#22 - Public School Feminism
The other day, I was standing outside mid-afternoon with one of my…superiors, and I asked him a question about dress codes at our school just as a pack of underwear-less female students drifted by us in matching black plunging neckline bodysuits.
“Are we not enforcing dress codes for girls anymore?”
My colleague, whom I adore but who falls on the opposite end of the political spectrum, very politely and guardedly told me, prefacing with, “Now, please don’t take this the wrong way, Ms. Swati,” that a strong feminist voice at the district opposed enforcing dress code rules for girls, saying, “Why are we objectifying women…” That’s the only tidbit I got. Neither he nor I was there.
For the record, I do identify as a feminist. I can only surmise what this supposed feminist was trying to communicate based on the spotty information I got from my colleague, which, as far as I know, was all hearsay—or dare I say even his own opinion that he attached to a version of feminism of his own making and then relayed back to me. (Do we see how problematic this gets?)
But let’s just say, if there is some modicum of truth here, and a feminist opposed the policy, her argument may have been that we are placing the onus of sexual violence, sexualization, and objectification of women on the woman.
I get that. I feel the rage of that. A little over a week ago, I attended a Women’s Conference, the purpose of which was to empower and ignite possibilities in business, and the primetime presentation was on human sex trafficking by a lawmaker, followed by the gut-wrenching personal testimony of a survivor.
It was a compelling presentation that everyone should see. Everyone. But I also sat there thinking, “This again?” The “this” being the burden continuously placed on women to steward their safety in a predatory society. What I wanted to scream from the rooftop of the megachurch auditorium that day was — “This presentation needs to be done at a men’s conference!”
Why are women alone in this fight?
So I get it. Let’s not place more on women. The responsibility of keeping women safe, of not sexualizing and objectifying them, can’t just be placed on women and their choices to dress a certain way.
My counterpoint on the dress code issue, though, is that these girls walking around like Catwoman on campus are not women; they are children. And just like we have protections in place to combat child pornography and to ensure that sex offenders are detectable in neighborhoods, we have an obligation to protect children from making decisions that make them more vulnerable to predators.
Children lack the executive functioning and deductive reasoning skills to grasp realities like this, so as a society, we protect and help them. I would never advocate for such a policy for grown women who are adults and who rightfully have the free will to wear whatever they want.
This is feminism in practice, and I will say this about public school: There is a reason public education has become the site of the so-called culture wars. It’s because things get complicated at school. School and working with young people, who are vulnerable regardless of their socioeconomic background—a lack of economic and social protective factors just amplifies the baseline vulnerability—force all adults to reckon with their ideas and positions on things.
It forces you to temper your extremes, to discuss, to think critically. That’s if you’re thoughtful. The other side of that is that people are flippant, quick to blame some nebulous “other side” (in this case, the feminists), and dig their heels in.
Despite all of its problems, public school does have the power to dismantle purism.