Should skirt length matter in secondary schools?

Oh please calm down, I just said their uniforms were a mess - which they were 🙄

More common these days is that skirts are becoming shorter than a blazer being worn. If your backside and underwear are on show then its way too short and not appropriate for school.

Gosh hope you didn’t have to interact with any of those dreadful “comp kids” 🙄. Heaven forbid!

My grammar school was absolutely fastidious about uniform and the deputy head would regularly roam the halls with a ruler to make sure everyone's skirts were at least 2 inches below the knee. It didn't do me any harm, and we all looked smarter than the local comp kids, with their skirts rolled up and blouses unbuttoned.

For what it's worth, I don't think it was anything to do with the male gaze - they were equally fastidious about the boy's tie length and blazers. It was about looking smart, respectable, and positively representing the school.

Kids live in a porn soaked culture sadly. They see female pop stars with their bum cheeks hanging out all over the place (Beyonce, Miley Cirus, Sabrina Carpenter etc) of course this is how they want to dress.
The objectification of women starts at a very young age.
Good on the school for having these rules, I say.

Schools should enforce the rules. Girls shouldn’t have to feel pressured by their peers into wearing their skirts shorter than they feel comfortable with and boys shouldn’t be embarrassed to walk up stairs behind them because they’re getting a full view of underwear and are worried they will be accused of deliberately looking.

It’s also good preparation for the workplace where they will often have to follow rules they may not necessarily agree with.

I would argue that part of their job is enforcing rules. Discipline is an import part of education in my view, and unfortunately, lots of kids don’t get enough of it at home. No wonder the country is in such a mess.

Honestly the fact you think this is what is wrong with this post. Clothing does matter when children (and parents) don’t follow the rules and repeatedly show their bums. Follow the rules and there won’t be any issues.

Any job in life has a dress code no matter where you work and this is practise for that.

Yeah I work in a company where we are suited and booted and it’s always the women who go wrong. And they do. And they are told. And they aren’t taken seriously or professionally. They don’t get ahead. They are more worried about the way they look than just following the rules and doing a good job. Maybe it’s because they had parents who told them that the school uniform was stupid.

So let me get this straight. The school have a dress code. They have been very hard on it and it isn’t new (as your daughter isn’t in Y7). There are ongoing issues because girls are rolling their skirts and they are too short and don’t conform to dress code. Your daughter has rolled her skirt, broke the rules and is now ‘furious’ at having broken the rules and being caught.

So instead of you explaining that those are the rules and in life there are times when you have to follow the rules ( as presumably in whatever job she gets there will be dress code guidelines - hard toe shoes, scrubs, business wear or whatever) you decided it was ‘behaviour from the school is bordering on a sexist, misogynistic obsession’.

No OP it isn’t. Just because you don’t like it or don’t agree doesn’t mean it’s misogyny- cheap excuse for simply not following the rules. Perhaps it’s also a lesson in presenting yourself and not showing your bum in public through respect and dignity instead of crying fowl.

YABVU

Where I worked we had one who wore very skimpy summer tops and no bra. She was a big girl and one day she leaned over the bosses desk and a boob fell out of the side of her low at the sides vest top about six inches in front of his face. She was informed by HR in no uncertain terms that she was not to come to work dressed like that in the future. So I do understand.

I don't get how many on here don't seem to understand that. People can say they shouldn't look/notice until the cows come home but it won't stop it happening. Even if they don't say anything out loud they will certainly be thinking all sorts.

Most of their male classmates will look given that they are the same age, will be full of hormones and will naturally be feeling attraction.

I have.. we had to change the bloody code of conduct because of one stupid woman. There's always one. She didn't last long thankfully and then she tried to complain she was being discriminated against 😂

It's painful to deal with some people.

I totally agree that teachers should do their job and not be forced to ‘waltz’ around measuring clothes. If only parents would tell their kids to follow the school rules then maybe they could do just that.

Ironically when teenage girls aren't at school they all seem to wear jeans, leggings or trackies.
If there was no school uniforms that's what they'd be wearing to school.

I've worked in places with dress codes, absolutely no one measured anything.

I sincerely doubt that many grown women would go into a professional work environment with their bums and knickers on show. And something would soon be said if they did.

Ours were taught, they passed the weekly archaic skirt measuring test with flying colours. My point is is should not matter, teachers should do their job not waltz around measuring clothes.

I'd say we should get rid of school uniform but I dread to think how many rules there'd be about clothes allowed in general.

I've worked in places with dress codes, absolutely no one measured anything.

Of course me should not be looking at them like that - but that doesn’t mean that they won’t, and it would extremely naive to think otherwise. Most men will control their ‘urges’ but there will always be a percentage of men who don’t. An adult woman will understand this and can make a personal judgement on wearing sexualised clothing. A child needs to be told.

When you see how many posters/ parents are unable or unwilling to teach their kids the most basic rules about appropriate clothing, you can see why we so need school uniforms in this country.

Yes and we had uniform in my day that is fine. Colour, logo, jumper etc we all adhered to. No one was measuring skirt length. They were teaching us academic stuff!
Exactly, sexualising school uniform is not a good idea. They are school kids and people should not look at them in any other way.

@Gloriia no girls wear tights round my way unless it's winter or they wear thin ones that you can see both the crotch area and their knickers underneath.
Personally I don't think the reason they shouldn't wear such tiny skirts is because boys/men can't control their urges - it's because it's just a very very unflattering look.

Sorry, Mumsnet almost unusable. What i was trying to say was that is bullying right there, saying that those of us who think pupils and students ought to make sure their underwear is not on display are "uptight". And then introduce the straw man of joggers and cardigans. There's about 80cm of range between above buttocks and ankle length.
We have to agree as a society what we are all comfortable with.

There needs to be rules, otherwise teenagers will take it to extremes, as others have noticed. They may be trying to attract ‘boys’ but the real problem is adult men. Sexualising school uniform by wearing mini skirts is not a good idea.

Good for them not to care that some uptight people things they should be in joggers and cardigans.*

Intentionally or not, a number of them are flashing their underwear and arses. Like some others have said, they often are not wearing tights. I see it on every single occasion when driving home and passing groups of teens walking home from school. I suspect that when on work experience they manage to keep covered up.