100 Boys Wear Skirts to Protest Their High School's Dress Code Double Standards
They’re also taking aim at toxic masculinity.
We need more boys standing up against the unfair treatment of girls.
More than 100 boys at a Canadian high school donned plaid skirts to protest toxic masculinity and dress code double standards, as part of a movement that’s sweeping schools in Montreal.
The protest was launched when Zachary Paulin, a 16-year-old student at Collège Nouvelles Frontières in Gatineau, Quebec, told a group of about 30 friends he planned to wear a skirt to school. He was “pleasantly surprised” when 100 boys showed up to school in skirts, CBC reports.
"I knew that it was going to be a big movement, but not that big of a movement," he said.
Participating boys are protesting their schools’ policies that require skirts to be a maximum of 10 centimeters above the knee for girls, while there are no equivalent restrictions on clothing worn by boys, such as shorts.
"By wearing the skirt, we stand in solidarity with the women in society who are constantly being sexualized and told to hide the body,” Zachary wrote in French on Instagram.
In an English translation, he noted that men often point to women’s clothing as a “reason” for bad behavior. “As for aggressors, they’ll excuse their actions by sexualizing women unnecessarily and blaming THEM for THEIR actions,” he writes.
He’s absolutely right: School administrators often insist on dress codes that target teen girls because the glimpse of a shoulder or a knee is deemed too “distracting” for teen boys. This reasoning, of course, removes all pressure on boys to behave appropriately, and makes girls solely responsible for boys’ actions. It’s the same logic that perpetuates sexual violence and harrassment, by putting the onus on victims rather than perpetrators. (Think: “What was she wearing?” or “Why was she walking alone late at night?”)
Not to mention, these policies tend to disproportionately impact plus-size teens and students of color.
Punitive dress codes are a relic from another era—which is why girls have stepped up their protests against these policies in recent years. In 2017, a 17-year-old in Florida organized a "bracott" after being asked to cover her nipples with Band-Aids because they were "distracting" her classmates. A 10-year-old girl in Atlanta petitioned to change her school’s policy after she was pulled out of class for wearing leggings, which were again deemed a “distraction.”
But lately even boys have stepped up to speak out against discriminatory dress codes—which gives us a lot of hope. It’s going to take boys and girls, men and women, working together to dismantle the structural sexism that holds women back.
The boys in Canada are also taking aim at toxic masculinity. In the comments of his post, he explained why they’re protesting more than just sexist dress codes. “If a woman decides to wear a suit or pants, clothes associated with masculinity, it’s not a big deal. But the moment a man will do anything remotely feminine, whether it is to put nail polish, makeup or in our case, a skirt, fingers are pointed and he gets insulted. People will say that he’s not a real man, and they will automatically assume his sexuality,” Zachary wrote.
“We’re in 2020, we should be open-minded: and all fight to end discrimination, homophobia and sexism. That’s what our skirts represent. Thank you.”
