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Teen Girls Take A Stand Against Slut Shaming

Decent Essays
As a woman, slut shaming is no surprise. Society has built an over-sexualized culture and it’s affecting grown women and strongly impacting girls in schools. Regulating what one can and cannot wear at school implies that a looks are a factor in education. Through culture, double-standards, and school dress codes, slut-shaming has found its way to subliminally affect every young girl and woman. To start to veer from this harmful situation, dress codes within public schools need to be revised. What is slut-shaming? To understand why dress codes are harmful to young girls it is first important to understand the epidemic of slut-shaming. In Kaitlin Menza’s article “Teen Girls Take A Stand Against Slut Shaming,” she explains clearly that slut-shaming…show more content…
Many applauded, many were disgusted, and many slut-shamed. James E. Miller, the editor-in-chief of the Mises Institute in Canada, published an article titled “Why Slut-Shame” days after Miley’s performance. He advocates that “slut-shaming is a welcome course of action - even more so in an era where young women wear their craving for erotic climax as a badge of honor.” He critiques Miley’s performance and merely excuses Robin’s equal participation by saying he was “play(ing) along with the whole filthy escapade”. The sexual double standard of Robin Thicke’s actions and Miley Cyrus’ actions is one example of what our culture is built on. Another outcome of our culture is the “dating app” called Tinder. In Jenny Kutner’s article “A Woman Was Slut-Shamed,” a 23 year old woman, Olivia Melville, put in her bio Drake’s lyric “Type of girl that will suck you dry and then eat some lunch with you.” Unbeknownst to her someone screenshotted her profile and posted it to Facebook where a flood of comments came calling her a slut. One commenter took it to the extreme and said “You know the best thing about a feminist (is that) they don’t get any action so when you rape them it feels 100 times tighter.” This song, specifically this lyric, is popular for men to sing but when a woman sings the line, she is a slut and is threatened with rape; an alarming…show more content…
I had a phone interview with Mike Taylor, the Dean of Students at my own high school Thurston High. When asked the dress code enforcement, he said “students are expected to dress in a manner that is neat and appropriate for school or work… and (nothing) that disrupts the educational process.” I asked how one is to enforce “neat, appropriate, and undisruptive” and Mr. Taylor proceeded to give me examples of what girls can and cannot expose. “Girls have to cover their shoulders, midriffs, chests, and cannot wear shorts or skirts above their knee. If those aren’t covered, then they become a distraction and are either sent home, or wear different clothes that we provide.” When asked if these same rules were enforced to boys, he said a hesitant yes, but that is a blatant lie. When I attended high school, with Mr. Taylor as my Dean of Students, boys would participate in gym class shirtless, have a “Daisy Duke Tuesday” where the first tuesday of the month boys would wear “daisy duke” shorts, and on a regular basis wear shirts where their ribs and nipples are exposed. When I asked how many people were written up in the last month I learned 23 girls were sent to his office to change their clothes. No boys were written up. This is not just a situational event. In Docketerman’s article “When Enforcing School Dress Codes Turns Into Slut Shaming,” she went to a middle school in Evanston, Illinois where a
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