School clothing (France)

Is the onus upon the girls and women to cover up?

Hi everyone

viking vagine I can imagine it is going to be difficult for you to achieve a good outcome with the victim blaming attitudes which seem prevalent in your work place. Good luck, and well done for trying.

On a slight tangent, I work with young people in a centre where there is no dress code. Young women are trying out different styles, and often wear clothes which are too small, and show a lot of cleavage.

I am a heterosexual mother of 2 in her 30's with no sexual interest in any of the young people I work with. I find their cleavage distracting.

I find it interesting that there are comments onhere, and quoting marjane satrapi, of whom I am a fan, about well you shouldn't be looking. But I say again, cleavage is distracting. I do not look at it, but it nevertheless disturbs me. I am finding this hard to share, in case anyone thinks I must be a perv. I am certain I am not perv. I am starting to think that modesty is importent, not because it's the girl's fault if people are looking at her body, but that in the clothed society we live in, anybody perv or otherwise, can find revealing clothing distracting, which is not helpful in a working or learning environment.

that's what i was reffering to amanda, realize i could have worded it better now

that and just my own experience of girls at school being painfully self consious in their clothes. tugging up hipster jeans which had artfully displayed their pants or pulling their shirts down. they want to fit in so they have to dress a certain way and the end result is them focusing on everything but school.

speaking of naked though, does anyone know if rape statistics have been taken at nudist colonies vs general western socity vs conservative women totally covered societies.

I think you have more problems than dress code then

In our school dress code it says that skirts may not be shorter than a certain number of inches above the knee (I think it's 6).

One person's idea of a 'short' skirt is another person's idea of something perfectly reasonable so it would be better to have some kind of objective guidance and I agree that things like not wearing see-through/backless clothing are better expressed so that they could in theory apply to both sexes. The shoe thing can be expressed in terms of safety, as flip flops, open toed sandals etc are dangerous in an environment where you're doing practical lessons.

I am always astonished by how casual the clothes are that French students wear to school (only based on meeting exchange students & seeing students hanging round smoking/chatting outside schools when on holiday in France) -- it must be a big wrench when they go to work, or are workplaces very casual too?

There's that 'sitting a test in a swimming costume' experiment isn't there?

Oh, you probably know about that one. Sorry, I am very tired and slow on the joke/serious uptake today.

its a proven fact girls do better at school when clothed Did they try naked schooling!?

i also plan to go around dropping bricks in to the backs of boys trouser that are worn anywhere below the hips

chicken skin doesn't even look good on chickens

you laugh, but i lived in essex in the winter!

its a proven fact girls do better at school when clothed, so i would insist on a good length of clorhes for all students for their own benefit regardless of sex.

Not for the benefit of "boys who can't help themselves". I don't think most teenagers are prepared to choose common sense clothing over fashion so the decision should be taken out of their hands for school.

those boys are sleeze bags and will be so regardless of girls clothing. those kinds of comments just take the blame off the person it belongs to

oh thinking about it i may have asked you before.

(southern ish part here)

Personally I think the male teacher who told DD off for the length of her skirt should be teaching not looking at a 15y legs. Yes. I've noticed people's eyes wandering. I wear short skirts when I feel like it and can certainly notice that.

Has anyone read Persepolis? There's a strip(? What's a couple of frames of comic?) where the religious police caught up with Marjane when she was running for the bus. They said she shouldn't wiggle her bum so, and she told them they should not be eyeing her arse. The principle applies, I think.

YANBU
All discussions of school uniform seem to end up back with girls trousers being too tight or their skirts being too short.

Personally I think the male teacher who told DD off for the length of her skirt should be teaching not looking at a 15y legs.

(DDs skirt is shorter than the rules, 100% of the girls skirts are, but not that short)

I think you need to separate several issues:

1 - make sure that the code, whatever it is, is equal and is objectively expressed. I have come across this problem at work - in summer, managing young barely dressed women, I would have liked a code to point to that said "no bare shoulders" or something, cross-gender, instead of the STUPID DEMEANING AND POINTLESS email sent by a male member of staff to the whole company saying that women should not dress "temptingly" . So if long, knee-length wide shorts are allowed in sober prints or solid colours, then define this very clearly and do not leave open questions as to what is "appropriate" or "tempting" or "beach wear" (you can wear anything on a beach if you want). And try to make it apply across the sexes. It may be that girls are more given than boys to wear backless tops, but you can just forbid backless tops for everyone. If you allow knee length skirts, be prepared for boys to wear them though! (I see nothing wrong with this)
Offer to write it yourself and present it for comments / approval

2 - enforce the code objectively and equally. If it is written properly there is no need to turn a blind eye to this rather than that, or waffle about the "spirit as opposed to the letter of the law". Write the damn thing properly so the letter stands up - and then enforce it.

3 - address sexual harrassment as a separate issue

At our primary school, in Australia, the girls HAVE to wear shorts under their dresses in case the boys see their knickers. I don't like it as knickers are already to protect your modesty.

How far will it go? Bloomers to stop people seeing your shorts?

The next school along, has banned dresses altogether.

MyHumps, the northern part.

scone whereabouts in florida?

(nosy)

I had the same question regarding shorts. To me Bermuda shorts are close to knee length and "short shorts" are really short. I live in Florida where many high school students are allowed to wear shorts, but the rules are the same for all (Bermuda-ish styles). Equality is the key issue, I think.

And this of course: Because blaming the boy's behaviour on what the girls wear is victim blaming.

I lived in France as a child (last few years of primary school) and depsite wearing t-shirt/shorts or jeans/jumper type clothing I used to get grabbed/touched up etc and the problem was most definitely the boys' attitudes rather than what I was wearing.

I absolutely agree that it's the boys who need to be dealt with and the clothing rules need to be applied fairly across both sexes.

I agree that the comments made by the head were appallingly victim blaming.

On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with requiring fairly modest dress in all pupils. There are settings where revealing clothing is not socially appropriate - and I'd put workplaces and schools into that category.

The rules should be gender neutral though. If boys wear bermuda shorts then girls should be permitted to wear skirts and shorts of a similar length.