Does slut-shaming start with school dress codes?
Enforcement of dress code policies play out against broader debate of sexualization of young women in American culture
While school dress codes are nothing new, experts in adolescent behavior warn that the current practice of enforcing them with humiliating, public punishments may be sending the wrong message to students by encouraging the objectification of young women in a hyper sexualized society.
Two incidents at the beginning of the current school year spotlighted dress codes and enforcement. At New York’s Tottenville High School on Staten Island, more than 100 students, most of them young women, were disciplined on the second day of school for improper school attire. The students were required to either cover up or wait in an auditorium until their parents arrived with appropriate clothing, according to The Staten Island Advance.
In another case last week, at Oakleaf High School in Orange Park, Florida, a teacher stopped Miranda Larkin, 15, for wearing a too-short skirt on the third day of classes. Larkin, newly arrived from Seattle, found herself wearing a lime-green shirt and red sweatpants, each garment labeled “dress code violation.” She was so distressed that she broke out in hives and said the disciplinary action left her feeling “completely humiliated.”
Diana Larkin, Miranda’s mother, told Al Jazeera her daughter said, “‘Mom, I’ve never felt so sexualized in all my life,’ She’s never felt like something of a sexual object until this happened.”
Larkin, who has no problem with dress codes, has a big problem with humiliating girls by forcing them to wear what she called “a shame suit.” So do experts who say the humiliating punishments have the potential to damage a young woman’s self-esteem may be just as dangerous.
“We know that one of the best predictors of mental health is self-esteem. Enduring public humiliation impacts self-esteem in a very dramatic way,” said Riddhi Sandil, a psychologist and lecturer at Teachers College at Columbia University who co-founded the Sexuality, Women and Gender Project.
Does slut-shaming start with school dress codes?
Enforcement of dress code policies play out against broader debate of sexualization of young women in American culture
While school dress codes are nothing new, experts in adolescent behavior warn that the current practice of enforcing them with humiliating, public punishments may be sending the wrong message to students by encouraging the objectification of young women in a hyper sexualized society.
Two incidents at the beginning of the current school year spotlighted dress codes and enforcement. At New York’s Tottenville High School on Staten Island, more than 100 students, most of them young women, were disciplined on the second day of school for improper school attire. The students were required to either cover up or wait in an auditorium until their parents arrived with appropriate clothing, according to The Staten Island Advance.
In another case last week, at Oakleaf High School in Orange Park, Florida, a teacher stopped Miranda Larkin, 15, for wearing a too-short skirt on the third day of classes. Larkin, newly arrived from Seattle, found herself wearing a lime-green shirt and red sweatpants, each garment labeled “dress code violation.” She was so distressed that she broke out in hives and said the disciplinary action left her feeling “completely humiliated.”
Diana Larkin, Miranda’s mother, told Al Jazeera her daughter said, “‘Mom, I’ve never felt so sexualized in all my life,’ She’s never felt like something of a sexual object until this happened.”
Larkin, who has no problem with dress codes, has a big problem with humiliating girls by forcing them to wear what she called “a shame suit.” So do experts who say the humiliating punishments have the potential to damage a young woman’s self-esteem may be just as dangerous.
“We know that one of the best predictors of mental health is self-esteem. Enduring public humiliation impacts self-esteem in a very dramatic way,” said Riddhi Sandil, a psychologist and lecturer at Teachers College at Columbia University who co-founded the Sexuality, Women and Gender Project.
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