BY NOELLE DEVOE from seventeen.com
Last month, a 5-year-old girl’s cute (and perfectly appropriate) sundress was deemed inappropriate for school because her shoulders were bare. The whole ordeal sparked outrage, with people accusing the school of sexualizing a 5-year-old girl’s (we repeat, 5 YEARS OLD) shoulders.
Well, now, another school is under fire for going too far in enforcing their dress code. This time on a 10-year-old named Khenady, whose mother was called to bring her a change of clothes, because her shirt (pictured above) was deemed inappropriate.
When Khenady’s mom, Natasha, received the call, she was floored. “My first reaction was shock, thinking, ‘Did she change her clothes when she went to school because the outfit I saw on her that morning was fine.'”
There doesn’t seem to be anything that could possibly be deemed inappropriate about Khenady’s floral shirt at first glance, but apparently, it’s what happened when Khenady was playing at recess that prompted the school to take action. “When she’s playing skip-rope, her shirt lifts up a little bit cause it’s not a tight-fitting shirt, it’s loose fitting,” Natasha told CTV Atlantic. “And you can see a glimpse of her mid-section.”
Even though Khenady’s mom does believe that schools have a responsibility to make sure their students wear appropriate clothing, she feels that, in this case, the school went too far and in doing so, had a negative impact on Khenady’s self-esteem. “I felt a little embarrassed and I was kind of scared to go home, thinking that my mom would be mad at me,” Khenady said about the unfortunate experience.
It’s hard to see why a girl should be singled out because a sliver of her stomach is revealed while jumping or skipping – something that happens all the time for boys while playing sports. Natasha is speaking out and wants school districts to review both their dress codes and how students and parents are notified about violations, especially at the elementary school level, when girls are so impressionable.
Photo by: CTV AtlanticÊÊÊ