School dress codes get #MeToo makeover

U.S. boards want less focus on girls’ attire and more on gender attitudes

ALAMEDA, CALIF.— The relaxed new dress code at public schools in the small city of Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco, is intentionally specific: Midriff-baring shirts are acceptable attire, so are tank tops with spaghetti straps and other once-banned items such as micro-mini skirts and short shorts.

As students settle into the new school term, gone are restrictions on ripped jeans and hoodies in class. If students want to come to school in pyjamas, that’s OK, too.

The new policy amounts to a sweeping reversal of the modern school dress code and makes Alameda the latest school district in the United States to adopt a more permissive policy it says is less sexist.

Students who initiated the change say many of the old rules that barred too much skin disproportionately targeted girls, while language calling such attire “distracting” sent the wrong message.

“If someone is wearing a short shirt and you can see her stom- ach, it’s not her fault that she’s distracting other people,” said Henry Mills, 14, an incoming Grade 9 student at Alameda High School who worked with a committee of middle school students and teacher advisers to revise the policy. “There was language that mainly affected girls, and that wasn’t OK.”

The reversal reflects a generational shift that students and teachers say was partly influenced by broader conversations on gender stemming from the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct and a resurgence of student activism.

The new dress code is stirring back-to-school discussions about what role schools should have in socializing children.

Math teacher Marie Hsu said she’s all for equity but that the new rules send an unintentional message that it’s fine, even appropriate, to “sex it up.”

“It’s good not to punish girls for being distractions. I fully, fully get that. But I think it’s extraordinarily misled.”

Alameda’s new dress code was modelled after a suggested policy by the Oregon chapter of the National Organization for Women, drafted in 2016 to avoid rules that reinforce gender stereotypes and minimize unnecessary discipline or “body shaming.”