Montreal high school dress code forbidding crop tops 'sexist,' students say

Teenage girls at a Montreal high school wore a little less to school today to protest a dress code that forbids crop tops and any clothes considered too short, too tight or too tattered. 

Raphaelle Lalonde, a 16-year-old student at FACE, a fine arts school in downtown Montreal, said students were recently sent home with a letter outlining the new rules.

Lalonde said they unfairly target girls and wants to start a dialogue about the imbalance.​

"We find that the way the dress code is enforced is sexist, and it promotes the message that girls should be punished for their bodies and we don't think that's OK," she said. 

Lalonde was among many girls who showed up to FACE this morning wearing crop tops and short shorts, but she and her friend went a bit further.

They wrote "parlons-en" on their stomachs — which means "let's talk about it" in French.

Another protester said more effort should be made to teach boys to respect girls and their bodies.

"I agree there are some limits and we understand that," said the girl.

"We just hope that the rules themselves are for both sexes instead of just aiming on females."

The protests in Montreal are part of what appears to be a growing trend.

Students at Ontario schools in London and Toronto, as well as Moncton, N.B., carried out similar protests earlier this year, reviving a decades-old debate about what qualifies as appropriate school attire.

The Commission scolaire de Montréal has not responded to a request for comment.