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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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.