On Yoga Pants and Rape Culture

As someone with "legs for days" (to quote some of my best friends), I always struggled to find shorts that did not violate the school dress code growing up.  I think this may have played into my insistence on wearing jeans year-round...I got used to being told my legs needed to be covered.

In the wake of a rash of yoga pants-bans in high schools, I really got to thinking about school dress codes.*  And in the wake of a subreddit that asked rapists for "their side of the story," I got to thinking about rape culture and victim blaming.**  And thinking about the two together got me...angry.

Let me preface this by saying that there is nothing wrong with telling your son or daughter what they can and cannot wear, especially when they are children.  Determining what is and is not appropriate clothing to wear to school, work, or outside the home is a conversation that parents should absolutely have with their children, and is a decision that should be reached based on a child's age, comfort level, body type, economic status, etc.  There is nothing wrong with this.

There is also nothing inherently wrong with having a dress code in place which defines what is and is not allowed to be worn on school grounds.  Offensive clothing, clothing that violates public decency laws, clothing that is dangerous (I actually totally support flip flop bans) are absolutely a problem in schools.  However, the problem comes in when it comes to how these issues are approached, explained to students, and justified in the code of conduct.

Yoga pants or my shorts do not violate a dress code because they are dangerous.  They are written into the rules because they are "distracting" and you "don't know how they'll affect the boys."  And this is where the problem comes in.  Because a society that starts out by telling a twelve-year-old that she cannot wear a particular kind of sweatpants because the shape of her butt is going to force the boys to stop paying attention doesn't stop there.

It becomes the same culture that tells a girl in Steubenville, Ohio that the fact that she was repeatedly raped by two young men was her fault because she should have known that getting drunk around boys was going to put her in a bad situation.  It builds into a culture where what she's wearing and the fact that she's drinking mean she's a "whore" who was "asking for it" and should have been charged for underage drinking.***

There is nothing wrong with having a discussion with your kids about what is age-appropriate or appropriate for certain settings when it comes to clothing.  But the second you start to contextualize that discussion in the realm of "how will it affect the others," you play into a culture that normalizes sexual assault.  Someone's inability to control their own actions is their fault and their problem, no one else's.

Yours,
Rachel Leigh

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/09/leggings-ban-kenilworth-junior-high-california_n_3046043.html
**http://jezebel.com/5929544/rapists-explain-themselves-on-reddit-and-we-should-listen
***http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/23-people-who-think-the-steubenville-rape-victim-is-to-blame

On Back to School

Going back to school has always been something of a toss-up for me.  On the one hand, the stress levels are definitely not on my list of my favorite things – particularly when I know that I’m going back to a class that I’ve been dreading for years (yes, I’m looking at you, Methods).

But on the other, I find a certain comfort in being back at school – not just in being surrounded by friends and having things to do, although I absolutely miss those things.  And also not just the River City itself, though I am extremely excited to get back to that as well.  But in some ways, I feel comfortable in a classroom in a way that I don’t feel comfortable anywhere else.

It’s one of the few places where I don’t feel like I need to temper myself or work to impress anyone – I can just be open about the things that get me passionate or things that I nerd out about, and not have to worry about being socially awkward.  Outside of the classroom, it takes a very different comfort level for me to act the same way.

On the other hand, back to school means that I have to pack this week, which everyone knows is my least favorite activity.

Good luck to everybody!

Procrastinatorily yours,

Rachel Leigh

On "High School Never Ends"

Has anyone considered what high school reunions are going to be like for our generation?  Like, "Hey, uh, sorry I deleted you on Facebook" or "Yeah, I already knew you took that job in Boston because it showed up on my News Feed" or "I can't look at you the same way since you tweet constantly about your bowel movements."

The whole point of a high school reunion is to catch up with the people you cared about in high school, but thanks to our massively inter-connected world on the internet, there's really no "catching up" to do.  Anyone I still even slightly care about from high school is still my Facebook friend, probably also a connection on LinkedIn (because I am professional when it comes to my talent for doing nothing productive), on my Skype contact list, and potentially someone I follow on Twitter.  And everyone else, I really don't care about enough to want to reunite with them.

There's no room for some "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion" stunt, because everyone already knows who you've become in the last *insert number of* years.



What are you talking about?
Of course I invented post-it notes and married a billionaire!

In all seriousness, though -- I can't even imagine what I would talk to people about at a high school reunion at this point.  Even with my friends, there's this sort of comfortable silence sometimes because we already know what's going on in everyone's lives.  And if that's the case, then what's the point?

Thankfully no longer in high school,
Rachel Leigh

On The Things I Assume About You Based on Where You Study

You know that scene in Mean Girls when Janice and Damien are explaining the layout of the cafeteria to Cady, going around and pointing out all of the stereotypes and social groups?  Of course you do, because it's one of the greatest scenes in a movie that will define our generation.  My school is kind of like that.  And while I could go on for days about the stereotypes about the layout of our dining hall, I have something else to vent about.

With finals right around the corner and the entire population of the school (except the seniors who are so close to graduating that you can physically feel the number of f*cks they do not give) is going to start marking territory around Boatwright like some possessive, tiny-bladdered puppy, it seemed like the right time to do this.  I give you: "Partially-Unfounded Assumptions I Make About You Based on Where You Study"

• Boatwright (the Library): As a general rule, you're checking Facebook more than your textbook and probably using 8:15 and potty breaks as just another excuse to procrastinate.  Then again, so are the rest of us.  But there's more to it than that.
• B2: Aww...the group study area.  Couples that want to be obnoxiously coupley in the not-so-private privacy of the bottom level, a couple awkward study rooms, and the bathroom that people use when they really need to poop and don't want to be around other people.
• B1: Fratstars and the sorority biddies who love them (also known as the B-school in exile).  Also, the socially awkward people who actually WANT to sit and study on the silent floor.  I assume you have no social skills, no friends, and a generally sad future ahead of you.
• First Floor
• Open Area: I get it.  You're here with your sorority fam and you'll get on each other's cases to get work done after you finish catching up on the gossip you couldn't catch up on at chapter, fam dinner, and that time you got lunch like two hours ago.
• Quiet Section: Also known as the "We came here to get shit done" section of the library.
• Second Floor 
• Open Area: Frat guys and loud Internationals.  It's funny that you expected to get work done.
• Quiet Section: No really, who ARE you people?  I'm pretty sure I've never seen you in my life, probably because you never leave this room, and PLEASE stop glaring at me for slamming the bathroom door.  I can't help it that it's so dead silent in here that you could hear a fly land on a table.
• MRC: Don't even pretend you're doing anything other than checking Facebook and watching movies.  I can see your computer screen.
• Gottwald (Science Building): I assume your life is sad, you probably haven't slept in anything other than that chair in the lobby in about a week, and I'm sincerely concerned about the last time you showered.
• The B-School: You couldn't even detach yourself from outside Dean's office door and dress like a college student rather than my 40 year old math professor long enough to leave the B-School to study somewhere else.  You worry me.
• Your Dorm Room: You say "studying," I say "watching Netflix and ordering Jimmy Johns"

So, there you have it.  My in-depth explanations of the extent to which I judge you, based solely on where you could find a place to sit.  See you all in Boatwright, complaining about the temperature as always and sobbing uncontrollably over my Statistics study guide, in a few days.

Finally,
Rachel Leigh  

On Exam Week

It's a Sunday afternoon around 12:30 and you're beginning to wonder where everyone is. Campus is completely deserted except for the occasional resident of the city of Richmond who has wandered over to campus to find a place to walk their dog and, for some reason, pay $8.50 to eat lunch in an overpriced cafeteria. You wander in circles aimlessly, stopping to get some food in said overpriced cafeteria (because meal swipes are cheaper than real money) until it gets to be 1 and you decide to get coffee in the library. It is at that moment, as you close in on a line of 30 people that has somehow formed in the 2 minutes since the coffee shop opened, that you realize where everyone is. The library. And then you remember that it's the day before finals begin and you should probably have spent your weekend doing something more productive that screwing around on tumblr, hopelessly refreshing webcomics, TFMs, and Texts from Last Night, or skypeing. Like maybe studying. Maybe.

...Just finished my last major (non-exam) assignment of the semester, which is due tomorrow at noon! Congratulations to ME!

And, to those of my readers who are:
a) Still reading
b) In college...

Happy Finals Week and Good Luck on Your Exams!