Please recognize the sarcasm.

In the past few years, more and more young female students have used social media sites as platforms to call out the injustices of school dress codes. Photos of girls in leggings and bare shoulders and accompanying stories of being scolded or forced to borrow T-shirts to cover up are commonplace.

But I get it. I didn't think I ever would except I had the pleasure of teaching a nice, young boy -- probably no older than ten or eleven. His English lesson with me was soon enough after school that he didn't have time to go home and change out of his school uniform. --And goodness gracious! He was showing so much skin! His navy blue shorts were almost shorter than his jacket was long! If I was just looking out of the corner of my eye, I would have thought he wasn't wearing any pants at all. There was just so much leg!

So yes, now I get it. Dress codes do have a purpose! Exposing so much skin is distracting. Not to mention, when it's on a pair of sexy, prepubescent legs at that. His legs were so starkly pale, I couldn't not look at them even if I tried. We need to cover up those legs and hide that pallor until after marriage!

***

Joking aside, the double standard is just appalling. At this same workplace, I have been dresscoded myself for wearing a skirt that was "too short". I would say even my everyday wardrobe is relatively conservative, but for this workplace I had made an effort to make sure my skirts could at least reach my fingertips on my thighs when standing because that was another arbitrary rule I remember being subject to in grade school. Still, I was warned to be even more conservative in my dress because "you know how little boys are." Unfortunately, I do, but for sanity's sake, someone please explain to me what policing my attire has to do with how they grow up.