Pop Culture Tuesday - I Am More Than A Distraction

It's no secret that dress codes are pretty much a necessity for every school even they don't have a uniform. It's also not a secret that these dess codes and 'uniform policies' police women's bodies. It seems to be every other day that I read some article about a teenage girl sent home in disgrace becausue her shoulders were showing and that would 'distract the male students'.

Here's why that's problematic:

1) It enforces the idea that 'boys will be boys' and can't be held responsible for their actions if a girl is wearing revealing clothing and she is sexually assaulted. This promotes victim blaming.
2) It promotes the concept that what a girl wears is more important than how she uses her brain. This objectifies women.
3) It's humiliating - especially if you're a teenage girl. You're going though puberty - breasts are developing for one thing and a top you wore 2 months ago when you were still an A-cup now just accentuates your chest and some 'teachers' see that as inappropriate and vilify you for having a body that is going through female puberty and is a fact of life.
4) IT PROMOTES THE IDEA THAT A BOY'S EDUCATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A GIRL'S.

It is blatant sexism and everyone knows it. It's gender discrimantion in most cases, a typical male versus female debate in which the man almost always comes out on top because society is so deeply rooted within the patriarchy that we value a boy's education over a girl's.

My favourite reason though has to be when a teenage girl at a public high school in America got sent home after her t-shirt was 'distracting' to male teachers because it was deemed 'too revealing' and by that they mean 'it didn't cover every part of her bare skin'. Surely a teacher is professional enough not to be distracted by a teenage girl's body?

In retaliation to these incidents, a twitter hashtag #IAmMoreThanADistraction was trending and set tongues wagging - because girls are more than a distraction. We are human beings with developing bodies, a brain like any other person on the planet and a voice to speak out on any discrimination - gender or otherwise.

My Feminist Awakening

Seeing as this is my first post, I thought I'd start at the beginning: the moment I realised I was a feminist.

It began in a seemingly unordinary Games lesson when a thought occurred to me, why did all us girls seem to only ever do dance and gymnastics, when the boys always did football and rugby? Why couldn't we ever do football or rugby? So, in awkward 13 year old fashion, I asked my teacher. Her reply is something I will never forget. It changed my perspective on the society I lived in and how I viewed myself. She replied "Well, you girls have got a special job later on in life haven't you? You're going to have babies, we do this to protect you." My little world, the world I had so carefully cultivated around me, came crashing down and I entered a deep existential crisis. This would be my first, and certainly not my last, encounter with sexism. Growing up, I had never felt like I wasn't equal to the boys so this came as a shock to me. Was that all I was to the people who were supposed to encourage me, guide me and help me become ready for the adult world? Just a host for a future I wasn't even sure I wanted? Was this how the people close to me viewed me as? So I did what any teenager with unanswered questions would do. I turned to Google. While lots of articles popped up telling me I should want to be a mother because that's what girls are supposed to be, I found my safe haven in a no-nonsense post talking about stopping gender roles which led me into the wonderful world of feminism, a world which would let me know that my uterus does not define who I am and who I want to be.

Since then, I have redefined my definition of what it means to be a woman and taken an interest in lots of other issues that I didn't even know were issues to begin with because they had been ingrained in me since the day I was born.

So that's my 'awakening'. What was yours?