RICHMOND, Va. – School dress codes are emerging as the newest front in the “war on women.”

Earlier this month, a 17-year-old female, Clare, “was kicked out of her prom … because fathers attending the event thought her dress was giving rise to ‘impure thoughts,’” writes TheGuardian.com columnist Jessica Valenti.

The young woman’s dress reportedly passed the “fingertip” test, but was “riding up” while she was on the dance floor. One female chaperone said the dress was “right below” the girl’s “butt cheeks” at one point.

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Such facts don’t matter to the left-wingers who are using Clare’s prom misfortunes – which have garnered a surprising amount of media attention – to make the larger point that school dress codes unfairly target girls.

“It’s not just proms that make for problematic interactions for young women,” Valenti warns. “Everyday school dress codes disproportionately target, shame, and punish girls – especially girls who are more developed than their peers.”

The columnist acknowledges that boys are also subjected to school dress codes, but sneers that those rules amount to little more than requiring males to keep their “pants up” and turn their t-shirts with drug references inside-out.

Valenti maintains school dress codes primarily exist to tell young women that their “outfits – their bodies, really – are too distracting for men to be expected to comport themselves with dignity and respect.”

Females at one Illinois middle school made that very point in March when they “picketed their school for the right to wear leggings,” Time.com reports.

One 13-year-old girl complained that “not being able to wear leggings because it’s ‘too distracting for boys’ is giving us the impression we should be guilty for what guys do.”

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Time.com writer Eliana Dockterman portrays the leggings controversy as “slut shaming” and adds:

“ … (B)y implying that boys simply can’t control themselves around girls’ bodies, administrators are pandering to a culture that too often transfers blame from men to their female victims. They risk encouraging young, impressionable minds – both male and female – to think that women are in some way responsible, because of their ‘suggestive’ clothing and their behavior, for sexual crimes and transgressions, rather than making clear that each individual is responsible for his or her own actions.”

Dockterman advises school leaders, “Take sex out of the (dress code) equation. Don’t use the word ‘distracting’ when explaining the rules to girls. Enforce the code equally between the genders.”

It’s not clear what kinds of rules would be included on a “fair” and “equitable” dress code. Perhaps transgender students wouldn’t be permitted to wear spaghetti straps? But rest assured that some leftist somewhere is designing such a dress code.

It’s also possible that progressives are researching ways to link oppressive and sexist dress code policies to the next Republican presidential candidate, so they can continue to perpetuate their “war on women” myth.

If leftists can establish that link, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos will make sure to ask a question about it in a future presidential debate.