Tube tops are popular among young girls and women all around the world. Many girls on campus wear tube tops, usually during hot weather, so this piece of clothing shouldn’t be too controversial on school campuses, right?

Despite the overall harmless nature of a top without straps, tube tops on campus are being heavily cracked down on by the administration and discipline. Security guards on campus have become almost notorious for how they enforce the dress code that’s been deemed harsh by girls on campus. Girls on campus often feel like they’re being targeted based on their gender, or in some cases, both their gender and race. 

I’ve taken it upon myself to interview girls on campus who have been dress-coded for wearing tube tops, girls who don’t wear them personally, and the security guards who enforce these rules. As you may assume, all the answers I’ve gotten from both groups differ greatly. 

My responses from girls who have been dress-coded remained the same: they all felt like these rules served no purpose. A common consensus is that they think that security guards are targeting them for unjust reasons. Many of them believe the school dress code should be overruled and done over.

“I see boys on campus wearing a lot of offensive stuff on their shirts,” one girl who chose to remain anonymous said. “It’s just like, if guys on campus can wear their pants so low that we can see their underwear, but we can’t wear something strapless? It feels like a double standard.” 

This statement has been observed by me multiple times on campus. Boys who wear shirts promoting drug use and nudity are completely overlooked by the school. I’ve gotten a report that a boy was walking to class shirtless and didn’t get dress-coded for the rest of the day. 

It gets to a point where, if boys can get away with essentially anything on campus, why are girls specifically being dress-coded?

Girls on campus also believe that these restrictions don’t have a point. “Girls will wear them anyway; they can just wear a jacket over their tube tops and then take it off when they come to class,” Quoted from an anonymous female student on the subject of tube tops.

Many on campus don’t think this is just an issue of misogyny. For girls of color, they believe that it’s an issue of both misogyny and racism. Black and brown girls have said they have been dress-coded far more often than white girls who wear tube tops. 

“It does feel like I’m being targeted at times, like, oh, but if I were a white girl, I wouldn’t be getting dress-coded as often,” a girl who chose to stay anonymous said.

This sentiment is connected to how society feels about women, and black and brown women especially. With women, we’re blamed for almost everything under the sun. As long as a man does something to have violated us, women are always suspected of having “deserved it”. 

With the added axis of race, black and brown women and girls have been hypersexualized by the gaze of patriarchy. This notion can be traced back to the experiences of black female slaves who were often raped and forced to give birth to children to create more slaves, which, in turn, enforces the myth that black women are more “seductive” than white women.  

Security guards on campus take a well-intentional, but poorly executed, way of addressing this issue that can come across as dismissive of the problem at hand. Many officers state that this is an issue of boys on campus. 

“From my point of view, it’s a safety issue for girls; a guy can try pulling the top down.”

While the quote is sympathetic, it can make girls on campus feel like they’re to blame for any action a man or boy does to them. The idea of women and girls being at fault for being violated is unfortunately common in society. 

Instead of looking for reasons as to why a boy would do that, we should be punishing the boys who harass girls on campus and holding them accountable. Tube tops are not to blame for campus harassment. 

The school dress code is rooted in misogynistic ideas about girls and their bodies. Instead of punishing girls for wearing something and blaming them for what happens to them, we should be holding the perpetrators accountable.