Meet the Australian teen whose video about her school’s dress code went viral

After decades of knee-length skirts and covered shoulders, it seems young women across the globe are getting fed up with their schools’ dress codes. From Lawton, Oklahoma to Toronto, Canada, high school girls have been standing up to dress code rules they view as sexist, organizing demonstrations like “crop top day” and taking to social media to vent their frustration, often alongside an image of the offending outfit.

Schools argue that things like short skirts and exposed midriffs are disruptive, while others say that dress codes are just another way to sexualize young girls, and places the burden on them to look chaste instead of on boys to not be distracted by how a woman looks.

Enter Kambrya College, a high school in southeast Melbourne. After reports of a porn website preying on girls at the school, Kambrya’s administration held an assembly for girls in grades seven through 10, where they told students to refrain from sending “sexy selfies,” and also touched on the dangers of dressing provocatively. The girls were told that if they wore short skirts, they wouldn’t be respected by the boys in their classes, and that boys find short skirts unattractive.

15-year-old Faith Sobotker said she and her friends left the assembly feeling “offended and angry”. Faith made a video in response, cheered on by her friends, in which she called out the slut-shaming nature of the administration’s words.

“No matter how I present myself, I’m confident and I’m comfortable,” Faith said in the video, rolling up her skirt.
“My self-respect is doing what makes me happy. You can’t tell me what self-respect is, you can’t tell me what ladylike is. We don’t live in the 50’s anymore.”

“I’m looking for equality. I’m looking to be able to show off my body without being sexualized,” she said. “I am 15 years old.”

Faith continued, “People know that I have legs, I have knees, I have thighs, I have a vagina…I want to know that this school has raised a society of people who treat each other with equality, with respect, no matter how they dress, no matter how they wear their hair, no matter how they have their makeup.”

The ninth-grader never expected what happened next. Her video quickly gained thousands of views after being posted on Facebook, with messages of support coming in from all across the globe.

“For [the video] to go viral was a really surreal feeling and still can’t believe it,” said Faith. “I’ve received quite a lot of ‘thank you’s’ from all around the world from both men and women, boys and girls.”

Faith has received a fair share of negative comments as well, but she believes those have come from people who misunderstood her message.

“It isn’t about the uniform policy, it’s about how the issue was addressed, ” she said.

Faith sayid she’s glad her video has garnered attention, both from her school, which she said is issuing an apology, and for young women’s issues as a whole.

“I want to encourage girls to speak up more by letting themselves be outwardly angry about the issue, and if need be, educate themselves to give them confidence in what we need to fight for,” said Faith. “I hope my video has inspired that.”