It was about a week or so before the first day of fourth grade. I was out shopping with my mom for a first day of school outfit for the new year, and I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to start school, and in the most wondrous outfit nonetheless. After an hour I found the most spectacular outfit there was. I tried it on and my mom liked it too, but she then tells me “you’ll have to wear longer shorts with that though” and I wondered why, and she said to me “the dress code says that the shorts have to be at least one inch below fingertip length. I was devastated.

I was only in fourth grade and I was already worrying about the dress code. Young girls should not have to be worrying about weather their shoulders are showing or if their shorts are too short. I have always wondered why the dress code was aimed more towards girls, but had no idea why, so I decided to look up the very question “why is the dress code aimed more towards girls?”.  Things like how the dress code slut shames girls, or how it is unfair or cruel, but nothing on the actual reason. Some say that they do it to protect us from being raped, but shouldn’t we be teaching boys that sexualizing girls for what they wear is not okay?

In Marietta, Georgia Dickerson Middle School’s dress code has eleven bullet points of rules for what not to wear to school. Not too bad right, but you see seven of those bullet points are aimed towards girls only. The other four consist of no bandannas/hats, no profanity or suggestive shirts towards drugs, and no pants that expose the navel. Most of the other rules are for both genders.

Also at school last year a boy wore a tank top the same day a girl wore one. Only the girl got dress coded. If boys are allowed to wear tank tops then shouldn’t girls be allowed to wear a tank top too? The dress code is a double standard and if boys are allowed to get away with wearing something than girls should be able to do the same. Plus Lizzy Martinez a junior  at Braden River High school in Florida was dress coded for not wearing a bra, but the dress code doesn’t state anything about female students having to wear a bra. This is just another example of unfair treatment towards girls. She was following the rules so there should not have been any consequences. The dress code should be more fair and have the same amount of rules for girls and boys.