My youngest Child Staged a Protest at PS Today.

[MercyA]

During school hours they often take off their shirts for PE and Agricultural classes that are outside in the hot sun. They don't do it inside the school itself, other than they gym, but girls who go around outside during school hours with only tank tops risk getting "dress coded" if they are busty. 

 

See, I find this really inappropriate, unprofessional, and yes, immodest. I don't think anyone's chest should be on display at school, regardless of their gender.

[Murphy101]

See, I find this really inappropriate, unprofessional, and yes, immodest. I don't think anyone's chest should be on display at school, regardless of their gender.

I don't know about immodest but I completely agree it's unprofessional and inappropriate. I've never had hired help take their shirts off while doing any agri or lawn work. If nothing else, it's stupid bc of skin cancer risk and also makes it more likely they will get various other risks such as insect bites and such.

 

The worst thing we see around here is people mowing in their swimsuits bc as soon as they are done, they go jump in their pool. But even then the men usually keep their shirts on.

[goldberry]

Is think knowingly and purposely targeting busty girls would be ripe with sexual harrassment litigation.

 

A family we knew from church had three girls, one was busty.  They would make her wear a tshirt over her bathing suit at the pool but the other girls didn't have to.  Talk about making her feel something was wrong with her!

 

The "visible cleavage" is not a very good parameter I think.  My dd is very small busted and has almost no cleavage.  My mom, on the other had, was not only busty but her "books" were positioned very high. Her cleavage went up almost to her neck.  What was she supposed to do about that?

[Garga]

During school hours they often take off their shirts for PE and Agricultural classes that are outside in the hot sun. They don't do it inside the school itself, other than they gym, but girls who go around outside during school hours with only tank tops risk getting "dress coded" if they are busty.

 

I am surprised that most schools don't offer welding???? I thought that was very standard.

What?! No shirts? No. Just no. No. The boys run around outside with no shirts at all, but the girls in tanks get dress coded? Oh double no.

[Garga]

A family we knew from church had three girls, one was busty.  They would make her wear a tshirt over her bathing suit at the pool but the other girls didn't have to.  Talk about making her feel something was wrong with her!

 

What the heck??

[Murphy101]

A family we knew from church had three girls, one was busty. They would make her wear a tshirt over her bathing suit at the pool but the other girls didn't have to. Talk about making her feel something was wrong with her!

 

The "visible cleavage" is not a very good parameter I think. My dd is very small busted and has almost no cleavage. My mom, on the other had, was not only busty but her "books" were positioned very high. Her cleavage went up almost to her neck. What was she supposed to do about that?

Idiots. Cleavage is a stupid rule. What, so as my boobs sag with age, I can be more revealing?

 

Ugh. I hate modesty nonsense.

[HTRMom]

I was a large-busted, high cleavage teenager. I always wore a camisole under my shirt, but you could see a lot of cleavage unless I wore a crew neck, which made my breasts look enormous. As a very chaste, modest girl, I found this frustrating and embarrassing. Luckily some extra gravity post-kids has made this easier to deal with!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[goldberry]

Idiots. Cleavage is a stupid rule. What, so as my boobs sag with age, I can be more revealing?

 

Ugh. I hate modesty nonsense.

 

Only the perky ones have to be covered!  :lol:

[Guest]

The main rules that she is protesting are the ones applied to cleavage which are only applied to "busty" girls. She feels that since boys can walk around without shirts at all it is wrong that on hot days some girls can't wear a tank top outside in the sun. The whole dress code is evidently more strict than any other school district in NorCal, but again, I can't find it online and we signed a copy of the parent handbook, but I have no clue where that is because we did extensive remodeling this winter.

 

Not only is the dress code not online at this time, which it should be, but the copies of her protest arguments were taken down from classrooms last night after the school was closed. Only someone with a key could have done it. The janitor and the principal both claim they did not do so...but the flyers that teachers placed in their own classrooms are gone.

Oh I HATE those rules. I've had enormous boobs since the end of grade school, I think I was a D by the time I got into sixth. It always felt like such s double standard that I wasn't a pancake and therefore couldn't be comfortable on a hot day.

 

Screw them and good for her.

[Rebel Yell]

A family we knew from church had three girls, one was busty.  They would make her wear a tshirt over her bathing suit at the pool but the other girls didn't have to.  Talk about making her feel something was wrong with her!

 

The "visible cleavage" is not a very good parameter I think.  My dd is very small busted and has almost no cleavage.  My mom, on the other had, was not only busty but her "books" were positioned very high. Her cleavage went up almost to her neck.  What was she supposed to do about that?

So angry for that girl. BT/DT, actually educated a youth pastor and had it resolved well- either EVERYONE wears a tshirt with their swimsuit, boys included, or no one has to. He had no horrible intentions, just was following a suggested guideline that he didn't realize would single out exactly one girl.

 

And with the "no cleavage" rule, I know a young lady who is a doubleAAminus who could wear a v-neck open to her waist. Super padded push up bras dont even help. She is the Modesty Police's dream. :rolleyes:

[MercyA]

Eh, I agree with no cleavage rules. Breasts are private, IMHO, particularly in what should be a professional(ish) setting. :) 

 

Life is not always fair. I am tall, so I can't wear skirts that could be modestly worn by others because they are too short on me. That's just the way it goes sometimes. It's hard for me to feel too sorry for people who can't wear a tank top to school, although I sympathize with the inconsistency with which the standards are being applied to the OP's daughter and/or her friends. 

 

That said, I don't like the thought of cleavage police--very awkward for all. I think a standard uniform or a standard type of shirt for all--boys and girls--is a better idea. 

[Butter]

See, I find this really inappropriate, unprofessional, and yes, immodest. I don't think anyone's chest should be on display at school, regardless of their gender.

 

The problem is whether or not one feels it is inappropriate, etc. for a boy to be able to go shirtless at school it IS allowed and while tank tops aren't allowed (for all girls?), only large chested girls run the risk of getting in trouble for wearing those tank tops.  It's a problem with the dress code being applied evenly.  Chances are the way to "fix" the problem is shirts being required and tank tops not being allowed across the board.  It really doesn't appear to be an issue of whether the current dress code is appropriate or not, but how it is being actually applied toward girls with a specific body shape because boys might think things (and girls won't if one of those shirtless boys has a particularly nice physique?).

Edited May 12, 2017 by Butter

[Katy]

I just measured.  My cleavage starts less than 3" from my neck wearing a normal, non-pushup bra.  No hit of cleavage at all on a hot day is completely unreasonable.

 

When I was a teenager I remember there being some sort of lawsuit or proposed lawsuit in the news that requiring shirts for women and not men was sexist, so it was now legal to go topless in New York City.  I just googled and see it's still true:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-oconnell-lcsw/the-right-to-bare-breasts_b_3831583.html

[MercyA]

I just measured.  My cleavage starts less than 3" from my neck wearing a normal, non-pushup bra.  No hit of cleavage at all on a hot day is completely unreasonable.

 

 

I'm wearing a v-neck t-shirt, and the "v" starts about an inch from my neck. I'm not sure why something like that (or a crew neck, or a polo shirt) wouldn't work.

 

IKD. I don't think anyone's going to keel over from the heat if they wear a normal t-shirt rather than a tank top. Of course, I am surrounded by a community of Amish and Mennonite ladies who work outside in the heat and humidity in their cape dresses and do just fine. I wear backwards tank tops under my shirts to cover cleavage if necessary, and somehow I survive. :)  

 

YMMV.

[kiana]

If you choose to have a more restrictive dress code for yourself, that is 100% fine. 

 

It's the school that shouldn't be trying to have a more restrictive dress code for one gender versus the other. If that means they want to require everyone to wear shirts up to their necks, that's their prerogative, but it needs to be applied equally if it's applied at all. 

[MercyA]

The problem is whether or not one feels it is inappropriate, etc. for a boy to be able to go shirtless at school it IS allowed and while tank tops aren't allowed (for all girls?), only large chested girls run the risk of getting in trouble for wearing those tank tops.  It's a problem with the dress code being applied evenly.  Chances are the way to "fix" the problem is shirts being required and tank tops not being allowed across the board.  It really doesn't appear to be an issue of whether the current dress code is appropriate or not, but how it is being actually applied toward girls with a specific body shape because boys might think things (and girls won't if one of those shirtless boys has a particularly nice physique?).

 

Of course, and I don't think any of us, regardless of our personal beliefs, disagree with this. 

[Anne in CA]

I'm wearing a v-neck t-shirt, and the "v" starts about an inch from my neck. I'm not sure why something like that (or a crew neck, or a polo shirt) wouldn't work.

 

IKD. I don't think anyone's going to keel over from the heat if they wear a normal t-shirt rather than a tank top. Of course, I am surrounded by a community of Amish and Mennonite ladies who work outside in the heat and humidity in their cape dresses and do just fine. I wear backwards tank tops under my shirts to cover cleavage if necessary, and somehow I survive. :)  

 

YMMV.

I'm not sure that the Amish ladies are really "fine". My cousin who is a missionary in Africa says a doctor who attends her church told her that Muslim women who wear extra clothes around the equator (she is in Tanzania) have serious health problems from doing so. 

 

Although, no one in my dd's school is at risk of heat exhaustion if they don't get to wear a tank top. 

[happypamama]

Good for your daughter!!

[MercyA]

I'm not sure that the Amish ladies are really "fine". My cousin who is a missionary in Africa says a doctor who attends her church told her that Muslim women who wear extra clothes around the equator (she is in Tanzania) have serious health problems from doing so. 

 

Although, no one in my dd's school is at risk of heat exhaustion if they don't get to wear a tank top. 

 

Some members of my family are Amish / Old Order Mennonite, and they really are okay. A summer cape dress, hair worn up under a light-weight covering, and bare feet keep you pretty cool in the summer. :)

 

I have no trouble believing that some extremely conservative types of garments worn in very hot places could cause health problems, though.

Edited May 12, 2017 by MercyA

[Carol in Cal.]

Sounds like she organized and presented her case very well, which is awesome!

 

Homeschooled kids see the illogic in schools better than school ones sometimes.

 

I had a friend whose previously homeschooled son got detention because he left the high school classroom in the middle of a lecture to go to the bathroom.  It never occurred to him that this would be questioned, let alone that it would be perceived as disrespectful.  After we heard that, we all started to tell our kids things to expect would be 'different' in brick and mortar schools.

[MercyA]

I had a friend whose previously homeschooled son got detention because he left the high school classroom in the middle of a lecture to go to the bathroom.  It never occurred to him that this would be questioned, let alone that it would be perceived as disrespectful.  After we heard that, we all started to tell our kids things to expect would be 'different' in brick and mortar schools.

 

Reminds me of this clip from Mean Girls (first 30 seconds):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03OXcnPaLo4

[Guest]

Now I'm missing when Lindsey Lohan was put together enough that she could act instead of just being a hot, hot mess.

[Hyacinth]

I can't help but imagine the enforcers of this dress code.
"Hey, did you see Suzy in that tank top today? I think she might be exposing cleavage."
"Really? I'll go check her out and then come back here so we can further discuss her breasts."

Edited May 12, 2017 by Hyacinth

[Ausmumof3]

I prefer dress codes. But the kind that specify appropriate for the occasion clothes for everyone. Walking around with no shirt on is a recipe for later in life skin cancer here.

[Lady Florida.]

How is a male with his shirt OFF less distracting than a female with her shirt ON, even if it's an abbreviated shirt?

 

Apparently girls are better able to control their thoughts than boys are. Or they don't get "those" feelings. Or something equally ridiculous.

[Miss Peregrine]

A mom recently tried to impose a bathing suit rule in a group my kids are in: Girls need to wear tank tops over their bathing suits if they are two piece. My dh wrote back that that wasn't happening. Since my dd is one of the few in the group that wears a two-piece I knew it was about her. We bought her a Gadsden flag tank top to wear on the trip. :lol:

[kiana]

Apparently girls are better able to control their thoughts than boys are. Or they don't get "those" feelings. Or something equally ridiculous.

 

They just aren't entitled to a distraction-free learning environment. 

[Guest]

A mom recently tried to impose a bathing suit rule in a group my kids are in: Girls need to wear tank tops over their bathing suits if they are two piece. My dh wrote back that that wasn't happening. Since my dd is one of the few in the group that wears a two-piece I knew it was about her. We bought her a Gadsden flag tank top to wear on the trip. :lol:

I hate this sort of thing! Either everyone has to wear a tank or rash guard or nobody does. The end.

[Miss Peregrine]

I hate this sort of thing! Either everyone has to wear a tank or rash guard or nobody does. The end.

Exactly. 

[winterbaby]

I can't help but imagine the enforcers of this dress code.

"Hey, did you see Suzy in that tank top today? I think she might be exposing cleavage."

"Really? I'll go check her out and then come back here so we can further discuss her breasts."

 

This so much. The level of attention adults have to be paying to teen bodies to enforce this stuff leaves so much room for creepiness. I heard about a homeschool group formal where dads were positioned on the mezzanine level to look down and pick out which girls were "immodest." Gross, gross, gross.

[Miss Peregrine]

This so much. The level of attention adults have to be paying to teen bodies to enforce this stuff leaves so much room for creepiness. I heard about a homeschool group formal where dads were positioned on the mezzanine level to look down and pick out which girls were "immodest." Gross, gross, gross.

Did they volunteer for the job? Yuck.

[Janeway]

Here, no one can wear tanks or so shirtless regardless of boob size. That is at the public school. At home, I just hate tanks on boys so none of my boys wear tanks. My daughter can though. But everyone has to keep their shirts on. If they try to walk around with no shirt. I remind them that I can see their nipples and that isn't ok. They never argue. They just turn red and run and get shirts. Lol

[FaithManor]

This so much. The level of attention adults have to be paying to teen bodies to enforce this stuff leaves so much room for creepiness. I heard about a homeschool group formal where dads were positioned on the mezzanine level to look down and pick out which girls were "immodest." Gross, gross, gross.

You hear things that make your brain twitch, and then something like comes along, and you then have a total brain arrest!

 

Any man who does this is a pervert, plain and simple. Pervert, and should be treated thusly.

[winterbaby]

I don't know if they volunteered or not. It was told by a person who'd been a kid at the event years earlier. Are they, individually, perverts? Hmmm. Purity culture and patriarchy twist people's heads around on this stuff to where they do things they normally wouldn't do. I mean this is all downstream from the premise that girls' sexuality is dad's/community dad surrogate's business. Which sounds reasonable when they're young and it's somewhat abstractly presented as just holding them back from things they shouldn't be doing, but then as they get older and you get into the nitty-gritty.... If these guys are perverts, which they may well be, they may not realize it themselves. The patriarchal ideal of the authoritative Christian male who can do no wrong damages a man's moral ability to check himself in all sorts of subtle ways.

 

But in the case of a public school I agree with PP this can be sexual harassment pure and simple. Dress codes should be universal and applied without respect to body type. Being put on the spot about one's body by an adult is way more "distracting" to a girl than the girls are to the boys. It seems like people unconsciously think that girls who develop earlier or more fully are doing it on purpose to be provocative and that makes me want to kick something.

[FaithManor]

I don't know if they volunteered or not. It was told by a person who'd been a kid at the event years earlier. Are they, individually, perverts? Hmmm. Purity culture and patriarchy twist people's heads around on this stuff to where they do things they normally wouldn't do. I mean this is all downstream from the premise that girls' sexuality is dad's/community dad surrogate's business. Which sounds reasonable when they're young and it's somewhat abstractly presented as just holding them back from things they shouldn't be doing, but then as they get older and you get into the nitty-gritty.... If these guys are perverts, which they may well be, they may not realize it themselves. The patriarchal ideal of the authoritative Christian male who can do no wrong damages a man's moral ability to check himself in all sorts of subtle ways.

 

But in the case of a public school I agree with PP this can be sexual harassment pure and simple. Dress codes should be universal and applied without respect to body type. Being put on the spot about one's body by an adult is way more "distracting" to a girl than the girls are to the boys. It seems like people unconsciously think that girls who develop earlier or more fully are doing it on purpose to be provocative and that makes me want to kick something.

I agree. But I have also found that this kind of patriarchy attracts pervs to begin with because it offers them opportunity and an out. Many of the men found to be pervs within this paradigm are not raised in it to begin with, guys like Bill Gothard, Mark Driscoll, Steven Stitler, Doug Phillips...so some are made, and some are already that way and flock to whackadoodle patriarchy because it gives them free reign to be themselves with a pat on that back for it as an added bonus.

 

At any rate, it is a sick mind that decides it is okay to ogle these girls in the name of "modesty". Creepers are creepers and regardless of how they came to be that way, they should be treated as such, and that includes teachers and administrators who come up with this crap and foist it off on the girls in their care. Maybe if parents unified and started calling them what they are, things would begin to change. Playing nice doesn't always work. Being outed in your community as a person who spends far too much time analyzing the chest of the females you have been hired to educate could be the catalyst for ending these policies.

[winterbaby]

I agree. But I have also found that this kind of patriarchy attracts pervs to begin with because it offers them opportunity and an out. Many of the men found to be pervs within this paradigm are not raised in it to begin with, guys like Bill Gothard, Mark Driscoll, Steven Stitler, Doug Phillips...so some are made, and some are already that way and flock to whackadoodle patriarchy because it gives them free reign to be themselves with a pat on that back for it as an added bonus.

 

I see what you mean. I guess I was thinking more in terms of the ordinary people, non-leaders, who are gradually led into these sins - not just sexual abuse, but oppression of women and inflation of the self generally - without realizing it. I think a lot of men get a self-confidence boost from being told, basically, that being socially aggressive is righteous for them because of their gender, and only later do they realize that they've been encouraged to indulge their worst tendencies, or it may be too late for them to ever realize it. But yes there are people who are in it, directly and consciously, for the power over women and young people. I think sometimes the leadership encourages this type of "masculinity" because it creates a community where their own pathology will seem normal. For example Doug Wilson, who appears to facilitate abuse not because he's into it as such (though who knows) but because defying mainstream norms about the protection of women and children makes him feel like a big man.

[FaithManor]

I see what you mean. I guess I was thinking more in terms of the ordinary people, non-leaders, who are gradually led into these sins - not just sexual abuse, but oppression of women and inflation of the self generally - without realizing it. I think a lot of men get a self-confidence boost from being told, basically, that being socially aggressive is righteous for them because of their gender, and only later do they realize that they've been encouraged to indulge their worst tendencies, or it may be too late for them to ever realize it. But yes there are people who are in it, directly and consciously, for the power over women and young people. I think sometimes the leadership encourages this type of "masculinity" because it creates a community where their own pathology will seem normal. For example Doug Wilson, who appears to facilitate abuse not because he's into it as such (though who knows) but because defying mainstream norms about the protection of women and children makes him feel like a big man.

Oh Doug Wilson is definitely into the abuse. Not only did he arrange the marriage of a young girl in his church to a convicted pedophile in order to help him "go straight" and after hiding the perv out for raping a teen in the church, but he also wrote a couple of blog posts about how women need to be raped on their wedding nights so they will know who is the boss and become submissive. His church eventually made him take the blogs down because they were taking such heat. But note that they didn't fire his butt either which tells you an awful lot about the character traits of the adults that "lead" that church.

 

He is most definitely a pervert, abusing, scum bag.

[winterbaby]

:eek:

 

I knew about the Sitler situation... I guess in my naivete I just thought Wilson did that for the power trip of playing with people's lives, not because he positively wanted to... my God... set the guy up with more victims through parenthood. I guess it's kind of both/and as far as dominating and hurting people in various ways - I mean think of it in terms of what they did to Sitler's wife, too. I think a lot of men and families get more than they bargain for with the patriarchy stuff but in the case of Wilson it's really hard to see what the appeal would be. Where are people's heads at, for that situation not to precipitate the collapse of his church?