School digitally edits yearbook photos - young women's clothing choices judged

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Utah Fox coverage

WASATCH COUNTY, Utah — Female students at a Utah high school want to know why their yearbook photos were altered to show less skin without them knowing about it.

The students who were surprised to find their photos altered attend Wasatch High School, and some of them said they also feel upset because it appears the decisions whether to alter the photos or not weren’t made consistently.

“I feel like they put names in a hat and pick and choose who,” Sophomore Rachel Russel said. “There were plenty of girls that were wearing thicker tank tops and half of them got edited and half of them didn’t.”

And that’s what bothered the girls the most. It seemed like the school randomly picked which pictures to edit. In one case, two different girls were wearing nearly identical tops: one photo was altered to add sleeves and the other was not. At least two dozen girls had their photos altered. The students who spoke with FOX 13 News were not aware of any male students who had their photos altered.

But educators said the students know the dress code and there was a sign warning them that their pictures may be edited. However, the Wasatch County Superintendent admits the school erred in not applying the same rules to each student.

“We only apologize in the sense that we want to be more consistent with what we`re trying to do in that sense we can help kids better prepare for their future by knowing how to dress appropriately for things,” said Terry E. Shoemaker, who is the superintendent of schools for the Wasatch County School District.

It doesn't look like anyone's posting information on the dress code for this school, so no word on whether or not the edited outfits in question do or do not fail to meet its requirements. However, that both a) similar outfits didn't net alteration equally and b) the students were not approached about their clothing selection or anything and only made aware of someone on the faculty's/yearbook staff/whatever disapproval at publication suggests that this "excuse" is irrelevant. Also while I admit that I'm not familiar with how strict non-uniform dress codes might be in high schools, I can't help but feel like none of the clothing options shown are at all out-of-bounds?


Pair that element of this with the fact that it appears zero male students were affected, and I can't help but see this as some kind of shaming directed at the young women affected. This is basically the folks in charge at this school pointing fingers at a handful of young women and calling them indecent, maybe even implying more. It makes me wonder if there have been incidents with any of them before where the faculty or administration and the students got into altercations over dress.


Also lol @ the fake apology "we're helping them dress for success" nonsense.

[Tev]

I read about that yesterday. I saw some of the edits as well. Overall I think it was pretty dumb and the school seems to have had a rather inconsistent touch-up policy.

[Aerozord]

I think if they had an issue they shouldn't have accepted the pictures at all. Getting a year book after the fact to find this would be rather upsetting. Now I'm of the mind anyone should be able to wear anything. But if you are enforcing a dress code for pictures clearly identify what that dress code is. If they violate your sensibilities its YOUR fault for not making it clear.

Want to talk about "the real world" well at a job if an employer fired one of these people for what they were wearing with no warning or ever telling them they couldn't wear it guess what. The employer would be the one at fault, and probably get sued for it

[Kim]

Dress codes in schools are often much more restrictive regarding women to begin with.

This is a disappointing step further to take this.

[Solid Snake]

Personally, I wonder how much of this really a reflection about how men like to wield their power to blame women for daring to be attractive in a way that [for arguably artificial reasons] is found socially repugnant.

Like, there's no magic switch that turns 'on' once everyone turns 18. It shouldn't be surprising that [heterosexual] men of all ages could find 'underage' girls attractive, at least so long as they've undergone puberty it's basically how we were designed by evolution. But society tells us that's wrong and evil and awful. So instead of taking any kind of personal responsibility for one's own libido, men say "No, it's her fault because she's wearing that outfit!"

It'd really just be much more healthy if we let everyone wear what they like, but told men:
A: There's nothing inherently wrong or 'evil' in being sexually attracted to anyone, but;
B: Women are people, too, so you treat them like people even if you are attracted to them. You don't treat them as sexual objects to crave or to own, but you also don't treat them as 'evil' or 'corrupting' sexual objects that you have to protect yourself from.
C: A lot of that also touches upon the crucial difference between attraction and lust, namely that it's okay to be attracted to just about anyone, but if you start to dwell on those feelings and those feelings become malignant or controlling or pervasive, you may be lusting after someone in a way that can be unhealthy or 'wrong.'
Like, in the context of a high school teacher...if he runs into a student and is physically attracted to her, that isn't the problem...the problem is if he's still dwelling on those thoughts of attraction long after they've passed each other in the hallway, or if he decides it'd be appropriate to act on any of those thoughts.

Maybe I'm wrong on that count and maybe there is something inherently 'wrong' or 'evil' about men finding underage high school girls attractive, but when you take a long-view historical approach it becomes increasingly difficult to justify that something magically happens when you turn 18 that suddenly makes you 'fit' for sex.

It makes sense legally insofar as an artificial age has to be chosen to enforce statutory laws generally intended to protect younger people with insufficient contextual knowledge to consent from predators, but that also brings up the rather seismic difference between feeling attraction and acting out on those feelings.

I guess the TLDR version is: It's not the other person's responsibility to change their behavior to help mitigate your own feelings of sexual attraction towards that person.

[Kim]

This behavior generally is defended with "You're distracting the other boys," so I think Snake's on the money with regards to that. Men blaming women for their lust. Like when people make a woman being raped about what she was wearing or that she was drinking, etc.

[Krylo]

I saw another article on this the other day, I DOUBT I can find it again, but it had some interviews with some of the girls who pointed out things like that what they were wearing was not in violation, and that at least one of them had been forced to change into sweat pants, with text about violating the dress code written on them, for wearing the same skirt as other girls who were not forced to do the same.

Soooo. . .

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

Personally, I wonder how much of this really a reflection about how men like to wield their power to blame women for daring to be attractive in a way that [for arguably artificial reasons] is found socially repugnant.

basically 100% a reflection of that.

[Red Mage Black]

Everything against women has to be a feminism or social justice issue, doesn't it? Who is to say it wasn't the jealousy of female students and faculty due to jealousy and picking favorites? The way it sounds of "some were picked, some weren't" only solidifies this. Don't tell me that's rare. Women are just as likely to trash talk other women as men are.

And why would men hate women for being attractive anyway? Isn't the whole point of men being drawn to women because they're attractive?

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Red Mage Black

Everything against women has to be a feminism or social justice issue, doesn't it?

...Okay, here we go.

Who is to say it wasn't the jealousy of female students and faculty due to jealousy and picking favorites?

Even if the "jealousy of female students and faculty" was in play, here, it'd still be a social justice issue because ingrained patriarchal values would still be responsible for those reactions.
Misogyny doesn't just effect men. Hell, just recently we discussed an incredibly misogynistic decision exonerating a rapist for raping a promiscuous woman...that decision was made by a female judge.

The way it sounds of "some were picked, some weren't" only solidifies this.

The irony here is that, in your willingness to bend over backwards to make assumptions to exonerate [potential] men involved who are strangers to you and who you don't even know, you are buying directly into some serious misogynistic bullshit by identifying yourself as 'male' and therefore making it your sworn duty to protect other men by sheer virtue of your shared kinship as men.

And why would men hate women for being attractive anyway? Isn't the whole point of men being drawn to women because they're attractive?

This was actually covered in that oft-linked to Cracked article, but men actually quite often hate women for being 'attractive' because they'll hold women responsible for the manipulative bullshit hormones do to us all. In other words, men, upon finding a woman attractive, will feel that dissonance between their 'brain' and their 'boner' and hold the woman in question directly responsible for 'tempting' him against his better judgment.

You see this all the time in the context of half-assed rape defenses. "Your Honor, I didn't really want to rape her, my brain was saying no, and I'm really a great person with great values, but she just looked so beautiful in that outfit, my raging sex drive couldn't resist."
The sad thing is this bullshit defense occasionally works.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

...Okay, here we go.



Even if the "jealousy of female students and faculty" was in play, here, it'd still be a social justice issue because ingrained patriarchal values would still be responsible for those reactions.
Misogyny doesn't just effect men. Hell, just recently we discussed an incredibly misogynistic decision exonerating a rapist for raping a promiscuous woman...that decision was made by a female judge.



The irony here is that, in your willingness to bend over backwards to make assumptions to exonerate [potential] men involved who are strangers to you and who you don't even know, you are buying directly into some serious misogynistic bullshit by identifying yourself as 'male' and therefore making it your sworn duty to protect other men by sheer virtue of your shared kinship as men.



This was actually covered in that oft-linked to Cracked article, but men actually quite often hate women for being 'attractive' because they'll hold women responsible for the manipulative bullshit hormones do to us all. In other words, men, upon finding a woman attractive, will feel that dissonance between their 'brain' and their 'boner' and hold the woman in question directly responsible for 'tempting' him against his better judgment.

You see this all the time in the context of half-assed rape defenses. "Your Honor, I didn't really want to rape her, my brain was saying no, and I'm really a great person with great values, but she just looked so beautiful in that outfit, my raging sex drive couldn't resist."
The sad thing is this bullshit defense occasionally works.

It's also sad that we're still having this same old fucking song and dance re: victim blaming for the millionth time.