As moms, we don't ever want our kids to get in trouble, especially when they're at school. But sometimes, there's a valid reason. Not all rules are fair, and in those instances, it's our job to have our kids' backs. One mom on TikTok had to do just that after getting a call from her daughter's high school at the end of the school year, when the weather was getting warm.
One day, Stasia, aka @teachingadhdllamas on TikTok, got a call from her daughter's school administration informing her that her daughter had been cited for breaking the school dress code, and was actively protesting. After hearing the whole story, Stasia wasn't mad at her daughter for fighting school rules. In fact, it was the exact opposite. Stasia was proud of her daughter and encouraged her to stand her ground.
Stasia posted on TikTok after she got the call from her daughter's school.
Stasia, who is a teacher herself, recorded a video from her car after getting a call from her daughter's school informing her that her daughter had been dress coded, and in response said, "[expletive] your dress code," to the teacher involved, and then walked away.
The video is set to the song, "Mama Said," by Lukas Graham, in which one of the lines is, "Mama said that it was okay, Mama said that it was quite alright."
Stasia agrees with her daughter.
Stasia mouths the words to the song and gives the middle finger, clearly agreeing with her daughter on the subject. "When another school's administrator calls me while I'm teaching," reads the text Stasia paired with the video. "To tell me my daughter said 'f— your dress code,' and walked out," she continued.
"Shoulders, midriffs and legs aren’t the problem. Talk to the boys/men who claim it’s distracting," Stasia wrote.
Most of her followers agreed, too.
Stasia's original video now has over 133,000 views and more than 21,000 likes. Among the over 300 comments it's received since she posted it, the vast majority of people agree with Stasia: Girls shouldn't be subjected to biased and unfair dress codes because boys aren't being taught to respect women.
"I can understand midriffs now being allowed," commented one TikTok user. "But goodness gracious, the legs and shoulders rules make me so angry."
Another wrote: "Our girls will be an amazing generation! I’m so proud of your daughter and all the women who are questioning the ‘rules’ ."
But of course, there were also dissenting opinions.
It's the internet, so of course, there were also quite a few commenters, who disagreed with Stasia's point of view, and chose to point out that dress codes aren't a new thing. Notably, a lot of those commenters are men.
"Dress codes in schools are more lenient than any workplace," wrote one TikTok user. "It’s not that hard to follow them."
"I don’t get complaining about dress codes," commented another. "Most jobs I’ve had have dress codes. Lots of places have dress codes. My school had dress codes."
It didn't end there.
The next day, Stasia took to TikTok with a follow-up. With her full support, her daughter, decided to stage a full dress code protest. She recruited some friends to participate in a "white tank top wearing day." Stasia explained that her daughter and her friends would be wearing white tank tops with messages written on them to school.
She went on to describe that her 19-year-old son helped her daughter make hers and that it said, "Do my shoulders distract you, because, you're reading the front of my shirt?"
This isn't uncharacteristic for her kids.
"That'll do it. That will do it," Stasia said approvingly. "But they knew this was coming," Stasia went on. "My children have stood up against racist teachers. My children have stood up when other children were deadnamed by ignorant teachers. My daughter refused to take straight sex education, as a non-straight student, and she didn't have to … she took it with the boys, which was still [expletive] stupid," she explained.
Stasia also pointed out the double standard of many school dress codes.
In yet another video posted the same day, Stasia responded to one commenter who asked whether the boys at the school were subjected to the same dress code. "I am so glad you said that, because actually, boys did wear crop tops yesterday. None of them got sent home," she exclaimed.
She then went on to explain that her daughter was dress coded within the first 10 minutes of school on the day of the white tank top protest, and that someone — a boy —followed her to challenge the administration as well.
"A boy asked why he was not being dress coded for his crop top today. They told him to go back to class, so what he did is he went back to class and he kept cutting his shirt until they dress coded him," she explained. She also said the school gave out extra-large "shame shirts," and then dress coded them all again because they couldn't see their shorts. Pretty wild.
Stasia has gone on to use her platform to speak out about dress codes, sexual assault, and crimes against women.
In the past several weeks, Stasia has continued to use her TikTok platform to speak out against the hypocrisy of dress codes, as well as sexual assault statistics in the US compared to other countries.
The bottom line? Stasia — and so many other women — think it's high time we stop blaming women for long-standing mysoginstic ideals and practices that men should be held accountable for changing.
