New Jersey Principal Bans Strapless Dresses – Now Cancels A Dance Due To Threats
A New Jersey principal announced this week that she would be banning girls from wearing strapless dresses to their school dance. Now she’s been forced to cancel a different dance, due to “threatening emails.” Apparently young boys are animals that cannot be controlled – and bare arms send them into a frenzy.
I’m paraphrasing a little – but she did say that strapless gowns were “distracting to boys and inappropriate.” Since girls have been wearing strapless dresses to school dances since the beginning of time, I don’t think “inappropriate” is really the right word to describe them. I do think it’s pretty “inappropriate” to suggest that young men are wild animals that will do all sorts of horrible things if exposed to bare shoulders. And I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to place the onus of a boy’s behavior on what a young woman is wearing. Way to groom these kids to accept the rampant victim-blaming in our society!
As you can imagine, many parents were not happy with this decision – especially since the dance is funded by them. Some students said they would still wear strapless dresses, regardless of the dress code.
The dance in question was scheduled to take place on June 12. Yesterday, another dance that was scheduled to take place at the school had to be cancelled due to a “threatening e-mail” that the principal received. The superintendent confirmed that the email was a result of the dress-code policy, but did not get any more specific. She did say that there was no threat made against school property and she did not believe the threat was credible because it was “generated from overseas.”
I guess news travels fast. People all over the world don’t like it when young boys and girls are groomed to accept rampant victim-blaming. I don’t agree that the principal should be threatened or made to feel unsafe. But I do think it would be wise for her to examine her stance and see where she is wrong. Being able to admit when you are wrong is an important lesson for kids. And admitting that what a woman wears should not affect how she is treated is an especially important lesson.
I’ll be holding my breath to see how the principal handles this one. If it was my daughter that was a student in that school, she would be attending the dance wearing a strapless gown – and I’d be waiting out front to scoop her up if they kicked her out.
(photo: RTimages/ Shutterstock.com)
