Short school skirts "sending the wrong message"

Random cosplay image from the net.
3.bp.blogspot.com/_S5dFdpF6xm0/TAQ2bPUQJ_I/AAAAAAAABN0/KDsUzY6FxXQ/s1600/WoW_World_of_Warcraft_Cosplay_Girls.jpg

One of the things I love about my children is they seem oblivious to the norms set by society. DS has a friend who is female, by the time I met her I knew quite a lot about her talents and interests.
But it wasn't until I met her in the flesh that I realised she's around 5' tall and a good 16 stone. Wasn't relevant to him.
DD and her friends do swan around with many of them wearing revealing clothing, especially when cosplaying. Doesn't alter the relationships or the respect and affection they have for each other.
But for work, they wear more appropriate clothing.

The problem is, we look at it from an adult perspective. From my experience of older teenagers, they don't bat an eyelid because to them this is what girls wear. There is no novelty or excitement to it particularly, because they are so used to the girls around them being in skimpy clothes: vest tops, short skirts, shorts over tights. When I've taken mixed groups on school trips, they haven't had the slightest bit of interest in what each other is wearing.

The thing is, school uniforms pretty well without exception look awful. And IME bear only tangential relationship to Office Clothes (which are usually cited as the analogy. Me, I wear a Charming Frock or skinny jeans to my really quite respectable job. Last time I wore a suit - to run the comms for a big charity - it was coral, with a quite short skirt ).

So I feel a certain sympathy (misplaced, obviously) for kids who play around with the rules.

"what ould the boys think?"

Well, what I hope my boy would think is "Mary is wearing a very short skirt today"

What would your boy think?

"i have noticed some girls skirts are really ridiculously short and these are quite posh schools. surprised me as our local bog standard comp would not allow it"

Ha that's great motherinferior - how could they say anything to you without
looking like complete perves

I agree AThing, that if the girls do wear trousers they should be nice trousers that are actually well fitted etc. If a school really thinks the skirts are "sending the wrong message" then it seems a sensible solution to the problem.

Was wearing a bra part of the uniform? :o

The mind boggles at the issues that could cause.

I do find it hard to get worked up about school uniform, I must say. Even though DD1 is about to go to a school notorious for the brevity of the girls' skirts. I really do not think it correlates to achievement.

I found going braless under my school blouse an even better way of flaunting the school uniform regulations, fwiw.

"children just weren't wearing them properly so there wasn't any point in having them."

That argument extends to the whole uniform.

If girls are going to be forced to wear uniform trousers, then the uniform should be rethought so it is not just teenage girls in cheap "tailored" trousers worn with the kinds of tops (short v-neck jumpers, ties, shirts with collars) that that were conceived entirely with boys in mind.

Sticking a skirt where a pair of trousers should be can, depending on the cut of the skirt, still look smart and not like teenage girls are dressed as liitle men.

Put them in trousers and they look horrible.

I don't know any grown women who wear tailored trousers with the kind of gear that comes with a standard school uniform. If girls must wear trousers (and I don't agree with that restriction) then it should be in the context of a uniform that is flattering and attractive.

Not chubby thighs and bottoms in horrible cheap material under woolly waistbands with tucked-in shirts.

Ick!

I don't really think "sending the wrong message" was really implying inviting sexual violence hmm. Get a grip, ladies.

Well said.

FGS

I have no doubt that in this case, "sending the wrong message" is another way of saying "when you roll your skirts up too high you look sloppy and ridiculous and your perceived IQ drops several points. The school would rather its pupils looked smart and workmanlike than idiotic."

I tend to collude with DD in the matter of short skirts.

The girls all (and yes I do mean all) roll them over at the waist band which looks ludicrous, so I take her skirts up properly. They are 2/3 inches above the knee, worn with opaque tights and actually look rather nice IMHO.

If DD's head started a lecture about this inviting sexual violence, I would be having a word with the head.

I don't really think "sending the wrong message" was really implying inviting sexual violence . Get a grip, ladies.

It's not because they look slutty AThing, it's because they won't wear them properly. A lot of schools in my area did away with ties for the same reason - children just weren't wearing them properly so there wasn't any point in having them.

Banning skirts because girls will look too slutty in them seems a little creepy.

Girls were doing this when I was at school! We'd roll out skirts up to bum length and yes it was always to look good for the boys school - sorry ladies but it's true!
They brought in the big pleats to make rolling them up look silly so we pinned them in places so it wouldn't matter then rolled them up anyway.

They brought in strict detentions for girls with skirts too short so we just did it before and after school on the way home or on the bus.

Skirts need to be banned and some nice tailored, girls trousers brought in. IMO.

excellent suggested wording ravenAK

Agree with edam and Loshad

Girls can wear trousers too AThing. I agree though that they should be designed specifically for girls so that they fit right.

"What about boys?"

What about them?

Boys look fine in uniform trousers, since they are designed for boys.

Yes to checking what was actually said. But the short skirt on a school uniform does feature in a certain kind of Lolita porn. So the head might be worried that young girls are looking like pornstars rather than schoolchildren.

Nice knee length skirts might be nicer AThing but the girls won't wear them at knee length so it's not working.

When I was at school they introduced a skirt with massive pleats. If you tried to roll it up it looked absolutely ridiculous so that put an end to the short-skirt problem. Unfortunately the pleated skirts were hideous, so when they introduced trousers for girls a few years later practically all the girls switched to them. They were a hell of a lot nicer.

One school in Limerick famously introduced ankle length skirts.

I agree with much of what has been said. I also agree that if the school has a uniform, the school needs to ensure that girls arrive and leave dressed in the correct uniform. IMO that means speaking to the girls who break the rules directly. I don't understand the stretchy belt/skirt thing. If it isn't the regulation skirt, they should just be sent home to change or given something from the 2nd hand cupboard/lost property cupboard if they claim not to have keys.

I was shocked to receive a first class letter posted to the home of every girl from my daughter's school last term - it must have cost hundreds of pounds and at a time when the school has a huge budget deficit. It reminded parents of the uniform and took a very hard line indeed about skirt length. I was shocked principally because behaviour at the school is declining - only two or three weeks ago five girls were suspended for assault (in the street) on another pupil, and intimidation breached health and safety rules terribly. Even the two who pulled a girl down and bashed her head on the pavement are back at school.

It is time, in my opinion, that schools got their priorities back in the right order. The uniform issues are important. The right to exclude those who pose a danger to others is an even biggger issue. And I do not want to hear headteachers tell me it is because they come from difficult backgrounds - lots of children do - but they behave and they refrain from beating up quieter girls or indeed girls who might be more vulnerable than themselves.

When I went to school the head stood at the main gate every morning, welcoming the girls. At the end of the day the deputy was there to say goodbye. I would like to see more of that, I would like to see a reorganisation of priorities and a return to identifying the difference between right and wrong. In the meantime, for as long as a child who has assaulted another and been unspeakably badly behaved and intimidating for almost two years remains beyond consequence, I would advise any teacher not to attempt to discipline my daughter for forgetting a piece of homework, for having a button undone or for being late to school when there is a signal failure. It doesn't take a great deal of intelligence to work out that a detention for forgetting gym kit is wholly disproportionate when those who assault and potentially put the school at risk of fire are allowed to get away with it with nothing more than a five day fixed term exclusion. Had they been employees they would have been summarily dismissed - 12 months ago.

Unfortunately, my daughter is losing respect for the head; I lost it several months ago and I imagine that is being repeated in schools up and down the land.

'Ick! girls look awful in uniform trousers.'

What about boys?