Honor Thy Dress Code

Post date: May 9, 2025

By Katherine Schuler

As the bell rang, marking the start of first period, a voice echoed through the hallways, “all females please make your way to the gym”. As the girls in my class stood up alongside me, we talked about how there were small rumors going around the school the day prior that the girl’s skirts would be measured. Attending a private school required a specific uniform, which, at first glance, united the student body. With closer inspection, unfair gender roles were apparent with no way to argue them. As we walked through the hallways, the boys with their short, tight shorts mocked us. Why was what they were wearing any better than our skirts? One by one, we lined up as the school administrators measured each one of our skirts, to which they separated us into groups. This type of humiliation is something the boys would have never had to experience, and never will. 

Gender roles, especially in a Catholic school, are not hidden. This idea that men are superior to women is not listed in the Bible, but it is clear a lot of male followers decide to take that lesson from it. While the Catholic faith preaches love for all, equality, and respect for your neighbor, the environment that my school, and most likely a great deal of others, provided for the girls was just a fraction of such. The idea rooted in misogyny that women must dress modestly while men are not expected to as well is a common belief in Catholic school, reflected in their outdated uniform rules. 

This issue goes beyond the dress code and falls more in line with power dynamics. From a young age women are taught that a lot of their worth derives from the way they present themselves while men are not normally held to that standard. It is clear that the dress code favors men, from the amount of comfort their clothes provide to how little variety of options girls are given. This also gives the idea that women should be expected to shrink down to meet these requirements while men have more room under these rules and the privilege to move past them.

Some people may disagree and point out that dress codes are not based on sexist ideology.  Instead, on a broader view of how women should respect their modesty and dress in a way that does not derive attention from what is being taught. While this is true in some contexts, the agenda that women can “distract” some is not their fault, but the person being “distracted”. Unless someone is dressed completely inappropriately, females should not be ridiculed for the way their uniform looks on the body they have. 

Private schools need to get out of this outdated way of viewing women and work to instead make them more comfortable. With comfortability in themself comes the ability to wear their clothes in a way that best suits how they want to appear. They should stop making girls feel bad for the way their body looks and instead embrace that every body is different and so different variations of an outfit would look good on some and better on others. Men understand and know the feeling of being able to walk into school feeling confident in the way their uniform fits them and women deserve that freedom as well.