Makeup, necklines and skirt lengths have sparked battles between daughters and their parents and principals for as long as teenagers have gone to school.
While sophomores may have trouble pointing to Libya on a map or naming the Speaker of the House, I’ll bet they can recite verbatim their school’s policy on appropriate classroom attire.
I went to Catholic school and remember teachers regularly measuring to the centimeter how high girls’ hemlines were above the knee. Dress code violations resulted in immediate detention or parental conference, but that didn’t stop girls from rolling their skirts at the waistline when teachers let their guard down.
Be it rebellion or simply a need to be noticed and stand out from the crowd, girls will always find new ways to push the limits when it comes to “fashion”—no matter how fast schools update their policies to keep up with the latest trends and tricks.
This year, yoga pants have flared up as the new front line in the assault on adolescent girls’ rights. Kids first began wearing yoga pants to school in 2011, but the fad has since exploded and the tight-fitting leggings can now be found in just about every American high school.
Recognizing their absurdity, districts across the country have taken action to limit or all out ban the wearing of yoga pants to school—prompting persecuted teens to cry foul.
Some girls from Wayzata High School have recently taken to Twitter to express in the way only a teenager can their thoughts about perceived limitations imposed by the district on yoga pants. Note: school officials tell Patch no changes to appropriate dress code standards have been made and that the code of student conduct contains no specific language addressing yoga pants.
Well, it should.
I’m sure yoga pants are comfortable, but so are bathrobes and karate gis. I don’t see girls wearing them to homeroom, however. Yoga pants are for—well, yoga—and have no place in school. They serve exactly one purpose—to draw boys’ attention to areas fathers would rather not talk about or mention by name.
But it’s not the school district’s primary responsibility to police the attire of its students.
Parents who allow their teenager to wear yoga pants to school should reevaluate their decision. I’m all for allowing girls to wear what they wish, but yoga pants simply don’t belong in school. Allowing them in class sends a wrong message about acceptable behavior and sets a general bad precedent on how our girls should present themselves to society.
What’s next? Bikinis in biology?
Sorry if this seemed really long. Just wanted to give a first hand experience. By the way, we live in a fairly small town in the midwest :) Good luck parenting everyone!
On a personal not, my mom always taught me to feel sexy, and not be ashamed of it. Now i know reading that you might be taken aback a little bit but i assure you its all in the name of class. MY mother taught me that there is a certian mistique about being a woman. She also told me that if i have a body, i shouldent be ashmed. But my clothes do not define who i am. i am still 17. i have never smoked, dranken, done drugs. I have straight A's, I am my class president i am still a virgin. And i do wear yoga pants.
If you have issues with trendy apparel of the moment, put your kid in a school with a uniform. Most importantly, teach your kids to respect others NO MATTER WHAT CLOTHES THEY WEAR. I may think yoga pants are tacky, but it's not my place to tell anybody what they should or shouldn't wear, and it doesn't affect me, so it doesn't matter. If you're lucky you may be able to raise a child with fashion taste you agree with (but don't count on it)!
Thank you.
And please, tight jeans are nothing new. Tight Rolled Jeans, or pegged jeans, were in during the '80s, and don't tell me nobody did that. Besides, what trends did your parents not approve of, flapping?
This would also encourage the kids to dress more appropriately when they get older. As it is now, many people traveling by plane/at the terminal in the airport dress like they are bedraggled refugees from some third world country.