Zendaya’s advice to girls being shamed by school dress codes is absolute perfection

Zendaya has always been wise beyond her years and her latest statement about how girls should handle discriminatory school dress codes proves it once again. When talking to Seventeen magazine about her new clothing line, Daya By Zendaya, the actress and singer gave some epic advice that should become required reading. With many sexist school dress codes clothing-shaming young girls and teens, Zendaya’s words could prove helpful to students facing this issue at their own school.

Seventeen asked Zendaya what advice she would give to girls who are getting in trouble for taking fashion risks. Her #1 point was to be thoughtful in how you handle it — just like how her response to the question was super thoughtful:

"It depends on the situation — if it has something to do with your school dress code, I think that's something you should bring up to them. With anything, you have to approach from an educational, mature standpoint. So just ranting about it or having an attitude is probably not going to be the solution."

As unfair as some school dress codes may seem, Zendaya makes a good point. If you want to get anywhere with your school’s administrators, you’re going to have to do some research to prove why the rules are discriminatory. She continued:

"I would say write something up. Basically become a little lawyer. Make it a very detailed, educational, intelligent body of work. Give reasons. Type it up, and then hand that in and see if you can get somewhere.

While Zendaya acknowledges that this method may not always work, her advice is pretty solid. And some students have already been using their brains to fight for the right to wear what they want on their bodies — like these middle school girls who created a petition to stop their school’s sexist dress codes.

Zendaya has been a queen of taking down Twitter trolls and encouraging body positivity, and now she can add teaching young girls how to handle dress codes with smarts and class to her list of accomplishments.