her “short” skirt because it was a “distraction to other students.” It’s hard to imagine that a kindergartener’s outfit could be “a distraction to other students,” but a mother in Georgia told locals news there that her daughter had been outfitted in someone else’s pants — without parental permission — after the principal deemed the skirt the young girl was wearing too short.” The girl had apparently wore the skirt, and accompanying leggings, just one week before without incident.

5. Forty high school girls were sent home from a winter dance in California after “degrading” clothing inspections “bordering on sexual harassment.” A school board member’s daughter was among the 40 girls turned away from Capistrano Valley High’s February dance for wearing dresses that either exposed their midriffs or were cut too low. Before the dance, girls were apparently required to flap their arms up and down and turn around for male administrators’ inspection. The school issues image guidelines for appropriate dress on its website — though the images were nearly all of women, and the only male image depicted proper attire. One girl alleges that the principal told her, “Not all dresses look good on certain body shapes.” A grandmother of one of the girls who was turned away from the dance also said that a teacher remarked about her granddaughter, “What mother would allow her daughter to wear a dress like that?” Apparently the school did receive some praise, though, from the parents of two male students.

When most Americans think about “rape culture,” they may think about the Steubenville boys’ defense arguing that an unconscious girl consented to her sexual assault because she “didn’t say no,” the school administrators who choose to protect their star athletes over those boys’ rape victims, or the bullying that led multiple victims of sexual assault to take their own lives. While those incidences of victim-blaming are certainly symptoms of a deeply-rooted rape culture in this country, they’re not the only examples of this dynamic at play. Rape culture is also evident in the attitudes that lead school administrators to treat young girls’ bodies as inherently “distracting” to the boys who simply can’t control themselves. That approach to gender roles simply encourages our youth to assume that sexual crimes must have something to do with women’s “suggestive” clothes or behavior, rather than teaching them that every individual is responsible for respecting others’ bodily autonomy.

My new vice principal got angry at a girl in a grade higher than me, not because her dress was revealing, but because “her legs are distracting the young boys from their school work”.

Stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. 

i got in trouble for wearing a shirt that didnt go past the button on my pants once

Forever going to be mad about this because I went to an ALL GIRLS SCHOOL. The only men ever present were teachers.

We still weren’t allowed to show our shoulders, wear leggings, short skirts, low tops, shorts that ended above the knee…

To create a working environment suitable for the male staff. Like, it said that on the dress code posters in sixth form. And I’m not even getting INTO the rules we had from years 7-11 for uniform.

Here’s a tip: IF YOU ARE A MALE TEACHER IN AN ALL GIRLS SCHOOL, AND YOU CAN’T STOP EYEING UP YOUR STUDENTS, YOU NEED A NEW JOB.

Hello!

I went to a co-ed, private religious high school. We had a strict dress code, that to this day I can point out each and every way I am out of dresscode. 

Many of the rules were to stop “distraction or sinful thoughts” in the male students. 

However, all teachers had the right to say “you need to cover up more” if it was “distracting.”

Now, it’s a religious school that wants to, above all us, “protect” the purity of its students.  Okay.  That’s a religious school’s right.  Okay.  Makes sense.

My junior year of high school, a girl was sexually assaulted on campus.  It became a big thing, to enforce the dress code, because “you didn’t want to be the next victim.”

And then, people found out who was sexually assaulted.  And everyone IMMEDIATELY dismissed it, because “well, she has big boobs.  She was asking for it.”

One girl even said “it doesn’t even matter what she was wearing, with boobs like those, she probably deserved it.”

And that, my friends, is the type of slut shaming and rape apology that happens when the entirety of blame gets puts on women’s bodies.

(Source: ejacutastic)