“We have a dress code,” he said. “Every school in our district has a dress code. And I believe that it has to be in place. So if a girl really doesn’t want to be in school that day, they’re going to test the limits with how revealing they’re going to come to school. That’s one way that they check out.”
From Marcus’s vantage point, girls may intentionally come to school in clothes that violate the dress code and use it as an excuse not to stay for the day. Yet the girls who spoke with me never turned clothes into an excuse not to go to school. To the contrary, dress codes actively turned them away from school. They repeated several stories of showing up to school only to be turned away for something minor—like a belt missing, or the wrong color shoes—rather than a blatant affront to the dress code. For some of these students, the shoes they wore were the only shoes in their closets, and the absence of a belt was an oversight. And when it was deemed a more serious violation of the code, such as wearing tight-fitting garb or clothing that revealed cleavage, thighs, or other parts of their bodies, girls tended to perceive its implementation as subjective and arbitrary.
For some of the young women in Chicago, for example, dress codes were seen as playing a role in furthering the objectification of Black girls, rather than curbing it. They pointed to how dress codes often reflect society’s biases about Black femininity—and Black feminine bodies, in particular.
“[My school] is a baby version of a [community college] and it’s very, very strict. It’s mostly Black and Latino,” Jeneé said. “It’s just really strict, that’s why I transferred. Three hours of homework each night . . . If you came with black shoes on, but they had a certain label on them, it was just [minor] stuff that they got us in trouble for, and nobody felt like explaining to me why I got in trouble for something. I didn’t see it. We had to wear uniforms . . . there was no creativity. I know schools that have uniforms where people come out of uniform and you could have that freedom, but the days that we had to come out of uniform, there was still that strict rule. And at that school, there were no White people at my school.”
Patrice said, “In my school, we don’t wear a uniform. So, of course, schools are strict on their dress policy. So it be like, when it gets hot outside or warm, girls like to wear their shorts, their dresses or whatever. So, if you know, an African American female comes in with some shorts, they’re too little. But if another race comes in—it could be the same exact shorts—they’re fine. So that’s how like, a lot of African American girls at my school get angry and rebel because they feel like you say to the African American girl, ‘You cannot wear these. These are not school-appropriate.’ But you didn’t tell the other girl that it’s not appropriate. Oh, she can wear it. [Black girls] feel like it’s unfair, so they rebel and wear what they want to wear because it be like at our school, the students feel like, if you tell one student, oh, they can’t wear those shorts, then nobody should be able to wear them. You shouldn’t tell a specific person that, whether [or not] the body shapes are different . . . you should just keep it fair.”
I was feeling energy from all the girls in the group that this was a familiar experience. In fact, in every city that I visited I heard this same story organically emerge from conversations about dress codes (official and unofficial ones) in schools. One Black girl after another felt barred from wearing clothing that other girls could wear without reprimand.
“We don’t have a dress code, period,” Catherine said. “We don’t even have gym uniforms, so you know . . . we get to wear whatever we want. So, my freshman year, I came with this kind of sporty top on for gym since we didn’t have [gym uniforms]. I just went out and bought stuff for gym. The gym teacher was like, ‘Oh, that’s not gym-appropriate’ . . . and then somebody else came in with the exact top I had on. She was just smaller up here,” Catherine said, motioning to her chest. “She just had smaller breasts. So, I was like, ‘What’s the difference? I just had that top on the other day.’ [The teacher] was just like, ‘Leave me alone.’ She got an attitude with me! See, this is why teachers get disrespected a lot. I don’t like when people catch attitude with me because it was only because of my race or my breast size that I couldn’t wear it.”
In California, Deja talked about what happened one day over a pair of shorts she wore to school. “I came to school with shorts on. It was like, when school first started, so it was, like, one of the hottest days ever. And I was going to have a heat stroke, so I put some shorts on. So I walk in the office, and they’re like, ‘You need to go back home and change.’ But this [White] girl walked in the office, and her shorts were shorter than mine, and she was kinda thicker than me so, like, you could see everything, like her butt cheeks were hanging out kinda and everything. And then they gave her a pass to class!
“I was like, ‘You didn’t just see what she had on?’” Deja continued. “And then they was like, ‘Yeah.’ So I was like, ‘Why do I have to get sent home for wearing shorts and she just had shorts on and she way thicker than me?’ And they were like, ‘That’s not the case here. I’m trying to help you out.’ . . . I said, ‘Well you need to be trying to her help her out, too, ’cause my shorts are not even that bad.’ Like, it wasn’t bad at all. It was just some shorts. And then she was like, ‘Anyways, do you think your grandmother will bring you some clothes?’ I [wasn’t] having her come up [to the school] to bring me some pants [when the woman in the office] didn’t just say something to [the White girl]. I was finna go to class, [but] she was like, ‘You can’t go to class like that.’ I was like, ‘I’m going to class.’ And then I went to class. And she had them send me to the office. I was like, ‘If y’all send me home, I’m not coming back because this is unfair.’ . . . I was talking to the principal, and she was like, ‘What’s unfair?’ I was like, ‘This lady, the attendance lady, just seen some girl who was way thicker than me with some shorts on, but she gave her a pass straight to class and then she seen me with some shorts on, she told me I gotta go home.’ And then she looked at the attendance lady [and said], ‘I’m going to give you a pass this one time, but please don’t be letting the boys feel all on you and stuff.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t . . . I’m not going to do that. I like my personal space.’ And then I went to class, but I wouldn’t [have] been able to if I didn’t say nothing, like people just take that stuff. I don’t. I need a reason why I’m getting sent home.”
Wearing short shorts on a hot day almost got Deja sent home. The fear, as suggested by the principal’s comment, was that Deja’s shorts might elicit inappropriate touching and behavior among the boys. Instead of focusing on developing a climate in which boys are taught not to touch girls’ bodies, girls are sent home to change their clothes.
I asked the young women in Chicago to share with me their ideas about why they thought schools might be reacting to them in this way. Not surprisingly, the girls pointed to popular characterizations of Black women’s bodies as part of the problem.
“This is based off of media and how it portrays us as Black young females,” Carla said. “If you see a [Black] girl in a movie even, if you see a girl wearing short shorts, and you see a guy, you automatically know they’re going to hook up. If you see a White girl wearing short shorts, you automatically know she’s going to the beach or something. . . . They have no reason to do it school-wise. You don’t know everybody’s story, everybody’s reason for what they have on.”
In the public imagination, assumptions about the sexuality of Black people make clothing style a socially accepted (though unsound) predictor of behavior.
“I feel like [there’s] a distinction between what Black and other race girls can wear,” Dee said. “Not only because of their body shape, because most of the time, Black girls’ bodies are built . . . like, we’re a little more thicker, if you know what I mean—in all the right places . . . your bottom, your boobs. So, people—like the adults at my school—will say, ‘You’re Black. You can’t wear those because you’re showing much more skin because your body weight and yo
ur body shape is different.’ . . . But they automatically think that other race girls can wear it because it’s not, like, a sexual thing. They’re not wearing the short shorts to try to entice guys. . . . I feel like it’s double standards and I feel like there shouldn’t be a rule on how short your shorts are unless you can see the actual bottom. If you can’t see the actual bottom, who cares how short they are?”
In each city, most of the girls that I spoke with wore clothes that met her own standard of beauty. They wore clothes that they thought were cute and felt unfairly stigmatized by the differential way adults responded to them when they wore trendy clothing styles.
“I think the reason they do that is the boys . . . sometimes the boys could be more attracted to the Black girls, especially when it comes to body shape, and they think it’s going to distract the boys, so they do tell the Black girls to cover up, because that’s who the boys are looking at,” Shamika said. “They are looking at the Black girls. They are looking at the White girls [too], but they’re looking at their faces. They’re not finna really cover up the White girls.”
It’s notable that Shamika felt boys were attracted to White girls’ faces but to Black girls’ bodies. And that she didn’t pause or skip a beat in explaining as much.
“So if they’re not looking at your face, what do you think are they looking at?” I asked.
“They’re looking at your butt or your boobs,” Shamika responded.
“Can you feel that when you’re walking past them?” I asked.
The group came alive with a resounding “Yes,” sprinkled with the comments “Grown men!” and “Every day!” But it was not something that only affected more curvaceous girls.
“Even though I’m a small . . . very flat . . . African American female . . . a petite female,” Charisma said, “I still feel that no matter what a Black girl do, no matter how small she is or how big she is, a man is going to always look at her sexually. No matter what. That’s how I feel.”
Shamika agreed, saying, “It’s like . . . they’re all men. Men are going to be men regardless. White girls are going to be White girls regardless. Black girls are going to be Black girls regardless, okay? It’s just the way that social media is portraying us, it’s just wrong . . . music videos, for instance. I don’t see no White girls in the music videos half naked. You don’t see no skinny White girl half naked dancing on some dude drinking . . . you don’t see none of that. And then you ask yourself, why do they put big Black girls in videos? Everybody want to be thick. . . . Why you just can’t be yourself and be the size that you are? I feel like media is influencing everybody.”
Shamika’s critique of media’s representation of Black girls bodies was impressive. Why do they put big Black girls in videos? Good question. The fixation with Black women’s bodies, which have been increasingly used as ornaments for rappers and petite pop singers alike, has become the latest commercial iteration of objectifying Black women’s bodies. Videos tell a story. They also reflect fantasy, which most often reduces Black femininity to the size of her backside—and how fast or forcefully she can make it gyrate.
We continued to talk about this objectification in the context of schools’ reactions to Black girls’ bodies, especially their feeling that no matter their size or age they were vulnerable to a particular type of sexualization that rendered Black girls as objects of desire, even without their permission. These girls felt that Black girls were constantly sexualized. This is a profound concept that bears repeating: No matter what a Black girl does, no matter her age, and no matter how small or big she is, a man is going to always look at her sexually.
If that doesn’t make you want to holler . . .
This issue is anything but new. One Black mother wrote in an anonymous 1904 autobiography, “Few colored girls reach the age of sixteen without receiving advances from [men]—maybe from a young ‘upstart,’ and often from a man old enough to be their father, a white haired veteran of sin.”20 I asked the group of young women how being perceived in this way affected them, if at all, in school.
“For me,” Dee said, “when people comment on how short something [clothing] is, it makes me feel really bad and I have a short temper, so it’s almost like I want to get up out of my [wheel]chair and do something to them, probably strangle them, because I feel like everything is not sexual! I want to wear these clothes because I want to be me and I want to be comfortable. Every girl that wears short clothes is not promiscuous, as they want to call it. I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I’m not looking to hook up with anyone. Just leave me alone . . . I keep doing me.”
Dee’s confidence, though wrapped in strong language, was admirable. She was clear that other people’s judgmental gaze was not about her. For Shamika, the terms were a bit different.
“I have a big butt,” she said. “And everybody knows it. The whole school knows it. My nickname is ‘Big Booty Mika.’ When somebody sees me, they say, ‘Hey, Big Booty Mika.’ And it’s like, [teachers say], ‘You need to go change, go put on some gym shorts,” . . . I be like, my butt is big. Either way it’s going to show! Right now, I have on jeans. My butt is still big. If I have on booty shorts, my butt is still big. So, at the end of the day, you’re not paying for my clothes. I’m paying for my own clothes, and in the summertime, before I go to school and I pay to buy a whole bunch of booty shorts, best believe that I’m going to school with those whole bunch of booty shorts and I’m going to wear them. Unless you want to go to Forever 21 and buy some shorts for me, then shut up about it.”
Shamika talked a good game. She sounded confident and certain that she was entitled to wear whatever shorts she wanted. But I pressed her a bit to get a more complete sense of how she sees herself.
“Do you like that people call you Big Booty Mika at school?”
“It depends on the person,” she admitted, looking down at the table in front of us. “I’m so serious. If it’s a girl, then it’s like, she’s just being funny . . . but if it’s like an athlete or a whole football team, like [the] captain of the football team being like ‘Big Booty Mika,’ It’s like, ‘No . . . my name is Shamika . . . just move on.’”
“So what makes the difference for you?” I asked.
“The difference is the point of respect,” she said. “The football player probably don’t even like me like that. He just sees a big butt. The other people, like, know me inside, but they just want to play around. Like, the football player, he only sees my butt, he doesn’t see my personality.”
Shamika described a continuous, incessant state of sexual harassment. She was coping, but the adults in her life owe her a safer environment than that—at school and elsewhere.
“Like when I’m walking down Stony Island, literally old men be like . . . trying to hit on me. It’s mostly old men, and they don’t want to say nothing to me when I walk past, but as soon as they turn around and see my butt, they be like, ‘Oh, hold up, shorty. What’s your name? Can you talk to me for a minute?’ Like . . . that’s disrespectful. And then, when I don’t want to talk to them, it be like . . . like two days ago, [a man] was like, ‘Uh, can I talk to you?’ I didn’t feel like talking to him, so I just stayed quiet or whatever. Then, he went ahead and walked past and he was like, ‘Oh, but you got a fat ass though.’ Like, that is so disrespectful. You shouldn’t tell nobody that.”
I wondered aloud if he had known how old she was.
“No, they don’t,” she confirmed. “No, and some of them, I tell my age . . . I be like, ‘[I’m] fifteen!’ And they be like, ‘You lying. You look like you’re at least seventeen or eighteen.’ . . . I’m like, ‘I can show you my [high school] ID right now!’”
Shamika was fifteen years old at the time of our discussion, and she had just described a snapshot from her life under a constant barrage of sexual harassment. Every day, even after she disclosed her age. Every day.
This is the cloud of abuse and harassment under which many girls who look like Shamika live. This is the climate in which
girls are trying to negotiate their safety and discover their identity as students.
“I feel like you can look at somebody’s face and tell, like, if they’re older or they’re younger,” Shai said. “I can look and see, she ain’t nothing but a teenager . . . she’s just tall. People like me, I hit my growth spurt in sixth grade. So, I was in sixth grade looking like I could be eighteen or something . . . it’s like, when I finally got in high school, it got worse.”
“I feel like sometimes they don’t care,” said Charisma. “This guy was twenty-four with kids . . . So then, I was looking at him like, ‘Sir, how old are you?’ He was like twenty-four. I asked him, ‘How old do I look?’ He was like, ‘Nineteen or twenty.’ . . . But in the back of my head, I was like, ‘I do not look that age.’ . . . So then I was like, ‘I’m seventeen.” He was like, ‘We still can’t talk?’ . . . No!”
Whether in the community or at school, age compression (discussed in Chapter 1) is a phenomenon that is often thrust upon Black girls. However, these girls are girls, not fully developed women in younger bodies. They are adolescents, and like most in their age group, they may test boundaries—particularly with respect to clothing—that are established by those with authority or by institutional rules. Yet they have seen that doing this, the normal stuff of teenagers, can make them targets for exclusionary discipline or additional surveillance. Unless they fight back.
Transitions
For Paris in New Orleans, who was transitioning from male to female in high school, the dress code along with the castigation of her identity expression from staff and faculty were a particular nuisance that caused her to question whether her school was a “good fit.”
“Every day that I came into school, I had to stop by the office just for the person in the office to approve what I had on. Now, I’m not going to lie and make it seem like I’m this perfect person, or whatever, ’cause I did push the uniform guidelines.”
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