The View panel may be years removed from strict school dress codes, but that didn’t stop them from offering up their opinions this morning and sharing some horror stories of their own. While discussing an Arizona dad who wore a crop top to a board meeting in protest of a school dress code, the panel weighed in on the ethics of telling kids — and girls, specifically — what they can and cannot wear.
After seeing a video of the dad’s speech, in which he donned a tight black top that exposed most of his abdomen, Joy Behar joked that he was looking for an excuse to break out the outfit.
“He’s been dying to wear that outfit,” Behar quipped. “That was just an excuse to get into that little tutu.”
But Sunny Hostin got more serious, pointing to the sexism inherent in dress codes. She told the panel that her children often had dress codes just for girls at their schools, adding, “Just because a girl is wearing a crop top and shorts, doesn’t mean she’s dressing sexually. It means that we are sexualizing her.
“I just detest that notion,” she continued, mentioning her own 17-year-old daughter, who “is not trying to be sexual” when she wears a crop top.
Sara Haines then noted that dress codes often apply when students are going through changes in their bodies, which she said doesn’t “help” anyone.
“I don’t think it helps when they pick at the fact that girls’ bodies are changing and we already struggle with that when you go through puberty,” Haines told the panel, adding, “Girls need to be taught, these are their bodies. There’s parts and they work and they’re supposed to be there for certain reasons, and to stop assigning the guilt and the shame to girls.”
Behar then made a self-deprecating joke about how “old” she is, recalling that “up to high school,” she and her peers “could not wear pants” and had to wear skirts instead. And she wasn’t the only one — Hostin shared a similar experience of having to wear a skirt when she first began practicing law.
“You couldn’t wear pants in a D.C. federal courtroom,” she recalled, later noting, “It’s different for boys and men, and I think therein lies the problem.”
The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.