Maya Jakubowski

Senior Maya Jakubowski was dress-coded by her drama teacher during her sophomore year. According to Jakubowski, when she was headed to the stage to perform an act in front of her class, her teacher told her to “pull her skirt down.” This made her feel more nervous than she already was, Jakubowski said. Jakubowski responded to questions regarding the dress expectations at the high school below.

Q: What does it feel like to be dress-coded?

A: If you are dress-coded it really throws you off for the rest of the day because afterwards you’re wondering about how other people are perceiving you. I think people are always thinking about how other people perceive them but when someone points it out in a way that’s like, ‘the thing you are doing or wearing is wrong,’ then you can’t really focus on your academic stuff. During the week I would have to think, ‘Even though I wanna wear this on this day I can’t wear it because I have this class.’ That’s such an extra mental space that’s being used up when it could be used for something else.

Q: Who does dress-coding affect?

A: This really only happens to female-bodied people. Even when people dress-code boys, they are not dress-coded in a systematic way and they are not gonna feel the same way emotionally afterwards. Sexism affects all genders but it systematically and institutionally oppresses female-bodied people. I don’t want to negate or diminish struggles or body image issues that men have, but I think that in society and in our school culture girls have to abide to certain moral terms and social terms. But girls think, ‘I have to look this way to be cool or attractive to guys, because that’s the ultimate thing.’