Adolescent Outfit

She is baby greens

In this eating world

Juicy, in a red-peppered sauce

Or leggings, skirt, jeans

Down a bustling hall

The gym teacher drools

A feast in the making

He sees only the salad

Dressing

Her pace picks up

She tastes what girl-babies know

That scented, neck-prickle

Of being hungered for

Adjusting his blueberry-colored, athletic shorts

Her name rests on his raw lips

A sound like carrots screaming as they’re

Hauled from the ground.

"I can tell by your pants,"

The gym teacher whispers, “You want to be eaten.”

- by Juliet Bond

I wrote this poem for a Slutwalk Chicago event at an art gallery for survivors of sexual assault.  My own assault at nine-years-old is something I rarely write about.  But it was easy to channel for this poem. Still, it felt like too much to recite it in front of an audience. Instead, a nice, young actress at the event agreed to read it for me and I got to take a baby step out of my comfort zone, rather than a leap.

Of course, the poem is about the recent dress code controversy at my daughter's school.  This week, the school board met to implement a new policy.

There is no mention of pants or leggings in our new (district-wide) dress code.

According to the guidelines established by Evanston/Skokie District 65, student appearance, including dress and grooming, must not disrupt the educational process, interfere with maintaining a positive teaching/learning climate, or compromise standards for health, safety, and decency. In District 65, dress and grooming are important components of an overall positive learning environment. District 65

students and parents are expected to use good judgment in selecting attire for school. The district has established the following guidelines:

 Clothing or accessories that denote, suggest, display or reference alcohol, tobacco, or drugs or related paraphernalia or other illegal conduct or activities, including gang affiliation or activities is prohibited.

 Clothing and accessories that reasonably can be construed as being or including content that is racist, lewd, vulgar, or obscene, or that reasonably can be construed as containing fighting words, speech that incites others to imminent lawless action, defamatory speech, or threats to others.

 Outerwear should not be worn during the school day.

 Hats or head coverings are not permitted during the school day unless worn for religious or medical reasons.

 Shorts, skirts and dresses less than fingertip length (length of a straight arm extended on the leg) are prohibited.

 Bare midriff shirts are not allowed.

 Sleeveless shirts must encircle the arm.

 Revealing/transparent/sheer clothing is not permitted. Clothing must not reveal undergarments.

 Pants and shorts must be worn at the hip or above.

 Shoes that could jeopardize student safety are prohibited.

 Accessories that could be considered dangerous or weapons (ex. spiked necklace or bracelet) are prohibited.

Students will be asked to remove/replace clothing that is not in compliance with the dress code.

This is A Writing Blog...

This is a writing blog.  It's about writing.  Sometimes we post poems or excerpts from our own writing. Occasionally we write about various challenges as writers, you know - writing stuff.  But today, all I can think about is how topics or people's words can be manipulated or warped through writing.

As many of you know by now, my husband and I wrote a letter of concern a few weeks back, protesting the dress code at our daughter's middle school.  Since then, the letter and the resulting controversy have gone viral.

In most instances, "reporters" have grabbed their information from other sources, compiling a story in a rather haphazard manner.  Names are wrong, basic insights are lost, and snarky comments after each story show off the reader-underbelly in their rarest of forms.

A few sturdy, old-fashioned journalist types have actually bothered to interview kids, parents and administrators at the school (special thanks to Jenny Fisher at The Evanston Review who has been right on top of this story and has balanced her reporting by including commentary and discussion by many community members.)  I especially appreciated her referencing the parent at our meeting Tuesday night who bravely attempted to figure out what the heck our daughters can wear to school since her sixth grader has been coded for wearing everything from yoga pants to fingertip-length skirts worn over tights.  (So how many layers of clothing do our daughters need to wear in order to make adults comfortable with their budding sexuality?)

But most writers are just grabbing at what they can find on the internet, misquoting and misunderstanding the basic issues we are worried about.  This has all been an education for me as a writer and an interviewee.  How we choose words and attach meaning to them can be insightful, instructive or downright manipulative.  For instance, a bias in favor of dress codes seems apparent in this article while this one implies that the whole controversy was based on "unfounded rumors."  

And most of what we see on the internet now is, "commentary," which can be confused with actual journalism.  When Perez Hilton writes his opinions on the topic, we are all pretty clear as readers that this is one person's opinion.  And his inflammatory word choices are expertly utilized to excite the readers, FURIOUS!  INSANE!  But when Slate.com covers the topic, the "journalism" aspect of the piece is obfuscated and people are more likely to read it as fact-based content.

In the end, I'm learning to be careful about what I say, even in Facebook posts (yipes - "journalists" can snag quotes from my personal Facebook page?) while attempting to be consistent in my message that when we set guidelines of dress for girls that are different for boys, we send a basic message that girl’s bodies need to be covered up.  In the case of dress codes that require a second layer of clothing, the message is even clearer, We don’t want to see your bodies.  In fact, even the outline of your bodies is offensive.

For me, the bottom line is a basic "Puberty Shaming" of girls at a time when we know that their self-esteem is plummeting anyway.  I don't deny the sexualization of young girls is a serious problem.  The media highlights bizarre instances of girls as young as three slathered in make up and suggestively dancing in halter-tops.  

But I think that is a separate issue.  Dress codes like the ones we are objecting to encourage educators to do the sexualizing themselves - telling girls that the (frankly, rather dumpy) clothes that their mothers wear every day (yoga pants and sweatshirts) is somehow "too sexy" for school.

Okay online bloggers, personalities and journalists - have at it.

  

  

Coded

My thirteen-year-old daughter has been down lately.  Between the stress of middle school and this never-ending midwestern snowmagedden, she's come home grey and tired for weeks.  I tried to cheer her up with a little retail shopping last week but all she wanted to buy were sweat pants.

"Why sweatpants?" I asked.

"Because I can wear them at school."

"Okay."

But for whatever reason, it's currently impossible to find old-fashioned sweatpants in our town.  We went from store to store and all they had were yoga pants or yoga pants made from sweatpant material. Lilly refused those but, at the time, I figured it was just some kind of mystical middle-school fashion choice.

Last Monday, she came home totally frustrated.

At the end of the day, all of the homeroom classes had spent the last ten minutes of the day listening to their teachers explain the new dress code policy.  As my daughters and her three friends explained it, they would no longer be allowed to wear leggings or yoga pants because these items are, "distracting to boys."  I flared up, lecturing the girls about how ridiculous it is to ask girls to cover up in order to make boys behave.

Then I made dinner.

In the morning, my quiet, I-don't-like-to-rock-the-boat daughter asked, "Mom, can you write a letter about the new dress code policy?"

So I was like...

My husband and I wrote a letter. (The entire letter can be read on Evanston Patch or Girl with Pen.)

Lilly's principal called later that day and we had a very nice conversation where she expressed her (vary valid) concerns about the sexualization of young girls, and I agreed but held firm that a dress code for girls with the aim of curbing boys behavior was a warped message to all of the kids.  Let me stress here that nothing girls wear is ultimately responsible for boy's behaviors.   
I'd copied the letter to a few parents when I sent it to the principal and one of them sent it to a local online news source.  Since then, articles about the school dress code have been written by Jezebel, The Huffington Post and The Chicago Tribune. CBS News sent cameras to interview kids and parents after school today and I did an interview with The Evanston Review tonight.

And the kids?

The kids have done some amazing things in response to the dress code.  They put up posters about sexism in the girl's bathrooms, created a petition and have come up with their own (awesome) slogan, Wx4 (Wear What We Want).

When I got home from work today, I found my daughter curled up on the couch with a friend.  She was laughing.

"Mom!" She said.  "Look at the news!"

After we watched the clip, the girls chattered on about all of the comments kids were making on Instagram, the kind of fantastic things boys were saying to stick up for the girls, and what they planned to do going forward.  They clearly felt empowered.

And I realized that my quiet daughter, while desperately flying under the radar, had been watching her friends get "dress coded" for months.

And, the girls explained, it was really only the "developed" girls that were getting in trouble.  Girls who still had the bodies of children were allowed to wear the same clothing without consequence.  One teacher told a friend of Lilly's, "I have to code you for that outfit.  Another girl could get away with that but you can't."

No wonder Lilly wanted old-fashioned sweat-pants.  She just wanted to avoid body-shaming by a teacher.

And while I understand the school's concerns about protecting the kids, shaming or covering up the girl's isn't the answer.

As my friend Jorie said, ""You can't dress code respect between people or erase sexuality with it either" 

As for my daughter, she's looking a little bit cheerier tonight.