As far as we've come, some parts of society still struggle with basic concepts that involve women. Some people believe that it is up to women to be responsible for the thoughts and feelings that are directed towards them from others. This mentality is presented in many forms, and is commonly found in school guidelines; clothes for girls are often banned or monitored to avoid "distraction."
Enter 17-year-old Clare Ettinger, a homeschooled student in Virginia who recently attended a prom with her boyfriend. While the night started well, it ended with Clare, her boyfriend and the rest of her group being kicked out by security.
The reason? Ettinger was told that many of the dads at the prom were uncomfortable with her clothing and saying that her dancing was too provocative. "[The prom organizer] took me into a corner in the hallway, with another woman ... and told me that some of the dads who were chaperoning had complained that my dancing was too provocative, and that I was going to cause the young men at the prom to think impure thoughts," she wrote in a guest post on her sister's blog.
Despite multiple demonstrations that her dress fit the prom's dress code – girls were told that their dresses needed to be at least at fingertip length – she was told that she needed to leave. When her friends stepped in to defend her, they were told to leave as well, and security was called to escort them from the premises.
Ettinger wrote that she had not been dancing provocatively at all, and that many other girls were wearing dresses that clearly violated the dress code, but that they were not singled out. So far, she is the only one to have received a refund.
While there are many problems with this scenario, the fact that she was kicked out because of what other men were thinking highlights a bigger problem that women have faced for a long time. The fault isn't on the much older men for thinking about her that way; it is apparently her fault for making them think that way.
Evidently a bunch of older men watching girls dance and passing judgment on which ones got to stay based on how sexually attracted they were to them was not at all unnerving to the prom organizers. In fact, their opinions were welcomed and chosen over the evidence and the rules of the prom itself. This is not a matter of a student breaking rules and being upset for getting caught; it's a matter of a girl being removed from an event she paid for because other people couldn't control their urges.
As shown repeatedly through just recent history, it is often mandated that women be responsible for how men think. Women must be modest so that men do not think "impure thoughts" or do anything to said women as a result.
One example is a school in California that held an assembly where girls were told that tight pants were being banned "because [they] distract the boys." Not only is this blatantly stating that the boys' distraction is the girls' fault, male students were not required to attend the assembly and were given no similar rules.
This attitude doesn't vanish after school's out; there have been many instances where a woman's employment can be put into jeopardy by being overweight, by putting a man's marriage in jeopardy, leading men on or even being Photoshopped without their consent.
The attitude that women need to cover up and be modest because of men is insulting and degrading in its own right, but it goes even further. Implying that men have so little control over their own thoughts and actions that women need to take responsibility for them makes this mindset a problem for everyone. Men who tell women to cover up because of their "impure thoughts" are openly admitting that they have so little self-control that they require everyone else to dress in ways that compensate for their own shortcomings.
It is not the duty of women to take men's thoughts into account when deciding what to wear. The fact that people are responsible for their own thoughts seems to come as a shock, but it's true. Women should not be denigrated for something they have no control over. That is especially so in this case, where the girl in question was already following the dress code and not doing anything inappropriate, but was kicked out anyway.
Since then, the prom's Facebook page has been deleted after an influx of angry comments and protests.
While the events at prom came as a shock to Ettinger, she remains confident that she is not at fault, and wants to take this as an opportunity to raise awareness of a harmful mentality that affects women all over the world.
"I’m not responsible for some perverted 45 year old (sic) dad lusting after me because I have a sparkly dress on and a big ass for a teenager. And if you think I am, then maybe you’re part of the problem," she wrote.
Daniel Koeker is based in Riverside, California, United States of America