Male students wear vest tops in protest against school's 'sexist' dress code

Teenage boys in California have protested against their school’s “sexist” dress code by donning off-the-shoulder tops.

Males students at San Benito High School showed solidarity with their female classmates when around 50 girls were sent home for dress code violations on the first day back at school.

One student decided to protest against the decision after “50 girls and two boys” were disciplined for breaking the school’s dress code rules.

Soon other students began joining in:

“The dress code policy hasn’t been an issue the past two years I have been here,” a 16-year-old student at the school, who asked not to be named, told Yahoo Style.

She added that the “administration says that it is for our own safety, but I don’t understand what they are keeping us safe from”.

“I really don’t think that there is someone dumb enough to pull down a shirt first of all - they have no right to touch me or anything else at all,” she said.

However, Adrian Ramirez, the school's headteacher, denied the dress code rule had anything to do with outfits “distracting male students”.

“San Benito High School does not support, nor believes this is an appropriate reason to not allow strapless shirts,” he said in a letter to parents.

“It is each student’s responsibility to carry themselves in a respectful manner, regardless of the clothing that another student is wearing.”

He added: “Our first goal is to prevent the possibility of any student from being a victim of any incident where they could intentionally or unintentionally be humiliated. These are clearly rare incidents, and our goal is to ensure every student is responsible to conduct themselves appropriately.

“Our second goal is to ensure we set expectations within our dress code that begin to prepare our students to seek and maintain employment, interview for a scholarship or pursue their career goals after high school.

“As an academic institution it is our responsibility to the community that we set and maintain parameters around dress attire.”

In June, teenage boys at a school in Exeter came to school wearing skirts, in protest at a ban on wearing shorts.