Student's awesome non-apology for wearing leggings

boing
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I guess if you think that the purpose of high school is to generate unquestioning human robots, with no style or individuality, making them apologize for breaking a minor rule makes perfect sense. Even better, let’s make them apologize for allowing their minds to wander instead of paying attention, and for ever having an unapproved thought.

It’s interesting how even a relatively minor issue over a school rule that may or may not have been well thought out, can bring out the basic split between the authoritarians and the individualists. Some will always find reasons why we should obey the cop when he tells us to shut up, or to trust our leaders because they know what is best for us, Can we not just leave a little room for common sense instead of mindless obedience? Wouldn’t we be better off to teach reasoning skills instead of capitulation?

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Yeah, we really need to rewrite this whole educational system.

When you see how kids in the ‘civilized’ world work and then compare to people like Kelvin Doe it kind of makes you wonder if we’re missing the point, doesn’t it?

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I’m terribly confused about all of this and so much more.

For better and for worse, learning to follow rules is one of the prime functions of school. Mostly for worse, but it’s not all bad. Personal freedoms are wonderful, and yet don’t we also rely on a certain level of respect for reasonable authority to keep things working? But then again, aren’t we now living in a society where authority is running rampant with all manner of absurd rules and overreach that really need to be flouted at every opportunity, lest we keep on drifting toward the high-tech version of the DDR that seems to be under construction for our own safety? Some of the rules are inevitably going to be stupid, and it’s important that people learn to identify and challenge them.

And yet for all that, I don’t know whether this rule is truly stupid, even without knowing the context (private school with strict dress code, public school with no particular dress code, etc).

I consider leggings both tacky as hell and often sexy as hell. More and more women seem to be wearing them, and as a non-predatory heterosexual adult man I think, wow, that’s hot… and wow, what is she thinking walking around displaying her ass as close-to-naked as you can get? I understand she has the right to wear what she likes for her own comfort without regard to anyone’s reaction, but do people really seek to be that revealing in the name of comfort? Is it really any less revealing than going out in panties, or commando in a mini-miniskirt? Isn’t this the visual equivalent of TMI?

And then I get all confused about social norms. Am I a creep for even noticing and admiring a woman’s shapely ass, made all the more shapely and noticeable by a garment apparently designed to be worn in the semi-privacy of a yoga studio or gym? Why does it make a difference (or does it?) if I do so when she’s wearing leggings vs tight jeans vs a skirt with an alluring cut vs a bikini at the beach? Why is only one of those almost unanimously considered socially acceptable? (No doubt there are people, not just spouses, who think it’s unacceptable to admire a scantily clad beauty at the beach.) Where is the line between admiration and ogling?

The confusion is even greater when I consider high school norms. It might feel “wrong” to assume that teenage boys are sex-crazed even if not actually getting any, easily distracted by a young woman in sexy attire, but then again that does sound an awful lot like me at 16, and certainly my friends and I spent more than a reasonable amount of energy on admiring/ogling/discussing the charms of our female classmates. In their own way, they were no better: we boys were ruthlessly judged on our looks and were often given the verdict to our faces.

High school, for those who might have forgotten, is a sexually charged atmosphere whether we like it or not. I’m not sure that it’s completely off-the-wall to have some rules to try to keep it in check, lest teenagers grow up into adults who consider it normal and acceptable for workplaces to be sexually charged.

But then again, our high school had no dress code, at least not that was set down in writing, and I can’t remember anyone ever being reprimanded for wearing something too revealing; but I can remember a lot of sexy young women, and on some level it really didn’t matter what they wore. They could have worn potato sacks and the teenage boys and their raging hormones would still have found them irresistible. So maybe dress codes really have little or nothing to do with instilling the atmosphere of mutual respect and non-harassment that we can probably all agree should be enforced at school.

Sorry, I know this is all over the place. Just thought I’d share my profound confusion on this, because it seems that I am not alone.

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I’m reminded of an incident from my high school days: a teen showed up in a shirt that was translucent, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. People noticed, but didn’t say anything, and she wasn’t sent home or to the principal’s office. I’m not sure if she was trying to be provocative or not. And now, decades later, she may be horrified every time she thinks back to that day, or she might not care at all.

It shocked me at the time, but seeing that it wasn’t being made a big deal of was the real lesson of the day. There were a lot of things I didn’t like about that school, but at least in this instance, the administration and staff seemed to understand the concept of “don’t sweat the small stuff…and it’s almost always small stuff”.

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Silly, myopic rules with no rationale or reason behind them (i.e. Because I said so) drive me insane. However, worse still are reactions to a situation without the full and complete understanding of the situation in total.

Did she wear leggings, yes that is clearly not in dispute. Did she wear ANYTHING over the leggings?! Well, we don’t know now do we! If my 13 year old daughter tried to walk out of the house in nothing but a tank top and leggings, I’d stop her quite quickly and say put on a skirt or shorts over the leggings…now. Wearing just leggings is not proper dress or attire for school. Lounging around the house, sure, i’d concede that.

My spouse works as a School Psychologist in a middle school, and we have 3 children, 2 in middle school and 1 in elementary. There are plenty of rules that are frustrating and maddening, but plenty more that work and are there for a reason. Additionally, while punishing the crime of wearing leggings to school seems bureaucratic at best to us; what is the history here of this kid? Was she warned for repeated dress code violations? There has to be a dress code of reasonable standards in all schools! I don’t want my children seeing profanity and violent imagery portrayed on t-shirts while at school, so there has to be some standards applied and enforced.

Point here is simply this…does it seem silly, yes. But I am unwilling to jump to any conclusions with such little information. Cory, I am disappointed in you on this. You pulled something from a Tumblr with no evidential support or facts behind the story. As of right now my only conclusion to this is “Great, some jackass of a kid wrote a snarky sarcastic response because she broke the rules.”

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That is not a 10-year-old’s handwriting. I don’t know if that is a copy made of her response by an adult but that is not a child’s handwriting. It is an adult’s. Which makes the whole thing very suspicious.

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You’re proud of violating a reasonable rule motivated by safety concerns but you’re criticizing this girl for being unapologetic about violating a much more arbitrary rule.

Of course a boy on a skateboard is so much more “rad” than a girl wearing leggings.

Unless she was welding or using an angle grinder in shop class there was no logical reason for her not to wear leggings.

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I think when she becomes a grown woman with the experiences and intelligence to make her own judgments and decisions on her dress and attire, then she can wear whatever she wants. If this is indeed a 15 (corrected the age) year old child, then she has yet to EARN that right when it comes to Public School.

Now, if her parents are fine with her wearing that out of the house to dinner, a party, a friend or family’s home…that’s on them. But so long as she attends a public or private school, she is bound by the rules of that institution.

Additionally, if her parents (the legal authority here…NOT THE 10 YEAR OLD) do not like said rule; then it is on them to appear before the School Committee and get it changed. It is NOT for their child to arbitrarily opt to not follow the rule with which they disagree.

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Good points. And re your other post I had somehow missed the fact (?) that she is 10, and assumed perhaps wrongly that it was about leggings without skirt/shorts/etc. In light of all that, the case, if real, seems much more clearcut.

Edit: oops, not 10 y.o. but grade 10. I guess my confusion is not entirely resolved.

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Where did you get that she’s 10 years old? On the upper right of the sheet it says “grade: 10”, which would make her 15-16 years old as far as I know.

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I stand corrected. I saw that 10 and thought it was her age, did not see grade next to it.

My position still stands. She doesn’t get to arbitrarily choose which rules she wants to follow. None of us do. And I still feel more information is required to come to a reasonable conclusion.

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Yes, this is the point, I think.

In raising my children I’ve always tried to stress the fact that slavish devotion to rules is a bad thing, and it is ethical to stand up against unjust rules (and stress the fact that you have to deal with the consequences, both good and bad). But as other people have pointed out, sans context it’s pretty hard to tell if she is in fact standing up to a perceived injustice or just acting like an entitled snot. (I’d actually speculate that its the latter given the snarky-yet-content-free nature of her response, but that’s just speculation and mine is no better than anyone else’s).

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Never mind questioning authority; you can just deny it like me.

I don’t have a shred of respect for a system that would deny so many so much, while squandering wealth and privilege in unspendable and deeply corrupting proportion on the nastiest and most traitorous few. A system that raises us as serfs, and if we don’t learn to buckle under, we don’t win the tinsel and baubles.

Damn straight. If only Joe Average could put his brain in gear, anarchy would be a cinch.

In the meantime, I just try to get away with living like I want to live as much as possible. The way some folks talk about breaking rules or piddling laws as if it’s inherently some kind of big deal makes me want to piss in a legislator’s weeties.

[quote=“anon61833566hunter, post:31, topic:33569”]
My position still stands. She doesn’t get to arbitrarily choose which rules she wants to follow. None of us do.[/quote]

Man, that’s exactly the kind of sickening forelock tugging I’m talking about.

Fuck NO! Choose the rules you obey!

If people who never disregard any rule actually exist, I don’t want to meet any.

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You used two periods in your second-to-last sentence.

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Kill the cop in your head

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Interestingly, most authoritarians with whom I have dealt, don’t really mean that THEY should have to follow all of the rules, but that YOU should follow all of the rules.

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The one great lesson that I learned from resisting stupid rules in school was to save my resistance efforts for the things that really mattered. We can all sit here and cheer this girl’s actions, but her school administration will make her life a living hell for this. And she still won’t be allowed to wear her leggings.

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So you’d rather have anarchy? Good luck with that kind of world.

And clearly you don’t have kids…because as a parent rules are required to maintain some semblance of order and safety in the house.

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I see I’m too late to mention assless chaps. Time to move on.

Seriously… leggings? Leggings are evil and turn nice boys into animals they surely never would have been otherwise? If something as stupid as leggings reveals the hidden beasts, then they’ve done a service. Punish the leering idiots and see if there’s still time enough left in the day to teach something. Educate.

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Am I really the only one who thought she should put more effort into her English class than her wardrobe planning? The “me” instead of “my” is atrocious. 10th grade is not too early to learn there’s a time and place for “free expression”. I remember in my late 70’s HS girls in spandex who really looked like streetwalkers and guys who looked like thugs (many were).

My son attends a dress coded urban public magnet school. He complains that boys are gigged far more often than girls, perhaps because of the variety of girls clothing. I see female students in violation every day.

Here’s the actual dress code:

students must be in dress code from the start of their first class to the end of his/her scheduled day. Students must change their clothing for physical education classes in the locker room in the basement and not at their lockers upstairs. Students are to be in dress code when exiting the building for lunch and should be in dress code before they enter the building at the end of the lunch period.

Hats or head covering for non-religious reasons are prohibited.

Footwear which is acceptable for physical education is not acceptable in class. Sneakers, sketcher sneakers, diesel sneakers, vans and flip flops are not acceptable for school. Open toe shoes are permitted to be worn in May, June and September. Open toe shoes are not permitted from October 1st to April 30th.

Male students are expected to wear shirt and tie with dress slacks, Dockers or khaki pants. Dress shirts including knit shirts with a collar can be worn with properly knotted and positioned ties. Ties are to be properly positioned at the neck at all times. Shirts that do not have a top collar button are not appropriate for ties. All dress shirts should be tucked in the dress pants not rolled under at all times and never hang loosely over the pants. No denim, or denim look-a-likes; balloon pants, fatigues, sweat pants, riveted pants, cargo pants, pants with studs, or jeans are permitted.

Suit jackets, sports jackets, v-neck sweaters, v-neck vest, or cardigan sweaters must be worn from October 1st to April 30th each school year. Your buttoned shirt and tie must be visible above the v-neck to be acceptable. Crew neck sweaters, turtle neck sweaters, sweatshirts with or without school logo, sweat shirts with a hood, sweaters with logos, i.e. NIKE, FUBU etc. are not permitted. Corporate symbols, i.e. Ralph Lauren polo player symbol, are permitted.

Female students are required to wear a dress, skirt, split skirts, or dress slacks and a blouse. Capri pants covering the calf are permitted. No jeans of any style or color, lycra, stirrup, spandex, Capri or sweat pants are permitted. Denim pants in any color are not acceptable. The hem of a dress or skirt must go beyond the length of your arm when standing. Girls may not wear halter tops, spaghetti straps, midriff tops or low cut shirts. Girls’ tops must substantially cover the waist.

All polar fleece jackets, including those issued by the athletic director, must not be worn. Sweat shirts with a hood, sweat shirts with or without school logo, revealing low-cut tops, spaghetti strap tops and T-shirts are inappropriate and not permitted.