AIBU to think school skirt bans undermine choice rather than equality?

like anything there will always people that take things to extreme, I've seen indecent skirt lengths on many girls from different schools in my area and the older they are the shorter they seem to be.

At my school there were a few girls that done this, our teacher had a ruler and would measure the length... If teachers are still having to do this for most of the girls in the class, this would be a waste of the teachers time, it's disruptive! I'm sure the teachers would prefer to teach than carry out this rigmarole and issue detentions etc.

In this day and age most girls wear trousers, tracksuits, jeans etc... It's not like back in the 30's/40's where a woman to wear trousers was frowned upon. Uniforms take away choice, so whether a skirt or trousers, what does it matter, you're not choosing what you want to wear anyway. Wearing a skirt doesn't make you a girl!

Yes for sure, some are lacy and some must be thongs for the amount of bum I see. Some could be hot pant type shorts, but I think you’re splitting hairs at that point and hot pants may as well be knickers (I have granny knickers that are bigger than some hot pants I’ve seen in the wild).

They have said they don’t want anyone wearing skirts.

Nothing to do with boys, and everything to do with girls who aren’t able to consent sexualising themselves.

I think there should be choice. My DD chooses trousers in secondary school, but wouldn’t wear them in primary school. She’s very tall so at least she wouldn’t be getting suspended because the official school skirt would inevitably be shirt on her. They have girls trousers so fit better than the boys trousers.

My mum went to the school and raised a ruckus when I was in P3 because I wasn’t allowed to wear trousers. When it was freezing.

Changed days for feminism when people now think skirts are better than trousers and are a “girl” thing.

So much for equality.

If the uniform is trousers then that’s what the uniform is for every pupil.

If you think skirts should be allowed then that should be allowed for every pupil.

Even the boys.

Why would a trans boy want to wear a skirt?

Why does simplifying the uniform to trousers do anything to undermine women?

sometimes, its not a culture war. Sometimes it’s just offering a simple uniform that everyone can adopt.

I agree with the OP about this. It's removing the traditional women and girls' clothing choice and imposing the traditional male dress as default. This is sex discrimination. As with so many forms of discrimination, many people, including those who should (e.g. school heads), don't 'see' it.

I've noticed schools characterising this as 'gender neutral' uniform. In the same way, toilets are called 'gender neutral' when choice is taken away, (with greater adverse effects on women or girls, though affecting men or boys too) and mixed sex toilets are imposed. 'Gender neutral' sounds so bland and harmless, indeed so neutral, when it is far from that.

It actually makes me laugh. No one ever seems to be happy! I went to an all girls school where the uniform was skirts but tge Muslim girls were allowed to wear trousers. However several of them would wear trousers one day and then a skirt with thick tights tge following day. Allowing everyone to wear trousers was a hot topic every term at school council but non Muslim girls were never allowed trousers the whole time I was there.

As a Police Officer when I first joined women could only wear skirts. You had to put a report in to ask to be issued with trousers, which were obviously much more practical. My request was turned down because my sergeant didn’t like women in trousers. Despite all this I was still expected to climb through windows and over fences and then get a bollocking because you’d got a ladder in your tights!

Are you sure it’s underwear and not shorts

maybe to eliminate up-skirting issues, to avoid having to deal with girls wearing inappropriately short ones, to eliminate the issue of transgender boys wearing skirts etc.

A sensible person/ school sees the potential problems ahead and avoids them.

Sounds like the school that bans skirts has avoided these problems before they start

As someone who once was a teenage boy, I did enjoy it if I could see a classmate's knickers. It's only natural.

My DD wears shorts under her skirt. I don’t know if any girl who would be wanting to show her knickers at all!

The girls at the local school to us wear skirts so short, when they sit down their underwear must touch the seat. Grim! Maybe the school was sick of telling them to lengthen their skirt!
lots of jobs only allow trousers eg police officer, so you don’t get a choice of what to wear in loads of roles.

What well behaved you and your DDs were. Rolling up your skirts to show off and look cool.

Glad I didn't do this (I went to school in India.) and glad my DDs never went to school flashing. Some of us know how to dress respectfully!

I don't think it's appropriate for girls to wear skirts so short you can see their underwear. It's trampy and not becoming of a respectable young woman.

And let's be honest. At a mixed school the boys will definitely either feel uncomfortable or be tempted to look (which is perfectly normal). Teachers will feel uncomfortable.

From my experiences at the grammar school. The all girls school the girls dressed fine. At the boys school (with the mixed sixth form). The girls dressed normally.

This is all well and good in their own time, and I believe young people should be able to express themselves through their clothing, just as adults do. However, policing skirt lengths can be time-consuming and may take away from valuable learning time. I think many schools have tried to enforce these rules, but when pupils choose not to comply, it can become an ongoing distraction. In that respect, it's often simpler and more practical to maintain a standard uniform policy for everyone.

I'm not a supporter of school uniform at all, much less the rigid adherence to minutiae of the colour of stitching on shoes or how many stripes are showing on a tie (most pointless item of clothing ever invented).

But, whatever my opinion of it, it's baked into UK culture. It's unlikely to go away because it's a tangible (if wrong) indication of the measure of discipline in schools. Meantime, bullying continues unchecked.

Trousers are not male attire. Traditionally, some men have worn skirts. If you have to have 'uniform', the same for everyone sounds fair to me. The clue is in the word 'uniform'. There isn't a choice, because by its very nature uniform removes it.

The removal of skirts from school uniform is nothing to do with sexual assault.

It's to do with it being inappropriate to show your underwear in a professional environment.

The whole point of skirts/trousers is to cover private areas (as well as for warmth of course). They become useless if they don't cover.

Wear the skirt at the intended length, no problem.

I think banning skirts is really sad, I always felt much more comfortable in a skirt when I was a teenager and always wanted to hide my body.
When I was at school having a big bum was unfashionable and ugly, with trousers they either show your whole bum outline or you have to buy them to be looser on the bum and have parachute legs. Skirts are so much more adaptable to different bodies.

So now boys sexually assaulting girls isn't dismissed as, 'boys being boys', we need girls to cover?
There's never been such thing as unisex, it was always male. We are going backwards.

All uniforms, by definition, undermine choice. That's the whole point of them. They are literally designed to make everyone look the same. Making girls wear trousers is no different from making them wear any other item they haven't chosen.

Having women wear trousers is not 'being more like men' in any case. Trousers shouldn't be seen as a men's garment and women are not mimicking men by wearing them.

The consensus appears to be in favour of trousers for girls uniforms. I would definitely agree and it should be mandatory now. I'm sick of seeing that tarty look every morning on most of the girls in a competition to see who can get the shortest look. They might as well be wearing a belt only.

Teachers have more to do and are far too qualified to have to monitor the visibility of girls' knickers. Come on!

Hmmmm. I worked in Spain for a bit. The boy fashion there was skin tight trousers. They bought girls trousers because they were tighter. Poor teachers! Anatomical definition of teenage boys times 20 in the classroom. Not to mention the muscle shirts (no school uniform there) which offered flashes of adolescent nipple. Not what you need when you're teaching pythagorean theorem.