The student dress code has been controversial worldwide, with mixed feelings from staff and students alike. As a female high school student situated in Hong Kong, I have experienced and witnessed a lot of incidents with dress codes.
Per the student dress code, boys may not wear jewelry while girls can. Girls are allowed to wear white socks but not black socks like boys. Girls may not wear shirts showing cleavage, and shorts have to be as long as their fingers touch down. Tank tops have to be at least three fingers up. For whom, may I ask? Such clothes are supposedly substandard and unprofessional—another excuse given by faculty at my school to stop us girls from wearing short shorts, cropped shirts, and shirts showing cleavage.
I choose to wear what I wear because it makes me feel more confident in my body. When questioned about my attire and whether it was compliant with the dress code, I felt they were attacking my body.
I also noticed that the cleavage rule was completely subjective. For example, a student with body type A would be wearing the same shirt as body type B. However, due to the different physiques, body type A would be allowed to wear the shirt, but body type B would not. The reason? Certain physiques would be targeted as breaking the dress code due to being “distracting” and “unprofessional,” all the while wearing the same shirt.
I decided to write my opinion on this as I felt like there were sexist implications to the dress code, being morally unfair. I was constantly dress-coded on my tops, even though I wore some of the same tops or similar as other students. I felt humiliated and embarrassed for having a different body type. A couple of weeks into my research, I surveyed both male and female students on their opinions. I decided to do this as I felt students’ voices were not being heard. The survey helped me to assess and analyze people’s opinions on dress codes.
Most students from my survey claimed the dress code to be sexist and stereotyped against female bodies, with 75% saying it was sexist and unfair and 25% saying it was fair. The boys taking the survey said they weren’t affected by the dress code, while the girls felt more targeted. Some individuals responded that the dress codes made them feel less confident in what they were wearing.
Dress codes are biased against female bodies. A woman shouldn’t be taught to cover up and be less “distracting” for men. I don’t want a world filled with criticism just based on how our bodies and our clothes look, do you?
Schools that have been in the midst of creating change have been doing so with student-formed parties, all part of the feminist movement, working towards fighting these social norms. I urge you to check out the various petitions on dress code: https://www.change.org/t/dress-code-en-us. By being a part of the change, we can all work towards our rights and ideologies and change restrictive social norms.
- Hong Kong