episode of the edge my name is a livia file if you really want someone to blame blame the girls because they pretty much ruined everything they ruined dress code they ruined well ask adam look at eve get used to it keep your mouth shut second up and follow the rules this remark was made by a male vice principal an athletic director director at saudi daisy high school in tennessee this sexist thinking when it comes to female students apparel has become a much more serious and concerning issue all across america in homes nationwide dress code influences students wardrobes especially when it comes to female students school dress codes seem to have more restrictions on a female students attire students from skirts to dresses to tank top sitting sure it's girls have many obstacles to overcome when getting dressed in the morning for a school day female students are expected to conform to a list of rules on how they must be dressed in order a level of modesty that is school board believes is correct and twenty thirteen about fifty seven percent of american public schools reported enforcing a strict dress code having guidelines include a clothing must not be excessively tight in clothing may not be disturbing or distracting has targeted towards females causing an added pressure for girls when choosing what to wear a high school student mckenzie grandes out reported to the guardian magazine that she was sent to the office for having a rip in her jeans above the knee she exclaimed i understood the rules exist but i believe it's sexist and necessary i told them that if a middle aged man couldn't concentrate because of my clothing he's the problem not me in that era of the me too movement the way women are treated is being inspected much further than it once was the times in which women were conformed to gender norms and confined to society's standards are long gone females are speaking out on rules that are repressive and suggest that they should be subject to more rules than men such as the clothing they wear causing them to be treated  appropriately just because beginning at elementary school level has begun to be gong to come under fire for creating a double standard for boys and girls in school teaching children starting at a young age to obey a list of rules on how they should look leads to biased thinking as they grow up one mother stated to odyssey magazine that her twelve year old daughter was told she looked like she was going clubbing while at school and asked to go to the office and call home to get new clothes dropped off this hurricane is sending girls to change when they are change what they are wearing takes time out of their day of education in peters township high school less than one percent of the dress code violations attribute to males in twenty seventeen twenty eight hundred school year only three boys were called to the office for violations when it pertains to just code within the handbook six out of twelve rules listed specifically pertain to females with the other sex overlapping with both boys and girls clothing to add address concerns i've invited mrs laurie pavlik to the edge mrs pavlik is the principal and peter's hands of high school hi thank you so much for joining me today absolutely so i wanted to start off by asking you your opinion on why dress codes are so necessary in schools especially at the high school level ok this is an often asked question i get asked every year  basically the schools are responsible to enforce sort of the opinions and attitudes of the community and that is part of the school code of pennsylvania and so dress codes kind of come out of that sort of the expectation that we're preparing students for the next phase of their life after high school and dress code is a part of that because how we dress represents different things that at different times for example you know somebody's wearing a suit you're expecting that they are going to work or that maybe they're going to some for a whole occasion people don't just dress and suits casually yet the same is expected of school so you know there's an expectation that students  dress a certain way that impacts how they behave and so schools are basically trying to instill that idea in the minds of students as they go through yes and do you think that some teachers have a different definition you could say of what is appropriate and what is not appropriate and do you think that every like changes depending on who the teacher or like administrator whoever is i think all people have sort of a different impression of what is acceptable and some people's bar may be lower than others that is one of the reasons why a dress code is established and it creates some parameters around them but it does look different to different people and our job is to try and enforce it consistently but it is subjective so it is it is difficult to do and being a principal at a high school what are some of the biz biggest misconceptions that you're faced with by parents that are frustrated or a little but disheartened by the dress code when their student is or child is being discarded i probably get war on complaints from the opposing side so i get more parent feedback about us not enforcing the dress code than i do from parents complaining their child has been dress coded when a child is dress code if a parent has a question it is typically i see other kids wearing this got so and our answer to that is you know we have fourteen hundred sixty students so we can see all of them and then some students you know they adjust things before they come see us so maybe the reason that they were sent to the office is different than what i see when they come in but you know we try to give students license to  be creative you know in their dress and express themselves and at the same time sort of maintaining the expectations of the community and of the parents so we kind of walk a fine line between the two and i know that in our school peter sound chip the statistic for last school year was less than one percent of the dress code violators were males so why do you feel that females are more subject to being just kind of the males that's a great question and i think there's more opportunities for  females but i also think it's more of a societal issue i think there is a lot of emphasis placed on girls to look and act a certain way boys don't feel the same pressure typically when boys dress code it is for you know having something inappropriate or they're trying to make a statement that is not in line with the community morals and so you know those are typically why we address boys but for females  lot of the times you know they're dressing a way that they see being portrayed on t v seeing for trade and we just don't see the same from boys so to me i think there is a lot of pressure placed on girls to dress and act a certain  way and so i think that lends itself more to opportunities for violations obviously and you feel that you know it's twenty eight hundred that's why everyone's always i guess twenty eight ceiling times are changing but do you feel that dress code should be modernized as the times change and as society's standards like more females are talking about how like gender neutrality is a bigger deal like you feel that dress code should change with the times yes i mean i think the dress code and i think our dress code at the high school what we enforce is a lot milder probably where they would have experienced here ten years ago fifteen years ago because that's what's available i have two teenage daughters so i know what's available to purchase and what's stylish but at the same time i don't think that the that it needs to change entirely because i do think that we need to help people understand you know how people respond to you is a of times how you present yourself and it's also different you know we notice like when students go to formal events and they dress formally they acted for italy you know when people are dressed up they act differently and a lot of that is just internalizing you know how we we dress and how we portray also ourselves has an impact on on everything that comes afterwards so i do think it's important that there is some standard that we follow  that there is some flexibility in that standard if that makes sense to you do you feel that the dress code does really help to enforce the dress for success type of mentality that you obviously as a principal would love to instill in your  students i think it does i don't know that every student understands that or gets that but i think when students look at it in terms of you know if a teacher walked into the classroom and the teacher is dressed professionally every day the student reacts differently to that teacher benefit teacher comes in and toward jeans or rip shorts and a t shirt so you know we're trying to establish that you know how you dress again impacts the area around you and the focus at school really needs to about to be about school it needs to be about learning it needs to be about kind of what your job is at school and you know i do disagree with things that have been said in the past about dress code being a distraction it's more of a distraction to the person who who is  dressed rather than other people so if somebody you know dressed in their wearing a really short skirt and they're trying to look good and impress other people then it can be uncomfortable for them yes more than it is for other people so you know i think that piece we're trying to get people way from don't worry so much about how you look let people judge you for who you are and not for what style you're wearing or what name brand you're wearing so for me that is more my personal mission than it is just about magazines when i was like the big headline they should be taken out of class time for what's your standpoint on well you know when there is a violation if it's significant then we need to see the student right away if it is something minor then it can wait you know  often the first couple of weeks of school you know we just give kids warning like hey that's a violation don't worry that again some of the things i've read about students being taken out of class there for a really minor infraction  that's where it causes concern you know a kid has a little rip in their jeans and they're being called out of class and they're sitting there for an hour waiting for a parent to bring close up you have that might be excessive yes but if it's a severe violation and you know the student is that risk and i can't put them out in there because maybe things are showing that shouldn't be then i'm going to keep them in the office till somebody can get there or we give them a change of clothes ok yes and speaking of the change of clothes do you feel that sometimes the main like breeze and for why they're so outraged like parents are like they have to be at work and they don't have time to come brain like their child to get a new pair of jeans or like something like that do you feel that school should have like a different type of like not uniform but like clothing available to students in order like if they are in need of a change of clothes  a family's responsibility however knowing that that's not always feasible we keep on hand supply t shirts and a change of clothes a lot of students i talk to already have a change of clothes which tells me they knew that they probably share with so so i do think most people are prepared but we're prepared in any case students to peter's will get like a peters township t shirt or something to put on ok well thank you so much we're going to go to brea very and we're back with mrs pavlik talking about school dress codes so i wanted to ask you why do you feel that school dress code should be altered to have more gender norms in them you sometimes well i think maybe what we need to do is flip it and kind of look at it differently going back to something i said earlier that you know boys typically don't feel like they have to dress a certain way  to be taken seriously or to be judged but i feel like girls do girls how to feel a lot of pressure to dress and act a certain way to create an image and boys don't feel that's maybe the conversation needs to be about that than just about what people are wearing but you know why do we feel like we need to dress provocatively to get attention rather than just get attention for who we are if you talk to boys boys don't feel like they have to dress provocatively yet they just wear a t shirt right ok but if boys showed up at school shirtless which they might do out in public everybody would notice so sometimes when a girl shows up in school and something that you might see on the beach it draws  attention but i think that's we're sort of the conversation is what why do kids feel like they need to to dress like that to get attention because there are a lot of really comfortable things you can wear and still look really cute without you know being provocative  do you feel that there's any way that parents should talk to their children about how they could dress and still looked cute but then still like get attention but in better ways yes absolutely and i would push back a little bit to what to the parents of the boys say to their kids you know why is it different for girls and what are we exposing our kids to i have a daughter in eleventh grade so we go through this frequently what there is available for her to purchase and what you can wear to school and chill say you know like some things she feels are a little too revealing it makes her uncomfortable you have to wear that to school but it might be something she wears when she goes out with her friends but that's a whole different expectation of how people going to treat me when i'm out with my friends versus when i'm in class and i'm trying to interact with other students on schoolwork and i'm talking to the teacher it's just a different feel so helping her kind of understand what the expectation is and what you want to dress for is really meaningful because dress does say something about yes of course and why do you feel that the whole i know they it's kind of like a past thing but like saying that girls should be a distraction like they're being a distraction by like showing off like different parts of their life collarbone we go from schools that's like the big thing is like cancer collarbone or shoulders with those kind of things why do you feel that those are that they would send a lot of kids home if we followed that but i don't like that i don't like that employer implement implication where i'm having trouble because i don't think girls are a distraction and girls should never be told that they are a distraction everybody is responsible for their own actions and their own reactions to other people and so you know when i talk to students about dress code it's really about what image you're trying to project and where you're at where you're located and you know if a teacher came to work and they were dressed inappropriately it would be the same reaction i would have to have with them because you know they're as a role model to kids and they're trying to be considered professional so it's the same kind of things for students so you know i don't i don't like that implicit implication and i really feel like students should think about what makes them comfortable and makes them feel good in their own  skin and most of the times when we have students who are dressed coded they're not necessarily comfortable yeah they're uncomfortable themselves right having to adjust themselves got to and you feel that there's any specific ways that we could alter our personal dress code to make it more gender neutral and like keep the even what this yeah i'm not sure that's a really good question you know nothing as identified as gender but boys don't wear it is very subjective because what might look final one person's body type might not look fine on another person's body to but again it's subjective you know different people have different views of that so do you feel that dress code does add an extra layer of pressure and like nervousness to girls when they have to go to school or do you feel that it should be their personal accountability to be able to just dress in a respectable way that their peers would say i think it's both so i think it is a person's person al accountability but i i do think that in today's society there's a lot of pressure yet so you know it's how we internalize that and how we choose to to allow that pressure to impact us so if you're going to school to be a  fashionista there's maybe a lot of pressure on you if you're going to school and you don't want to worry about that you just where you know jeans and t shirts and sweatshirts or whatever you're going to have less stress about it that's why i've heard a lot of students and schools that have a u niform say they appreciate it because it takes that whole stress stress out of it you know everybody kind of looks the same and people judge you for what you're saying and what you're doing and not by how you look so hard to do you feel  that township specifically i've heard that some of my friends even had said there is almost an added like layer of like oh i have to look presentable and like i can't come in like i did dressing like keep up with the trends do you feel do you see that at all absolutely absolutely and  i think that's a community thing i think it's a societal thing that people feel they have to kind of you know maintain a certain a certain look to be accepted and that's where i think students need to have conversation about it yes because again what do we find valuable do we find what somebody is wearing as valuable or the person that they are and that's where maybe we need to shift our thinking a little bit and you feel that dress code i know that there's been some like i said in the beginning about the twelve year old girl who was sent home because he said the teacher said that you looked and she was clubbing like those younger grades do you feel that they should still have a dress code like put in place and be subject to this or do you feel that that creates bias thinking as they move on into the high school level i don't think it's biased thinking to start early i think it's important that what is communicated to students is clear and the understanding of why this is in place clear so that it's not you know to say to somebody that they were look like they're going clubbing is probably not appropriate to say to a kid but to say you know this this isn't the expectation of how our students look when they're at school that might be fine for on the weekend that has sort of a different connotation to it so i do think it's important to sort of establish those standards early and there's less question about it moving forward but a lot of it just starts at home and you know how parents are communicating with their kids about what is acceptable when you go to school and are you ever faced with a parent that says oh i saw my daughter or son if it happens to be i saw my child going out the door this morning and i thought it was fine but why would this be a problem that i think it's ok i'm his or her parent to ever come in contact with i have you i have i don't get that very often but i have encountered that in the past not just in peters but in other districts i've worked in and you know it's just a matter of well this is what is acceptable here based on the policy set by the school board and that's that's my job is to enforce that sometimes kids alter their outfit on the way to school you know sometimes we'll talk through that if something has been changed and sometimes it's just a matter of you know it is the expectation of the school and that parent has to accept that and what are some of the biggest benefits that you've seen in forcing a dress code like any change in a student's behavior or the way they're perceived by their others  i think when people let go of having to look a certain way they are able to just kind of be themselves and not worry so much about it so that's one of the things i've seen have seen the opposite though i've seen students who will just battle against it keep pushing the their focus then becomes on their clothes and it's not on what i think are the right things which is you know you're here to learn you're here to grow as an individual and it shouldn't be about how you look what you do whether it's a look that's appropriate or not appropriate for school some parents and just guardians have said over the years that ok well if there's a dress code in my students or my child's getting sent to the office to change and getting taken away from school time we should just have uniforms in place and that would just solve all the problems do you feel the uniforms would or do you still like having giving the children the freedom to just say you know what i don't have an opinion either way i feel like whatever would work best by the community and i would ask students what they would want to see happen i think a dress code or not a dress code a school uniform could go a long way to eliminating some issues it probably creates new ones too yes of students who refuse to tamala that you know because it's just another form of dress code i think people just need to be understanding and rational and what they wear and how they present themselves but i really do think that students need to understand that as they grow into adulthood how you dress projects something about you so you won't want to show up to a job interview and something that you might wear when you go out on the weekends because that may you know cause you to not be taken seriously in that job interview so you know removing that piece of it and having people see who you are for who you are and offer what you're wearing is really the biggest message i think people need to understand and some  articles had said that you know it's expressing their opinions and like expressing their personality especially to young age when they're trying to like find themselves in the transition from middle school to high school that's their time to express themselves through clothing is there any way with their school board because ultimately it's the school boards responsibility to set the dress code based on the morality basically of the community and the expectations and values of the community so it should be kind of a two way street a conversation that goes on between the two ok well thank you so much for joining me do you have any last words on the topic of just having this conversation with me because i think it is an important thing to talk about so thank you so much for the tough questions in order to see your way from sexism in high code it has to begin with schools writing and enforcing rules that are not gender biased acquire a sense of tolerance and respect toward school guidelines should always be implemented into students morals but when it comes to the individuality of students speaking out and standing up and fighting to allow students to explore themselves through that their clothing is a must teaching girls to dress a certain way in order to not be a dish to others should not be what's being taught in schools and rather a sense of self respect and accountability for all students when it comes to the clothes they wear thank you so much for watching this segment of the my name is a i was joined by mrs laurie pov like the principal at peter's times of high school thank you