what the fuck is wrong with people?

[mickeym]

By way of epeeblade:

18 year old girl wears dress that's too revealing to senior prom. Gets suspended.

That's not the WTF part. The WTF part is this: she had the choice between taking the suspension or being paddled.

PADDLING?!?! In a PUBLIC school, in Alabama.

And as Epeeblade points out, if you're a school admin paddling an 18yr old woman for 'punishment', it's not discipline. It's fetish porn.

ETA: This site lists the states that still allow corporal punishment, as well as the # of kids punished that way. It also lists the states that don't allow it, and when they stopped.

Comments

[maerhysetc.livejournal.com]

This is so messed up; I don't know where to begin. But OMG yes to this:

if you're a school admin paddling an 18yr old woman for 'punishment', it's not discipline. It's fetish porn.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty speechless, myself. I mean--formalwear dresses are generally strapless, or low-cut (or both), and sometimes short, but unless this one was cut-off at the hips... I can't even imagine.

And it wasn't just one girl--it was 25 of them! Seriously, doesn't the principal have anything better to do like, I dunno, run his school?? Proms aren't even held ON school property usually, are they?

ARGH.

[kaiz.livejournal.com]

if you're a school admin paddling an 18yr old woman for 'punishment', it's not discipline. It's fetish porn

This. Also? I'm totally not getting the 'inappropriateness' of that gown. It looks like your generic sequenced evening dress, and not even especially slinky. I mean, what???

[kaiz.livejournal.com]

Oops, can't spell. I meant sequined! *facepalms*

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I looked at it and wondered how it's supposed to be any worse than pretty much any other formal evening dress I've ever seen. *shakes head*

[maerhysetc.livejournal.com]

25 of them?! Holy hell. I got nothing 'sides hands in the air.

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

Except it's still a school sanctioned event, so the school's rules/dress code still apply.

Also, there was a comment on Journalfen listing the school's dress code and it was incredibly wacky.

That said, did you notice that the schools still allowing corporal punishment are mostly southern???

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

L-A-W-S-U-I-T gets my vote.

If someone'd tried to paddle me when I was in high school, I would've had the ACLU and the police involved so fast they'd be wondering what happened. (That's assuming my mom didn't get to them first.)

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

*blinks* You know, I saw that, and saw the bit about "corporal punishment", but the article I saw didn't specify what it was. PADDLING? Of anybody, but a teenager in particular? WHAT?

[beck-liz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me neither. The dress looked like a totally normal prom dress. Weirdness.

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

When an administrator decides to paddle 25, 17-18 yo girls in skimpy dresses, that doesn't sound like a dress code issue to me. Sorry. Even if they aren't wearing the dresses at the time.

[jamesinboots.livejournal.com]

Wow, I wore skimpier dresses than that at my private, religious grade school and nobody ever even said anything to me. o.o I have very mixed feelings about corporal punishment, but one thing I did appreciate my school doing was that they first asked parents to administer the corporal punishment (or select a school admin to do it), or they could allow their child to take a suspension. But we were a private school, and the rules really can't be compared to public school, and most of the parents of private school students tend to be pro-corporal punishment (at least in my experience). And I honestly had no idea it was still allowed in public schools. D: Go figure, it's mostly Southern states. Sigh.

There are just... so many better punishment methods than corporal punishment. That just teaches people that hitting is how you're supposed to get people "in line" or make them better at something. :-/

[lunardreamed.livejournal.com]

Think that's bad, in districts where corporal punishment is permitted, people with disabilities are disproportionately more likely to get hit. Autistic children don't connect punishment to crime, all they know is that they've been hurt. It's devastating to them.

[mickeym.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, what purpose does paddling an 18yr old senior do? It's not going to "make an impression" or "get their attention" the way it MIGHT with a (much) younger child.

And of course it's largely southern states. Because we are the Bible Belt, after all -- and no one's going to convince me there isn't a connection. (I feel obligated to use my spanking icon, though, just 'cos *g*)

[softbluebuddy.livejournal.com]

Go New Jersey banning back in 1867. Way ahead of their time.

I dig getting spanked, but that is totally a private affair and not some strange/school administrator going to town paddling my ass. That is just wrong.

[azephirin.livejournal.com]

I'll spare you my whole rant on this issue (I wrote a paper last semester on child abuse/neglect as a public health issue, and I discussed corporal punishment in part of it), but it's appalling how many school districts still permit it, and how many initiatives to ban it in schools fail (for example, Louisiana tried to ban it last year, unsuccessfully).

My view on the matter (both in homes and schools) is summed up pretty well by David Finkelhor (http://www.unh.edu/frl/finkelhor/): "We can’t aggressively prosecute people who beat their children because those parents who want to hit their children (but not injure them)—that is, those in favor of corporal punishment—insist on exculpatory criminal laws that end up protecting many abusers."