If you're a girl and you're reading this, you'll be fully aware of a school dress code: nothing too short, nothing too low-cut, nothing which exposes the midriff, the shoulders, too much of the arms or the legs...

Even if you went to a school with uniform, you were made well aware in advance of any own clothes day that any 'inappropriate' dressing would not be tolerated.

But now, a father and writer, has hit back at the school that told his five-year-old daughter her below-the-knee spaghetti strapped rainbow dress was inappropriate.

Last week, Jef Rouner dropped his daughter off at school only to find when he picked her up, that the rainbow dress was now being worn with a pair of jeans under it, and a t-shirt over it because it had broken the school's dress code.

Jef Rouner for the Houston Press blogs

"I'm not surprised to see the dress code shaming come into my house", he writes. "I have after all been sadly waiting for it since the ultrasound tech said, "It's a girl." I didn't think, though that it would make an appearance when she was five years old.

"Have you ever stopped to think how weird a school dress code really is? I went and checked out the one for my daughter's school district and it's amazing in how hard it tries not to say what it actually means.

"There are literally no male-specific guidelines anywhere on that list. I mean prohibitions against exposing the chest or torso could hypothetically apply to boys except that they don't. Not really. They don't sell boys clothes that do that.

"There's nothing that is marketed to boys that is in anyway comparable to a skirt or a sun dress. Essentially, a school dress code exists to prevent girls from displaying too much of their bodies because reasons."

But what are those reasons? Jef is going to encourage his daughter to ask: Why? Why must I change out of my clothes? What is so wrong with showing my five-year-old shoulders?

"I'm going to advise her to ask why and to keep on asking that person "Why?" until she gets an answer she likes", Jef says.

Because "Make no mistake; every school dress code that is not a set uniform is about policing girls and girls alone."

Jess Edwards Digital Editor Jess Edwards is the Editor of Cosmopolitan.com/UK, overseeing all things digital.

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