Leggings and Yoga Pants
March 27, 2014
This may be a difficult concept for today’s children to accept but school attire does have a great deal to do with behavior. In fact, clothing, in general, does influence behavior.
When you are dressed casually, the tendency is to behave casually. It might not seem fair to make a sweeping generalization like that but I’m comparing today’s dress code and the attitudes associated with it to yesteryear’s dress code and the attitudes associated with education and work.
Our school dress code was very strict. Girls did not come to class in tight sweaters and they certainly didn’t come to school in shorts, slacks, or anything remotely sexual.
In business, the same held there, as well. Women did not go to work in provocative clothing; they did not wear blouses with plunging necklines or skirts up to their hips.
The result was that when children went to school, they were there to learn, regardless of their raging hormones, as some school administrators are blaming for the current violence in the schools. And when men and women went to work, they knew better than to dress in party clothes and flirt outrageously with the opposite sex during regular business hours.
The current controversy concerns the ban on girls wearing leggings and tight yoga pants to school. It’s being said that the dress code unfairly punishes girls for boys raping them and that boys need to learn how to respect girls.
They are also saying that this policy shifts the blame for boy’s behavior or lack of academic concentration, directly onto the girls and that this is unfair. It may be unfair but if the temptation is there and a boy acts on it, it’s the girl’s life that will be grossly affected, not the boy’s.
If the girl becomes pregant because of the rape, no one is going to care that she wore a skirt up to her navel. All they are going to see is a girl who will have to make the decision whether to give up her own childhood to raise a child or to go for an abortion.
There is no right or wrong in a dress code but it stands to reason that if boys are letting their raging hormones drive them to rape girls who dress provocatively, it might be the smarter course of action for girls to dress more conservatively.