Many years ago a counselor at Kindred High School told me that she did not want the girls to have VBS.  I had no idea what VBS was at the time.  I could only imagine that it was some sort of new sexually transmitted disease that I had not yet heard of that was becoming an epidemic.  Concerned about being able to help protect young women in Kindred (to include my own daughter),  I asked her to explain what VBS was an acronym for.

Visible

Bra

Strap

VBS

Well, that was a relief.  The rule about VBS focused on undergarments being visible – the rule was they should not be visible.  No concern was voiced that a visible bra strap (or any other visible undergarment) would incite sexual thoughts amongst the student body.  Let’s face it, bra straps are not all that sexy.  But then again, I have been told over the years that a strong breeze can be enough to create a state of arousal in a teenage boy when they are moving toward “manhood” – so perhaps the very hint of an undergarment is titillating.  I do recall the days when the Sears catalog underwear section was a young teenager’s version of erotica.  But with the Internet, even the most innocent of searches can turn up images that make the old Sears catalog look like an item from Mister Roger’s neighborhood. I also recall the days when I read The Godfather for the sex part of the book – so I guess some of us skipped the breeze and went right to the read. Oh to be a hormone-filled teenager – what an interesting time.

Here is what I know about this – schools have dress codes for a number of reasons, but the most enduring reason has been to maintain a sense of decorum (and I am not going to unpack that term just yet).  In my day, the rule was that skirts had to be longer than where your fingertips hit when your arms were at your sides.  The same basic rule applies at Cheyenne’s school today.  They also discourage VBS, albeit, they do not call it that.  They have other rules about tops, shorts, and leggings as well – nothing that I have found to be unreasonable in its black and white presentation.

Devils Lake High School officials are in hot water this week because they botched a meeting with female students wherein they addressed the dress code.  In the meeting they showed a clip from the movie Pretty Woman to illustrate the message that what you wear affects folks’ perceptions of you.  Allegedly, a female faculty member also made a statement that certain outfits equated with the types of outfits prostitutes would wear and that such outfits were “distracting” for staff and other students.  The primary focus of the meeting was about the way leggings, jeggings, and yoga pants should be worn to be in compliance with school dress code which essentially calls for a certain amount of coverage.

As an armchair quarterback on this I would say that the missteps here were with labeling clothing choices from a frame that departed from the simple metric of meeting, or failing to meet, the dress code.  That is the only dialogue the school should be having on this front.  We already know that schools create dress codes with decorum in mind and that the implication of decorum-based dress codes is a preference toward modesty.

Of course, the modesty focus does fall primarily on girls and we know there are assumptions and some deep-seated societal issues that underlie such dress codes.  I leave the folks more familiar with gender studies to deconstruct this part of the dress code dilemma.  I will just address the mishandling of the dress code enforcement.  Devils Lake High School made a classic blunder because one or more members of their personnel unpacked the decorum rationale in a way that it could be seen for it is – truly sexist and misinformed.

Devils Lake High School you should have just stuck with the black and white dress code because now that the focus has shifted to the highly shaded nuances behind decorum- based dress codes you are prompting a much larger discussion that goes beyond fingertip skirt lengths and leggings.  Perhaps it is time to have a national discussion about the foundational assumptions in such dress codes…perhaps it is time for all schools to go to a shirt/pant dress code for all students.  You opened Pandora’s box Devils Lake High School and I have news for you – this is no longer just about leggings, jeggings, and yoga pants.