High School Girl Is Told Tight Pants Will Distract Her Male Teachers (Yep, You Read That Right)

School should be a safe place for students, but increasingly harsh dress codes are making young female students feel even more self-conscious about their bodies. While girls sent home for "revealing" outfits are often given the standard sexist rationale (their irresistibly exposed shoulders will work their male classmates into a hormonal frenzy, because boys, amirite?), one U.K. school has an extra-creepy reason for coming down hard on dress code violators. Harriet Dale, a 15-year-old pupil at Stoke-on Trent's Trentham High School, was sent home for wearing a pair of "too-tight trousers." However, Yahoo U.K. reports the school's headmistress, Dr. Rowena Blencowe, didn't blame it on over-hormonal teen males — instead, she argued that the fitted pants would distract male teachers. Yes. Grown-ass, adult, educated, male teachers. Dale was one of ten students singled out for pants deemed too tight on the first day back at school, and she said that the experience made her feel awkward about her body type. She explained, "It’s really uncomfortable to think you could be walking around the corridors and teachers will be looking you up and down. I’m not the only person who feels that way. I know I’ve got slightly bigger legs than some people — it doesn’t need pointing out.” It's sad to think that school administrators are adding to the pressures young girls already feel to look a certain way. Girl's bodies should never be policed for "distracting" boys (or in this creepy case, men). The school had already banned skirts after Headmistress Blencowe assessed girls were wearing ones that were too short. Dress codes are often put in place to limit distractions, but if students are constantly stressing over whether their outfit will be deemed inappropriate on the spot because of their gender (or the size of their body parts), the standards themselves could become the bigger, more concerning distraction that school officials need to worry about.