This high school’s prom dress code is so sexist it will make you laugh

Or cry, depending on your mood

Or cry, depending on your mood

Funny how everyone (ahem, men) seem to have an opinion on what women should wear on any occasion. We’re not allowed to wear flats at work, or leggings on planes.

Now it seems even proms have a strict dress code, and it only concerns women, obviously.

Stanton high school in Florida is facing some serious backlash after a student shared pictures of posters depicting what female students should and shouldn’t wear to the dance.

Yep, you’ve guessed it, not only are the posters patronising, they’re a blatant example of body shaming too.

The posters feature four dress examples. Three of the dresses, which show just a tad of skin, are tagged ‘Going to Stanton Prom? No You’re Not’.

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The fourth dress, which has more coverage, has (and this is the worst bit) ‘Going to Stanton Prom? Yes You Are… Good Girl’ written on it.

We don’t know what’s worse, the fact they still call women ‘girls’, or the patronising language you’d usually reserve for a dog that’s just done a trick.

The student in question posted the pic with the sarcastic caption, ‘Good thing they told us a week before prom it's not like everyone has their dress already…’

As you can imagine, the posters didn’t go down too well with the students and their parents having a choice few words for the school...

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The school later apologised and removed the posters. Too little, too late though?

Penny Goldstone

Penny Goldstone is the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire, covering everything from catwalk trends to royal fashion and the latest high street and Instagram must-haves.

Penny grew up in France and studied languages and law at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris before moving to the UK for her MA in multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University. She moved to the UK permanently and has never looked back (though she does go back regularly to stock up on cheese and wine).

Although she's always loved fashion - she used to create scrapbooks of her favourite trends and looks, including Sienna Miller and Kate Moss' boho phase - her first job was at MoneySavingExpert.com, sourcing the best deals for everything from restaurants to designer sales.

However she quit after two years to follow her true passion, fashion journalism, and after many years of internships and freelance stints at magazines including Red, Cosmopolitan, Stylist and Good Housekeeping, landed her dream job as the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK.

Her favourite part of the job is discovering new brands and meeting designers, and travelling the world to attend events and fashion shows. Seeing her first Chanel runway IRL at Paris Fashion Week was a true pinch-me moment.