Back in the twenties women were storming down the castle, picket signs in hand, fighting for the right to ditch their cumbersome skirts in favor of pants. Ironically, in the 21rst century, the fight is still in full swing only now instead of fighting for the right to not wear a skirt, women are fighting for the right to wear one.

 For years, high schools have been a breeding ground for habits like slut shaming and victim blaming, but for the most part Potomac Falls has appeared to be more or less immune. Here teachers preach feminist ideals and Family Life Education classes lay down a strict line on what exactly constitutes sexual harassment. And by no means is it even close to being as bad as one of my old schools where male students would blatantly harass girls by slapping their backsides only to have teachers joke about it.

 However, despite this, even here, subtle policies are prolonging sexist trends of thinking, particularly in the schools dress code.

Now no one is saying that the dress code is bad. Belly shirts and mini skirts most definitely do not fit into a school environment, but the way the policy is set up, it no longer makes the defining standard of what is appropriate so definit.

 Technically the official policy does set these specific guidelines down to the exact spot where a girl’s hemline should end, but that is not the problem. What is the problem is that this set of guidelines have been replaced with the idea of teacher discretion. Meaning if a single teacher thinks it is too short, it is. No question.

 It may seem like a no brainer for teachers to be able to say what is appropriate and what is not, but often nothing in real life is as cut and dry. Factors such as body type, height, makeup, and even a girls personality can end up biasing teachers in their decision.

For example, no administrator in their right mind would scold the petite mousy girl in the back of the class for wearing a short skirt, but the serial dater with heavy eyeliner and a boisterous  personality wearing the same skirt is sure to have a target on her.

This is not only unfair to some girls are who often forced to play a game of russian roulette when picking an outfit for school, but it begins to teach students to slut shame by allowing their superior to set the example.

 Because of this, students don’t see girls being punished for breaking set rules but rather for being sexual in anyway. This in turn can lead to the style of thinking that blames women for being raped or harassed simply because their revealing clothing made them just guilty. I’ve seen  this first hand during a classmate’s presentation when they stated that if women weren’t wearing anything revealing than they wouldn’t get raped.

 So continue to keep out the inappropriate clothing that isn’t cohesive with a professional school environment but do so in a professional way. Don’t make judging the policy, make the policy the policy.