A Permanent Uniform

Brianna Myers for Race, Gender and the Media

I am 1000 percent positive that today in class we had the most heated debate to date. A talk about advertising and how women are depicted in them turned into a talk about dress codes and the way young girls at an early age are forced to wonder "Am I treated this way because of the way I dress?" We are preached to believe that men are "sexual beings" and "just can't control themselves" when women expose their bodies. Are we supposed to be wearing a permanent uniformed to be approved by conservative men? The constant things that kept running through my mind in this discussion were:

1. That's the dumbest piece of ignorant crap I've ever heard.
2. Why should young girls and women be force to alter their actions and choices because of the disgusting men that think it's okay?
and 3. What about the women that breastfeed in public?

The debate about if it's okay if a woman should expose her breast to feed her child in public has recently come up a lot. Personally I believe that if a baby has to eat, then a baby has to eat. In numerous articles men have presented the argument "I can't pull my dick out in public, so why can a women pull her breast out?" Um, I don't know, maybe because your dick isn't sustaining life for another helpless human being. If men are able to sexualize a woman in that situation clearly there is a bigger picture here. The plus side is that there aren't many cases where you hear a man groping a woman while she was feeding her baby.

Men thinking they have control over a women's body is where the issue starts. In class the only reason we could come up with why men proceed to grope women and force themselves upon them is the desire for control. The mindset that a man has the ability to make a girl blush or make her feel uncomfortable were frequent themes. It's honestly baffling and it's not just "the sick and twisted." It's your friends, your neighbors and typically someone you're comfortable with.

School girls should not be penalized for the over sexualization of their body that they aren't even completely familiar with themselves. That's not their issue. Don't make it their issue.