Amanda+M’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=Double Standards=

When I was 10 years old I wanted to ride my bike around my neighborhood with my next door neighbors who happen to be boys. Like any 10 year old I had to ask my parents for permission first. Right off the bat my parents said no. They told me that I couldn’t go riding because I’m a girl. My little 10 year old brain didn’t understand. Now I am 18 years old and it seems like everyday people are telling me that I can’t do something or that I need to present myself in a certain way just because I am a girl. Like my 10 year old brain, I still don’t understand. In America where I hope to one day work and live in as an adult I hope to see that there is no double standards.

How many of you have gotten in trouble for not following the dress code or know someone who has been dress coded? Probably all of you. How many of those people were girls? Mostly all of them, right? I am tired of seeing females getting dress coded for the most absurd reasons. Quite recently my friend got in trouble because she was wearing a tank top. Her breast were not hanging out so why was she getting dress coded? Well she was told that she needed to put on a jacket because her shoulders were showing. I didn’t know that shoulders could be so sexy. She did as she was told and put on a jacket, but then she got dress coded again because she didn’t zip it up all the way. The thing that amazes me is that the school administration really expected her to wear and zip up her jacket in one of the hottest days of the year. Being dress coded over your shoulders showing is ridiculous. We are told that the dress code is there to prevent distractions among our peers. So basically the females at our school need to cover up so that we don’t distract the male students. Tara Culp-Ressler put it nicely by saying “dress codes place anunfair burden on girls, teaching them they have to change their behavior to accommodate boys who can’t control themselves”. This is a modern age, females shouldn’t be expected to cover up head to toe.

Some of you might have heard about Wasatch High School in Utah. This high school photo-shopped many of their female students yearbook pictures because their school administration thought that they had worn too revealing cloths. Most of these girls were wearing three inch tank tops and others were wearing v-necks, but they still got their pictures photo-shopped. I think that the school administration went really overboard. Especially when the school’s year book had a page labeled, "Wasatch Stud Life." Yes, they really had a whole page dedicated to the cute male population of their school. On this page the male students were showing their chest and underwear. They allowed that, but not girls wearing tank tops with a three inch wide strap. This is the definition of double standards.

If we all looked at what makes up the dress code we will see a list a mile long that explains what girls are not be allowed to wear at school. Then we look further down and there is only two things that boys cannot wear. A school is supposed to be a place of equality for women and men who are trying to get an education, but there is so much inequality that is still taking place. I see guys at our school wear clothes with females wearing tiny bikinis that hold nothing to the imagination on them, but apparently its okay to wear that. Also, it is okay for guys to wear man tanks that are cut so low on the side to the point that we can see their chest and what about some of those guys who wear really tight pants that allow you to see their package. That can be distracting to the other students. The school administration didn’t see anything wrong with them dressing inappropriately, but if a girl wore what they did we would definitely get dress coded. We would like to think that the America we live in is a place of equality, but in the littlest ways we are still treating people unequally.

High school is a place for students to find themselves and to get prepared for the outside world. When we go off to college no one is going to care what you decide to wear. So why do high schools implement a rule that doesn’t even prepare us when we leave? Having so many restrictions on what girls can wear really impact their self- esteem. Being dress coded carries across a type of message that makes females believe that their body is something to be ashamed of. You should be able to wear whatever you want without be ridiculed by your teachers, peers, or anyone else.

America is a place that I love. America is a place that I call home. I can only hope that America will one day stop treating women differently than men and stop gender stereotyping. Also I hope that schools will stop caring if a female student wants to show a little shoulder now and then.

=Cite Your Sources=

[]