What is your earliest memory of unfair dress coding?
My earliest memory of unfair dress coding was when I was legit in the first grade of elementary. There was this absolute arrogant and racist little shit in my in my class and one day we were having a conversation during break and I forgot what we were talking about but he suddenly just took off his shirt in front of me and I just stood there trying not to act uncomfortable. All he got was an annoyed sigh from my female teacher across the classroom and an exasperated “Calcium (it’s not his real name), put your shirt back on.” No further consequences or anything. On the other hand, there was this girl who happened to be wearing a spaghetti strap shirt. And during the middle of CLASS the same teacher sternly told her that she needed to cover up somehow whether she borrowed a jacket or changed. The rest of us could not have been any more interested in her outfit until the teacher had to make such a big deal out of it. The girl questioned why she needed to do so and the teacher just shut her down with the threat that she’d call her parents if she didn’t oblige. THIS IS LITERALLY NORMALIZING RAPE CULTURE. The other students including myself didn’t stand up for her and it makes me so mad but at the same time I know it’s not their fault because we didn’t know any better at the time but I hope that the majority of my back then classmates don’t pass the experience as a normal and non-problematic memory because it’s not. And I hope that the girl is doing okay. (Sorry if I came off as too passionate about this I’ve just been angry at the teacher and society for what happened for the past few weeks. I’ve been living in my hometown for the past 4-ish years (South Korea) and I attend a school where we all wear uniforms so there isn’t much to dress code so I’m not so used to witnessing students get dress coded. So the fact that I’ve seen such blatant double standards in my short 4 and a half years of living in the US is just so infuriating to me. I’d appreciate to hear your experiences as well. Have things improved at least a bit while I’ve been away??)
My earliest memory of unfair dress coding was when I was legit in the first grade of elementary. There was this absolute arrogant and racist little shit in my in my class and one day we were having a conversation during break and I forgot what we were talking about but he suddenly just took off his shirt in front of me and I just stood there trying not to act uncomfortable. All he got was an annoyed sigh from my female teacher across the classroom and an exasperated “Calcium (it’s not his real name), put your shirt back on.” No further consequences or anything. On the other hand, there was this girl who happened to be wearing a spaghetti strap shirt. And during the middle of CLASS the same teacher sternly told her that she needed to cover up somehow whether she borrowed a jacket or changed. The rest of us could not have been any more interested in her outfit until the teacher had to make such a big deal out of it. The girl questioned why she needed to do so and the teacher just shut her down with the threat that she’d call her parents if she didn’t oblige. THIS IS LITERALLY NORMALIZING RAPE CULTURE. The other students including myself didn’t stand up for her and it makes me so mad but at the same time I know it’s not their fault because we didn’t know any better at the time but I hope that the majority of my back then classmates don’t pass the experience as a normal and non-problematic memory because it’s not. And I hope that the girl is doing okay. (Sorry if I came off as too passionate about this I’ve just been angry at the teacher and society for what happened for the past few weeks. I’ve been living in my hometown for the past 4-ish years (South Korea) and I attend a school where we all wear uniforms so there isn’t much to dress code so I’m not so used to witnessing students get dress coded. So the fact that I’ve seen such blatant double standards in my short 4 and a half years of living in the US is just so infuriating to me. I’d appreciate to hear your experiences as well. Have things improved at least a bit while I’ve been away??)