Sexism is everywhere. Whether you are a girl or a boy, we all have experienced sexism in our lives at one point.

Sure, things have definitely gotten better, with the dress code at Central being more relaxed this year and people becoming more aware of sexism and trying to fix their attitude toward the issue due to the #MeToo movement. However, we still have a long way to go if we want an environment where sexism is nonexistent, even at our school.

We think that sexism is not prevalent at Central because we think we are too progressive to ever degrade someone of the opposite sex. We think that sexism isn’t that big a deal at Central, but that is not the case.

When we think of sexism, we usually think of discrimination against women. At Central, this couldn’t be truer. Before this year, the dress code was geared more toward girls than the boys. People say girls can’t wear anything too revealing because it would be a distraction, especially to boys. This was true to girls nationwide, and at Central. Due to this, girls have been heavily targeted by  administrators who enforce the dress code.     

Girls shouldn’t be subjected to more scrutiny on the basis that they are too distracting to boys. If a boy is distracted, the girl is not to blame and the fault should be put on the boy.

Even worse is that fact that there is casual sexism in conversations. As a boy, I’ve been in conversations where we talk about girls being “sluts,” “thots” or “having big tits.” These degrading comments about girls are in the most casual conversations between boys. There has been a saying that has been going around lately, and that is “boys will always be boys.” This saying is making us go back in time, not forward.

However, sexism doesn’t just affect girls at Central. Although there is little discussion about it, boys are still subjected to sexism. In popular culture, boys, especially in high school, are portrayed as tough and fearless. This creates unrealistic expectations that all boys should and will behave like this.

This stereotype has a detrimental effect on boys. I, for one, know that because I have always thought that because I’m a boy, I have to hide my true feelings, so I’m not marked as weak. This mentality has taken a great toll from me, and while I’ve been trying to become more open about my feelings, it’s still hard. While this was my story, there sure as hell are other boys just like me who are warped into this sexist stereotype and have experienced much harsher backlash because of this.

Sexism is obviously still present at Central, whether we know it or not. If we as a school want it to end, we have to start talking about it and do something or else we will have this endless cycle that will bring us back in time.