teaching our daughters to be feminine

Bizarrely though the modern tie developed from the practice of putting something around the neck to keep warm. I guess with central heating it isn't such an issue now!

Trousers are warm though bluegrass!
Never had a tie that kept me toasty

Interesting to see a resistance to ties as being masculine, even though it was the wearing of trousers that was always the most gendered item of clothing (which is now the default for most women, for daytime wear at least).

It seems trousers have been claimed, but ties rejected. I suppose for men the purpose of a tie is to add pattern and colour to what is otherwise likely to be a muted outfit. As women still traditionally tend to wear bolder colours and patterns elsewhere the tie becomes superfluous (and harder to match to the rest of the outfit). Perhaps that is one reason ties are amongst the few items of clothing that remain largely a male adornment.

Sorry, just pondering!

Your Thread title and OP seem to be at odds with one another.
I do not want to 'teach my daughter to be feminine'- I want her to be who she is, and gender should not be an issue in a primary classroom.

The seating plan seems fair- but it seems an odd way to arrange children, when surely different groupings might be more appropriate for different lessons - grouping by ability for some subjects, by those that need to learn to better work together for group work, allowing children to sit with friends for things like Art etc.

Ties- meh. I am of the opinion that uniform should be the same for boys and girls in primary, and it should be warm, appropriate, comfortable, smartish. I had to wear a tie to school aged 11-16, it was no hardship, certainly never felt belittled by it . Not sure why the change at Y4 though- should be universal throughout school.

Could you clarify what it is you're concerned about please Peggy, otherwise I'm inclined to feel you're being a tame galoot.

Sorry Tewkespeggy not ignoring you, its just not clear in my own head. I find it inconsistant. I also dislike your title 'taching our daughters to be feminine' because I think it has such negative connotations. I want all children to be happy healthy confident individuals .....

Actually the more I think about the more I just find the whole original post just inconsistant and worrying...

Agree that there is still a lot of scope for experiencing consumer pressures in clothing (though my kids are happily oblivious to the differences between cheapo unifor and John Lewis). But it is very much reduced by uniform.

Agree also that some schools have rather absurd and gendered uniforms. But the basic plain white shirt, blue cardi/jumper/sweatshirt, black skirt/trousers is broadly protective imo.

in my year 6 daughter's class, the girls significantly outnumber the boys - just the lumpiness of random, isn't it? Like the fact there are two sets of twins in that class, and none in the rest of the school.

I've never thought to mind about how they are seated though, I should perhaps find out.

I am never sure what I think about gendered school uniform though. I suspect that dd1's school is eventually going to make it trousers only for girls and boys, and my gut feeling is that this is wrong and girls should be allowed to wear skirts if they want to. From a feminist/AIBU p.o.v., what does anyone think?

Who is actually wearing a garter belt though?

Why would I be surprised? I just think it is very nice that there is a part of their daily life that is insulated from the consumers pressures, especially when those consumer pressures include those of the sort that Pink Stinks and such people identify.

Yes, sorry SGM. Well, there is a concern, isn't there, with all the very heavily gendered girls clothing in the shops. LGBG etc.

I don' t think it's unusual to have an unequal gender balance at schools. My daughter's year had 3 boys to every girl and my son was in a class of 2 boys to every girl.

I'm assuming that the ratio rule means that the teachers aren't allowed to sit children in ability groups. In which case I'd assume that the group would be led by the most confident loudest and bossiest child (2 in 6 chance that it would be a girl) and if they didn't know the answer they'd ask the cleverest person on the table?

I'd also assume that there would be at least one daydreamer or really shy person (4 in 6 chance that this is a boy) who will not contribute to the task.

As for the tir- I agree it's pointless but it would be grossly unfair to expect boys to wear them but not girls so it should be everybody or nobody wearing them. Maybe the school didn't want the parents of defunct tie owners complaining?

In the interests of gender equality, where the outmoded, pointless, unhygienic and uncomfortable garment that is the tie is forced upon all children in a school, the equally outmoded, pointless, unhygienic and uncomfortable garment that is the garter belt should also be forced upon all children in a school.

As a grown woman I would never be seen out in a bottle green pleated skirt and matching green cardigan either but I was forced to wear such a monstrosity to school.
The kids are not at work. They are at school. Personally I would prefer to do away with uniform altogether, but since that is unlikely, I think we should drop the idea that it should reflect adult workwear.

SGR, wouldn't getting rid of uniforms expose girls much furhter to the uniform of "femininity" -- ie to all the disgustingly heavily gendered girls clothing that fills the shelves in shops? I feel that uniform is pretty protective. I take the point that ties are part of a masculine construct and it might seem apprpriate to resist that, though it might be good to think empirically about whether in fact the children perceive it as participating in a masc construct, given that their overwhelming experience of the tie will be in school where it is for both genders.

I can't imagine that ties "comes across as if we're saying girls can be treated like boys until they're adults, at which point they will realize that what was 'unisex' for a child is now 'masculine' for adults". Our usual concern is quite the contrary isn't it? i.e. that girls as girls are funnelled into an extreme hyper-"femininity" and inhibited from inhabiting a "unisex" space. I take the point that the tie tends towards identifying "unisex" with "masculine" and thus to confirm maleness as the default gender -- but I think that any damaging effect of that has to be seen as far less than the damaging effect of feminine-branded clothing for girls.

Agree that ties are pretty unwelcome in junior school. But if they are there, better to have them for boys and girls alike

Though very few grown women choose to wear checked gingham dresses,complete with collars buttons down the front etc either.If you are going for non gender specific,do you say everyone wears trousers?

(disclaimer:my answer to that is "no")

I'm struggling with the difference between assuming male dress as the default,and the feeling that it shouldn't matter,and by making an issue of it you are attaching more importance to the idea of gender differentiated clothing as the norm.Ties may not be gender neutral in adult life,but I think you could argue that in a school uniform context they are.

In the early days of girls wearing ties would this have been viewed as a positive thing - girls being able to do things previously reserved for boys? In the same way that at a time when the education given to boys and girls was very different the right to follow the same curriculum as the boys was a good thing for girls.
Possibly confusing two trains of thought here...

For me the important thing is that teachers and parents encourage the girls not to defer to the boys. I didn't defer to boys at my co-ed school (and I was vastly outnumbered by them in 6th form), and my dds similarly are not remotely deferential to the boys in their classes or groups.

I'm not keen on uniforms at all but agree if boys have to wear ties then it's fair for the girls to as well. Most adult men I know don't actually wear ties to work either.

But the OP didn't say any of that, LRD!

School uniform has forever and a day included ties for girls. Which, in my book, makes them gender-neutral for children.

I have a bigger issue, to be honest, with schools insisting that girls wear skirts/refusing to let them wear trousers.

I don't really see schoolgirls in ties as having masculinity forced upon them. It isn't something that is going to harm you for life.

Really I don't like ties in any school uniform. As a teacher they are the bane of my life and getting kids to put them on properly and not wear comedy ties is irritating in the extreme.

In older girls having to wear a tie at least forces them to do up the buttons on their shirts and stops them revealing more "femininity" than would be appropriate at school!

It actually really annoys me how often I've been told that such-and-such has been chosen and is no longer deemed masculine, and I should just not object. When someone starts saying skirts are no longer masculine and boys should just put up with wearing them as normal school uniform, I might feel more inclined to see ties the same way.

To me, it comes across as if we're saying girls can be treated like boys until they're adults, at which point they will realize that what was 'unisex' for a child is now 'masculine' for adults.

But it's not the child who has the problem here, it is? It is her mother.