Keep your shoulders covered and your shorts fingertip length. The consequences of sheer clothes are severe, and Shahveer is bound to hear. And if you dare show your knee through the hole in your jeans it’s expulsion. We’re talking dress code, arguably the most useless thing since the second and third Captain America movies. Why are we talking about this? Because much like abortion laws, boy bands, and overpriced makeup kits, they really seem to have a nasty habit of targeting the fairer sex when they’ve got no reason to.

I’ll admit, I came from a junior high and elementary that required a single uncomfortable uniform to be worn at all times-no exceptions. All the girls and guys wore more or less the same thing every day of the year. As such, I’m not so much a terrible dresser as a grave robber when it comes to fashion. (I once thought it was acceptable to wear a french dress shirt, corduroys, a fedora, and two, yes TWO, vests.) So it pains me much, now that I have my freedom, that I cannot wear my sleeveless athletic shirts just to embarrass my friends. But whatever grief I’ve been given, it’s been much worse on the other end of the gender spectrum.

Let us consider what the point of a dress code is. Assuming that it’s not just a useless set of rules to enforce, a dress code is typically used to enforce a kind of fashion upon a body of people. For us, it’s supposed to make sure we stay semiformal and self conscious. However, it fails in this goal because over the years the wording has become so lax that many of the rules are effectively pointless, supporting informal and many types of sports wear. So what are some of the remaining rules? No shoulders shown for guys. I’m sorry what now? I understand that a nerdy white toothpick like myself has no right walking around with my upper arms visible, but there are some men who spend hours and hours perfecting their bodies to the point that they might actually be considered art, and covering it up is simply insulting. On the other side it’s even worse. Big point of contention one: fingertip length shorts. Reason for rule: to prevent high school girls from wearing the Nike sports shorts that are just a tad too short. Big point of contention two: no midriff. Reason for rule: crop tops, apparently, go against the idea of clothing, despite being clothing. Rule number three: fishnets. Reason for rule: they might catch the fish in the hallway I guess? But why is this an issue? The main argument is that males are distracted by excess skin, which is flat wrong for a couple of reasons.

Guys have more self control than that. On the whole, males are not the terrible chauvinistic pigs that dominate top tier government and business. We can handle ourselves. Thighs are not heroin. There’s no reason to limit a whole gender’s rather fashionable closets because some old white man assumes that we just can’t get enough. That being said booty shorts really shouldn’t be props either, but that’s for other, more practical reasons. Crop tops are ultimately harmless. People wear them all the time in public, and never in my life has someone’s crop top or short shorts caused me to stop dead in my tracks, loose my train of thought, or have flashbacks to the last girlfriend I had. It just doesn’t happen. And in telling the girls that they are a distraction, you subconsciously tell them that they’re doing nothing at school except staying out of the way of the guys. That’s the real kicker. The rules they live with tell them they’re eye candy-and damn near little else, so when the big boys need to focus on their algebra quiz the eye candy needs to put on some “reasonable” clothes that, in effect, change absolutely nothing about how they are viewed. The guys that sit and daydream on the test for 30 minutes are going to daydream regardless of what is asked of them or what their surroundings are.

There are so many outfits that must be cast out due to the limitations imposed upon the populous. There are some people who would look so much better than the jeans-sweatshirt look if they were allowed to throw on a nice, black, sidecut hip skirt with a white, long-sleeve blouse and solid grey heels. Or maybe they want to stick with the jeans. Much like the administration, I’ve got no right telling nearly adult women what they can and cannot put on or over their bodies.