Editor’s Notes: Sending the wrong message
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An alleged incident in Cabell County highlights just how toxic and damaging an environment too many young women are growing up in even today. Given that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, it seems the perfect time to talk about what two eighth-grade girls attending Huntington East Middle School say happened at their school.
According to multiple media reports, the two young women spoke to the Cabell County Board of Education April 5.
"Our principal, Mrs. Perry … she called us to the cafeteria to talk about the dress code, and once we got in there she told us not to wear pajamas, crop tops or ripped jeans or show our shoulders," one student said. "After that, they told us that they did not want boys to be distracted by our clothes and they said that if we get touched inappropriately while wearing these clothes to not tell the school because they won't do anything."
If you are wondering why the student switched from "Mrs. Perry" to "they," she was reportedly interrupted by a board member who whispered to her. Afterward the rest of the student's testimony referred to "she," "they" or "this person," instead of Principal De Morrow-Perry.
A different student reportedly said "Instead of just telling us what not to wear and what's against the dress code, they said that girls were trying to gain attention from boys and that boys were going to touch us and they were going to joke about touching us. This infuriates me because she told the entire school of middle-school girls -- sixth-, seventh- and eighth grade -- 11- to 14 year-old girls, that because of what they were wearing, boys were going to touch them, and that she didn't want to know about it if it happened."
When Huntington-area media outlets tried to reach out to the school district, they were told officials were aware of the allegations and were investigating. Further, Superintendent Ryan Saxe reported Morrow-Perry has been suspended without pay for three days, but that suspension is allegedly unrelated to the story told by the two students at the board meeting.
If their allegations are unfounded, those two students took a tremendous risk in going before school board members during a public meeting to air them. But should officials' investigation confirm the students' story, Morrow-Perry should be fired on the spot. There is no place in schools for such a toxic and evil mindset.
And, if the story is confirmed, generations of women will not be surprised. Most of us remember growing up being sent a similar message about school dress codes, though perhaps not with as blunt a threat about being touched as Morrow-Perry is accused of making.
Shorts had to be longer than what many growing students could find to fit them; no tank tops -- certainly nothing with spaghetti straps; no crop tops; nothing "distracting" … and often peppered throughout the year were subtle comments about women who were "asking for it," because of what they were wearing.
For me, that kind of nonsense was more than a quarter-century ago. I do not remember once hearing anything that suggested the young men around me were being talked to about consent, respect, entitlement or consequences for not controlling their impulses.
What I absorbed was that a woman is responsible for what happens to her, and that dressing in a certain manner would be interpreted as "asking for it." It breaks my heart to think young women are STILL being subjected to that kind of psychological warfare today.
Worse, I've been told I was one of the lucky ones, as the damage was not deepened in my own home. Other women remember growing up being told by their own mothers that it was their responsibility not to make men "stumble." In fact, I may have let slip a curse word when I was told that was a not-uncommon admonition in the homes of young women back then.
In discussing the Cabell County situation, Sharon Pressman, executive director for the Contact Rape Crisis Center in Huntington, told McClatchy News Service sending such a message is unethical and illegal.
"All adults in West Virginia are mandatory reporters, so for the children to be told that if something happened to them they were not to report it to the school, to the principal, is certainly breaking the law," she said.
Ripped jeans and spaghetti straps do not make boys stumble. Growing up in an environment where they are taught they will get away with sexual assault does. We are learning that as a society. But if the reports out of Cabell County are accurate, some folks are not getting the message nearly fast enough.
Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com.