Thursday, January 07, 2016

Dealing With Sexist Dress Codes

My eleven-year-old is still in the Garden, as far as school as concerned.  She desperately wants to leave her sheltered little Montessori school environment and take on the challenges of the big neighborhood middle school, which I will probably let her do next school year (that the bus won't bring her home to our neighborhood was kind of the sticking point this year).  Last night, my college daughter was ranting about how school dress codes tend to be sexist, racist and/or homophobic (our school district's at least does not seem homophobic as many do but the other indictments do apply) and offering up various scenarios of rebellion to her younger sister.

While I am largely sympathetic, I also have to be able to hold down a job which means I need to not be getting regular calls to come deal with issues from my kid's principal, so I cried mercy on most of her ideas.  I am a fan, though, of one simple response to a school's telling a girl that her skirt is an inch too short or her shoulders are showing and other such ridiculousness:

"I'd like to speak to the district's Title IX Officer, please." (Repeat until the problem is solved.)

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