Someone did their literary homework (or maybe they’re just fans of Emma Stone in Easy A).
Girls at Charleston County School of the Arts in South Carolina protested their school’s sexist dress code enforcement by wearing scarlet letters. On September 24, around 100 students showed up to school doing their best Hester Prynne impression to participate in the “Not A Distraction” campaign.
Junior Reese Fischer, one of the organizers of the protest, explained to the Charleston Post and Courier why they felt the dress code policy unfairly targets female students.
Especially in the summer, you see guys walking around in muscle tank tops with half their sides hanging out and their pants hanging down, and they don’t get called out for that. They don’t get called out for wearing a hat, but a girl will get called out for a short skirt in a second.
This isn’t new news. Every other day you hear a story of a girl getting sent home because her skirt was too short or she wore leggings to school. But the fact that guys were breaking the school’s dress code without repercussions while girls were getting called out makes this protest necessary at SOA.
The school’s administration has been receptive towards the protest, with assistant principal Robert Perrineau echoing its point to the Charleston Post and Courier.
This is just a reminder of what was is already in place, that we need to be consistent and be equitable and be fair to everyone.
Nice work, ladies. Now, let’s hope the rest of the year at Charleston County School of the Arts will be spent learning, not being sent home to change clothes.
