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Taylir Butterworth
Mr. Salow
Research Paper
24 January 2017

Gender Restrictive Dress Codes

A lot of people, mainly current students, speak about their feelings towards gender
restrictive dress codes. Most are for the idea and rules of gender restrictive dress codes due to old
traditions, religion, and family beliefs, but there are a few that are against it due to wanting to
create true equality and happiness for everyone.
Out of all of the articles that are against gender restrictive dress codes, there was
one that was mainly from the perspective of males. The rest of the article are very
strongly noted from females. The article begins like this, High school boys wearing
dresses strike a pose with big smiles on their faces. They know they're breaking school
rules, but they hope their gender-defying outfits will spark change. (www.nytimes.com)
This article has opinions and situations that male students have said and been in. With
this article having a strong male opinion, that could be a convincing factor to some
readers. The article starts off getting into detail and opinions over the male students
rebelling against the gender dress codes. Then moves into other accounts of situations
from all genders.
A lot of the other articles i had found were based off of the opinions and actions of
female students and employees. Beginning with "Maggie Sunseri was a middle-school
student in Versailles, Kentucky, when she first noticed a major difference in the way her
schools dress code treated males and females. A middle school student in Versailles,

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Kentucky feels that dress code restrictions are sexist towards females. These policies
can perpetuate discrimination against female students, as well as LGBT students. This
article is based off of the opinions of students that are still in middle and high school and
students who just recently graduated. The writer of this article is just writing about
negative opinions and using negative examples of school dress codes and regulations. A
second article stated, Last year, Anna Loisa Cruz, a seventh-grader at Irvington School
in Portland, Ore., was among four students who testified before the Portland Public
Schools Board of Education to talk about school dress codes. (http://neatoday.org) This
article is based off of one group of girls who are fighting back and arguing for the dress
code to be changed and not to be sexist against the females enrolled at the school. They
follow the girls on what theyre doing to fight back. The article is trying to convince us
about the dress code being sexist by giving examples and many situations the group of
girls have been in and witnessed themselves. What you wear reflects who you are, or
who you want to be. (www.cbsnews.com). This article gets into particular detail about
what to wear in a professional workplace and outside of it. The creator of the article uses
quotes and ideas from other people. Even quoting Barack Obama on the matter of men
and women wearing the same things everyday, stating, When a man alternates between
two different pairs of dockers and shows up every day in a blue button-down shirt, no one
says a thing. But if a woman wears the same clothing two days in a row, people
talk.Women tend to like more variety in clothing than men do, so our culture reflects that
President Obama wears almost the same outfit every day. He explained his reasoning in
an interview in Vanity Fair: "You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I'm trying to pare
down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing.

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Because I have too many other decisions to make." (www.cbsnews.com). The author of
the article is trying to use a huge figure in every Americans life, President Barack
Obama, to persuade the reader about how he/she should be dressing.
A few articles bring and focus on the law aspects. The first article begins with,
Like many of the educational controversies in this list, issues over gender-based dress
restrictions in school invoke the U.S. Constitution, in this case the Equal Protection
Clause of the 14th amendment, which ensures that laws will protect all individuals
equally, and requires a public school to protect its students from discrimination because
of their gender. (www.topeducationdegrees.org). The Equal Protection Clause of the
14th amendment of the U.S. constitution ensures that laws will protect all individuals
equally, and requires a public school to protect its students from discrimination because
of their gender. The author is also on the side of no gender dress code restrictions. They
use a few different examples and realistic scenarios. The second article says, Dress code
conflicts announced the beginning of the school year with a bang. Usually, Id provide
an example, but it makes more sense to talk about the Missouri Legislature, where a few
weeks ago, a dress code for interns was proposed, to much dismay and no small amount
of ridicule (www.huffingtonpost.com). The majority of high schools have a dress code
and enforces them. The author of this article is trying to prove for the side of being
against dress codes. They focus on the aspects of the Missouri Legislature and how they
proposed a new dress code for genders. Not only for students but for other groups in the
workplace as well.
One article even has a parents input, By now, most high school dress codes have
just about done away with the guesswork. (www.nytimes.com). This article not only has

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the opinions and examples of students, it also has the opinions of adults and parents who
have seen these kids and situations the kids have gone through. The article really tries to
convince the reader to go against the gender dress codes by focusing on one story of a
female student who went against the schools rules and wore a tuxedo for her yearbook
picture. The school tried to ban the picture but the student fought back.
Most of the articles that I could find were against gender restrictive dress codes.

Works Cited
1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/every-reason-yourschools_b_8147266.html
2) http://www.topeducationdegrees.org/30-most-controversial-education-practicesin-u-s-history/
3) http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/school-dress-codes-areproblematic/410962/

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4) http://neatoday.org/2016/01/06/school-dress-codes-gender-bias/
5) http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/25/living/dress-code-protests-irpt/
6) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/fashion/08cross.html
7) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dress-double-standards-in-the-workplace/

8) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dress-double-standards-in-the-workplace/