Teen Asks Fellow Female Students to Bare Midriffs for Feminism

Halket in front of her school. Photo: Getty

Most students who get sent to the principal’s office for violating their school’s dress code return to class wearing a giant t-shirt, their head hanging a little lower… and that’s pretty much where it ends.

But not 18-year-old Alexi Halket. After being spoken to at school on Monday for wearing a crop top that, as a male teacher said, looked “too much like a sports bra,” the Toronto teen decided to take action. She posted about the incident on Facebook, and encouraged girls at her school and beyond to take part in “Crop Top Day” (or, for you millennials, #CropTopDay) Tuesday by wearing bralettes, sports bras, short crop tops, or bandeaus emblazoned with the phrase, “I stand in solidarity.”

“What’s wrong with a sports bra?” wrote Halket, an apparent fan of the shrunken shirt style favored by Miley Cyrus and Kylie Jenner. “It does it’s [sic] job of covering boobs, and why is SKIN perceived as “inappropriate”. That only means that it’s seen as sexual or provocative, and teachers shouldn’t be making those observations about students.”

She also wanted girls to ditch full-length shirts because… it’s her birthday week! “Stand in solidarity against the sexualization of women’s bodies on my birthday. It would be the best birthday present ever,” she declared.

Halket later told the Toronto Star, “We are just trying to love our bodies and appreciate them for what they are, even with a dress code. Why would you send a female home because guys can’t control themselves when they see a girl’s outfit?”

Halket stands among her supporters. Photo: Getty Images

Regardless of whether you agree with Halket’s plight, it’s impossible to ignore the impact and press she’s received. Since posting her manifesto on Monday, she’s been interviewed by several news sources in Canada, and had stories written up on Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and MTV. World traveled fast: On social media, teens in both Canada and the U.S. shared photos of themselves wearing tiny tops on their way to school Tuesday.

Halket’s decree is just the latest in a string of protests against “sexist” dress codes. Students on Staten Island, NY rebelled against their school’s so-called “Dress for Success” policy in September, and this past week, the mother of a sixth grader in Indianapolis spoke out after her child’s school called for all young girls to wear t-shirts over their swimsuits at a pool party. (I’d also like to add that, back in the ‘60s, my mother and her girlfriends organized to break their school’s rules by wearing pants to school. How times have changed…) So, bold as it seems, Crop Top Day is hardly the first of its kind.

But feedback on #CropTopDay has been mixed. While some online commenters support Halket & co’s dedication to their agenda (including Halket’s principal, Rob MacKinnon, who said he was “proud of the students” for organizing the rally) many seem to think they’ve gone too far. Wrote one such detractor, “You ladies need to pick an choose your battles. Having your boobs hanging out and you belly showing is not a human rights problem.”

Said another, “Plenty of real issues going on in the world and you decide to band together and use your reach and influence so you can wear a crop top to school? […] Stand up for woman’s [sic] rights in a way that it does not make women seem like a joke!”

And at least one girl who went along with Crop Top Day actually got sent home from school for the clothes she was—or wasn’t—wearing. That’s gotta hurt.

As far as Halket’s own school was concerned, no midriff-baring participants were reprimanded, with MacKinnon amusingly telling The Star that the dress code at Etobicoke School of the Arts has been a “non-issue” over the past few years. However, #CropTopDay did inspire a convo in the cafeteria about what he considers to be a very lenient clothing policy.

So: Is Crop Top Day a worthwhile cause to further women’s rights, or should teens be focusing their energy elsewhere? We want to know what you think; tell us in the comments.

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