Thursday, June 18, 2020
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Pride Day 18: a short term goal
Work up the guts to change my username to Writing_In_Ink. Thoughts? (Please comment, I seriously want your opinion)
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@Cry_me_a_river15 for inspiring this, you're the best.
I am seriously super mad at society for creating these gender expectations.
Like, I'm a cis female.
And I can give you a good list of all the things that have been told to me/things that I've had to do because of that, just from the three years of middle school. I could go into things that have happened to me from kindergarten to second grade or third to fifth grade, but middle school is fresher in my mind than those time periods and my high school years so far have been pretty chill, just the average stuff nothing that really sticks out of much.
I've been going out of the cafeteria to go outside for 15 minutes of recess, when I was forced into a line of only girls where our religion teacher checked that our skirts/shorts were long enough to meet the dress code policy, and if your bottoms were so much as a hair shorter than your fingertips at resting position you were sent up to the office to either find new bottoms or call home so your parent could leave their job, go home, grab you a new pair of dress code passing bottoms, drive to the school, and drop off said bottom. My shorts at the time were half an inch shorter than dress code, so in the line I pulled them as low as I could without making it suspicious and tensed up my shoulders the most I could, al, things the girls ahead and behind me recommended when I panicked quietly. My shorts just met my fingertips and I only got five minutes of recess because of that. —sixth, but it also happened in seventh and eighth grade. It was the day of the middle school volleyball tournament. Most of the boys who passed us actually looked sorry that we had to go through that and some even waited for their gal friends.
Multiple girls where yelled at for rolling up their t-shirt sleeves to their shoulders. We were outside, working and running around, in 80+ degree weather. It was hot, humid, and absolutely not fun. —seventh grade, I think. Also happened in eighth grade. That was the day we set up sports and games to play with our second grade (when we were seventh graders) and first graders (when we were eighth graders) in the park a block or two from the school.
"Ladies, your dresses for graduation will have to be approved three weeks before graduation. They will be measured to make sure that, at the highest part of the skirt, it is or is less than five inches from your knee, comes down at or less than five inches from the collarbone and back of the neck, the sleeves or straps are or are thicker than two inches, and that the sleeves or straps cover the shoulders."—eighth grade graduation. The boys had to be wearing formal wear (a jacket and button up shirt, a tie wasn't required). We had a process to go through, and were checked at the door of graduation to make sure we wore the same dress that had been approved.
Middle of religion class, the teacher makes all the girls stand up and she goes down the rows of desks and checks that the bottoms we were wearing were dress code. She sent half of the girls to the office. You know why? Three were wearing leggings with a long shirt. According to the teacher, the shirts they were wearing weren't long enough to cover dress code. They were a little less than mid thigh. The rest of the girls who were sent to the office were because their shorts/skirts were too short. They were also roughly mid thigh. The teacher almost sent a good friend of mine to the office for having "too skin tight" of jeans. —sixth, seventh, eighth grade. I was wearing jeans at the time and had to watch as girls I thought weren't wearing anything bad were sent to the office for wearing clothes.
Oh, and just because I'm on the subject: high school, I was a freshman. A girl I sat next to in a class, we weren't exactly friends but we got along well (she was emo/punk as I loved her style). She wore these really ripped jeans, I'm talking ripped lines all the way up to like, mid thigh, but like the height of the rip decreased as they got higher up her leg, and some of it was filled in with fish net. Anyway it looked amazing on her, and a hallway monitor who was passing by dress coded her for too much skin or something. It was ripped jeans for crying out loud. None of the boys in that class had ever hit on her except one dirt bag, and he really only started after he was transferred to the class, a month after this incident. Literally everyone else was completely chill with her style but here this person comes in and dress codes her for "too much skin" that was just her legs.
I could go on but it's getting late and I'm mad as hell. Tomorrow will be a rant about society's pressures on men to be manly (let men wear skirts/dresses/wear makeup 2020!) also, 953 words.
Stay safe kiddos and remember to wear whatever the hell you want to wear because if you want it and like it on you, then that's beautiful.
Love you all <3<3<3<3
~Ink
