Are yoga pants really the problem?

Yoga pants appear to be having a dangerous effect on male students. So dangerous that school administrators across the country are adopting new dress code policies that ban the popular workout/fashion  pants, along with other form-fitting legwear.

The argument for keeping yoga pants out of schools basically goes like this: how’s a guy supposed to focus on school when there are girls walking around wearing tight pants?

Which raises questions about why female students, who are the primary wearers of yoga pants, should be punished for their male counterparts’ inability to focus.

Skyview High School in Billings, Montana is the latest in a string of schools to ban tight pants from their hallways. Students scanning their Skyview handbook might have noticed this addition:

“Leggings, jeggings, and tights ARE NOT pants and must be worn with dress code appropriate shorts, skirts, dresses, or pants.”

According to the Billings Gazette, district schools are able to ban articles of clothing that “materially or substantially disrupt the educational process.”

Skyview Principal Deb Black has been kind enough to keep a supply of “longer tops” in the back office, for all those students who are distracting fellow students with their butts and legs.

One Skyview alum took to the opinion pages of the Gazette to voice her disapproval.

In her article, “Why yoga pants are incredibly dangerous to today’s youth,” Ashley Crtalic recalled her days as a student during a period of similar dress code policy upheaval.

A new dress code had been enacted during the summer, and Crtalic was promptly asked to go home and change on the first day of school. She and her classmates remained worried about showing any skin, for fear of repercussions.

But the dress code crackdown didn’t have any effect on curtailing bad behavior from high school boys.

“Did the cat-calling and groping stop because of the dress-code enforcement?” she wrote. “Hell no.”

What’s worse, Crtalic wrote, were the different ways that male and female students were treated.

“Did teachers even really seem to care when they saw it happening?” she wrote. “Not as much as they cared about the dress code.”

Looking back at Crtalic’s experience is particularly insightful, as more stringent dress code rules continue to target girls and provide a free pass for boys. Based on the response to Crtalic’s opinion piece, it’s an issue that resonates deeply with students and parents alike.

The article in the small Montana paper has garnered more than 600 comments online, and Crtalic says her email inbox has been flooded ever since it was published. The site’s second most-read story (behind Crtalic’s) has just seven comments.

“I thought maybe some of my readers in the community would be interested in this piece, but I didn’t imagine it would get anywhere near the response it did,” Crtalic told Fusion. “Compared to other articles I typically post, this one blew everything else out of the water.”

Now, as a mother to a young daughter, Crtalic hopes that sharing her experience with the slippery slope of unfair dress code policies will help inform a new group of Skyview students, who are already fighting for their right to rock tight pants.

“Back then I remembered feeling so powerless and that my voice didn’t matter and I had no way of being heard and taken seriously,” Crtalic said. “Now that I am an adult and have the means to be heard, I knew I had to speak up.”