These shorts got her daughter sent home. Mom's letter to the school is straight fire.
'Here are the specifications you have to work with. I wish you loads of luck.'
Sexist school dress codes: They just won't go away.
Girls all over the country are routinely targeted and disciplined for wearing yoga pants, shorts, skirts, and tops deemed "inappropriate," or worse, "distracting."
Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images.
Outrage over these policies swells each school year, and while some school districts have taken action, the overwhelming majority still treat teen boys with kid gloves (they mustn't be tempted!) and punish girls for it.
This year, one mom is taking an interesting approach: She's inviting her daughter's principal to take her shopping.
Really.
Catherine Pearlman wrote on Today that her middle-school-age daughter was sent home two days in a row for dressing "inappropriately."
In an open letter to the school's principal, Pearlman doesn't come off as angry so much as exasperated (with more than a hint of sarcasm).
"To reward you for treating my daughter with such concern, I am cordially inviting you to take my daughter shopping," she wrote.
It might sound simple to old-fashioned (and, frankly, often male) administrators to pick up some clothes that fit the dress code. But oh how wrong they are.
Pearlman explains:
"Here are the specifications you have to work with. I wish you loads of luck.
She is 5’7” and 13 years old. Built more like her father, she has exceptionally long legs and arms.
She doesn’t like anything pink or purple or frilly.
She won’t wear pants because she gets overheated easily. Trust me I’ve seen this. It will cause a scene in the school yard.
She absolutely will not wear a dress either."
Doesn't sound too hard, right? We're not done.
"No item of clothing can have a logo visible because to her that’s not cool. She will however, wear any type of superhero, Green Day or USFL T-shirt if you can find them. You might be able to try for an occasional Beatles reference but that’s touch and go.
Now, don’t forget that you will have to find something in the stores that also meets with your dress code requirements. Here are the tricky areas that are most difficult to avoid. As per your policy she cannot wear tank tops. Shorts and skirts must not extend to the end of the fingertips (This is a toughie.)
So, if I were you (and I’m glad I’m not) I’d focus on the shorts first. She has very long fingers which seems to make finding shorts that won’t get her sent to the principal’s office impossible (On the bright side the piano teacher says those fingers are an asset.). I’d schedule a few afternoons and weekends for this endeavor. I can tell you from experience that just heading to the mall, Target and the outlets won’t cut it. Not much for her there. I’ve already checked.
One last point: please try to stay within a reasonable budget. We can’t spend a fortune on her wardrobe. She is still growing after all."
The letter struck a chord with parents of teen and preteen girls everywhere, quickly going viral.
"We got a lot of letters from moms of very tall girls saying, 'Thank you so much,'" Pearlman says in a phone interview. "This is a true, difficult problem."
No word on whether the principal will take Pearlman up on her offer — she says she didn't send the letter to the school but expects they'll hear about it eventually. She also says she's talked to them about the dress code in the past. But kudos to Pearlman for bringing some more attention to an important issue.
Let's stop making young girls and their parents jump through extraordinary hoops to find "appropriate" clothes, and instead focus on creating learning environments where everyone can dress comfortably and do what they're there to do: learn.
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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.