The Mini-Skirt Protest
It’s bitterly cold here in Minneapolis. This week, the temperature has dropped to -17 degrees, not counting the wind-chill. Going outside is out of the question; you’d freeze to death.
These frigid conditions brought back memories of my senior year in high school—the first time I felt the need to protest an injustice.
It was January, and the temperature was plummeting. On my walk to the bus stop that morning, I bundled up as much as I could. Fuzzy hat, scarf wrapped around my face, big mittens, and warm boots.
There was just one problem: I was wearing a miniskirt, and my legs were freezing. To stay warm until the bus arrived, I squatted down and wrapped my warm winter coat around them. It felt like it took forever.
So why was I wearing a miniskirt? At that time, wearing skirts that were 6-8 inches above the knee was trendy.
But the bigger reason was this. When I grew up, girls were required to wear dresses or skirts to school. Across the country, it was viewed as proper attire for young women.
As I huddled down in the snowbanks, I decided I’d had enough. It was time to protest this clearly outdated dress code, which was insane for Minnesota winters.
I spoke with a few friends about my idea, and they agreed it was time to take action. In the days that followed, we secretly organized the senior girls for a major protest. On the upcoming Monday, we’d all come to school wearing PANTS. (Yes, it was the sign of a true rebel!)
I could hardly wait to get to school that morning and walk down the halls in my nice slacks surrounded by the other senior girls dressed the same way.
Imagine my surprise when only three of us showed in pants.
Within a short time, I was called into the Vice Principal’s office. He told me how disappointed he was that a Student Council officer would break the rules like that.
My punishment? Three days of after-school suspension. I had to sit in a room with the other “bad kids” and do my homework for an hour.
It was worth it. The following year, the dress code was changed. Girls could finally wear pants to school.
More importantly to me, it was about speaking out. When things aren’t right, we have to do something. Hope isn’t enough, but it does act as the driving force behind our actions.
Why? Because so much more is possible.
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6 天前Couldn't agree more. Not doing good can be just as bad as doing harm. Let's keep pushing for positive change.
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1 周Standing up for what's right, even when you're outnumbered, can spark real change!
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1 周I remember those days, Jill - I caught pneumonia the year before they repealed dress code at my school!
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1 周Great story. Reminds me of this note I just reviewed, in this case about song writing vs telling your story like this. "Song is an infinitely flexible form, and there are ways of challenging the status quo in song without telling people what to think and what to do. "Songs don't have to divide audiences into believers and non-believers. Songs are at their most interesting and are most likely to reach 'nonpolitical audiences if they have at their heart not issues, messages, or abstractions but people, if they tell stories rather than transmit slogans, if they find the political in the personal (and the other way around), if they communicate through words rather than sounds, if they ask questions rather than give answers, if they grant audiences space to make up their own minds, if they allow room for humour, humanity, wit, subtlety, and imagination. "Because most people don't live their lives on the barricades and, as Jesse Lemisch asks, 'If the left aims only at the didactic, who will chart the human soul?'" From Leon Rosselson's book Where Are the Elephants?
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1 周Fellow maverick! Wore pants because my legs were raw from cold. Detention. Group of parents and students protested to principal. Next week, new dress code allowing girls to wear slacks. Vive la restitance!