Erykah Badu Thinks Girls Would Be Better Protected if They Just Wore Longer Skirts
Erykah Badu being Erykah Badu. (Photo: Getty)
Henderson High School in West Auckland, New Zealand, is making headlines over (what else?) their dress code, which some people are saying unfairly targets girls. At a uniform inspection at a school assembly, a group of girls were told they needed to make sure that the hemline of their skirts fell below the knees. Sounds like a standard, innocuous dress code requirement, right? It wasn’t until Year 11 student Sade Tuttle heard why she needed to adjust the hem length that things got real. According to Tuttle, the deputy principal said the rule was in place to "keep our girls safe, stop boys from getting ideas, and create a good work environment for male staff.“
Yup. Because nothing says safety like making young women dress a certain way, instead of training boys and fully grown men to stop sexualizing them. "The rules themselves aren’t the problem; the problem is when these codes target girls specifically, because their bodies are sexual and distracting,” Sade told News Hub. But there is at least one person who doesn’t necessarily agree with Sade, and that’s Erykah Badu, who took to Twitter to add her two cents to the issue.
There was an article ruling that high school girls lower their skirts so male teachers are not distracted. I agreed because…
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
…I am aware that we live in a sex l-driven society. It is everyone’s, male and female’s, responsibility to protect young ladies…
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
…one way to protect youth is to remind them we are all sexual in nature and as they grow and develop it is natural to attract men…
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
…it is not them who is doing anything wrong by being beautiful and attractive but with such imbalance in our society it is smart to be…
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
… aware and awake. Men and women both go thru cycles of arousal. Men automatically are attracted to women of child bearing age….
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
…I want my daughters to understand this. I want them to be themselves and wear what they like, yet be aware. Not ignore our differences…
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
Males should be taught to be responsible for their actions from childhood. It’s not ok to “prey” on young women…
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
…But do I think it is unnatural for a heterosexual male 2b attracted to a young woman in a revealing skirt? No. I think it is his nature..
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
..Consequently, we must all be aware and responsible.
We must protect our young women. We must teach our young men…— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
…if I had a school I would make sure that the uniform skirt length was a nice knee length… It is fair to everyone…
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
…young women you are beautiful. Young men you are beautiful. Protect one another.
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella)
Oh, Erykah. Creepers gonna creep for sure, and as she said, they need to be held accountable. However, to act as if a longer hemline is going to keep boys from checking out girls, or keep lecherous teachers from being, well, gross, is short-sighted. Women are targeted no matter what they’re wearing, and to act as if so-called revealing clothes are the root of these issues is just inaccurate. Just ask Christen Brandt, who had the pleasure of being harassed by a random creep in New York City for wearing… a big green parka, thick scarf, knee-high boots, and tights that were mostly covered by the coat itself. If a parka can elicit unwanted attention, what makes her think longer skirts are going to keep male students and teachers from being pervy?
Furthermore, it’s crazy that we keep speaking as if young boys and men are the only people who have desires, and teenage girls aren’t also checking out their pubescent classmates or daydreaming about a hot teacher. But we don’t tell boys not to wear their pants too tight or to wear long-sleeved shirts to cover their biceps to not distract girls. Though Badu mentions that we must hold men accountable, the point is that the burden should not be on girls and women to control the feelings of men and boys, period. As one commenter on Twitter pointed out, “what about the girls who cover up & R harassed becuz of male entitlement? The problem is not how we dress, it’s the male gaze.”
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