Should I raise this with School?

I find trousers restrictive and uncomfortable. I am pear shaped with a high waist and basically there are no trousers out here that will fit me and not gape at the waist, drop etc. It's so annoying and distracting. I feel very comfy and free with skirts and dresses and manage to lead a normal not opressed life.

I used to work on this project (or a similar one - do you live in Manchester?). The leaders won’t pick her to demonstrate in a role play with a skirt on but that’s all. I agree with you though OP.

I wouldn't take it as the school are expecting her to wear "school uniform trousers", just any old trousers (eg jeans, leggings, whatever). No reason she can't wear leggings with her school shirt and jumper.

Just send her in trousers or leggings that she already has at home, so she doesn't need to worry about being the only one who gets excluded from a very worthwhile activity because her mum made her wear a skirt to prove a point.

Strange - two paragraphs of my post vanished!

I said that I didn’t understand the ‘perineal fallout’ thing, because why wouldn’t our underwear contain all the hazardous material our perineums emit.

I also suggested that @Paraballa ask the school to allow girls who don’t have school trousers to take a pair of non-uniform trousers to change into. This doesn’t tackle the inherent sexism, but might make things easier for kids whose parents can’t afford a pair of school trousers at no notice,

@butteryellow - when I was a theatre nurse (back in the 80s) we were told that, if we chose to wear a dress instead of scrubs, we had to wear tights to prevent ‘perineal fallout’! I kid you not - they thought that our perineums would shed matter that could be an infection risk to the patients.

There’s a reason nurses/carers generally wear more practical trousers and tops these days - not dresses. You’re very possibly over thinking this. Dies your daughter wear a dress when doing PE?

Doesn't she have any trousers from last winter? It's not going to matter if they're ankle freezers.

In your daughter's situation I do take the point others have raised about the girls concentrating better if they feel more comfortable in the clothes they are wearing.

Sorry to derail but here's an article about bystanders being less likely to give CPR to women ...www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/news-from-the-bhf/news-archive/2019/may/women-less-likely-to-receive-bystander-cpr-than-men-research-shows

Did the school specify they have to be school trousers though? Because I wouldn't read "please wear trousers for this one occasion" as specifying they had to be any particular type.

This interested me. It's funny because I now live in leggings and jogging/Pyjama bottoms at home but I used to hate, and I mean really hate, wearing trousers. Until my late twenties I only wore skirts or dresses. In winter I'd wear lovely thick tights.

I did a first aid course at brownies in a skirt. We all wore skirts actually. No problems at all. Longish flared skirts surely won't ride up?

As has already been pointed out, it makes sense for them to be taught to be prepared to use first aid in an everyday situation - when they'd be wearing whatever they normally wear.

I’ve been on 2 first aid courses and both specifically said not to wear skirts
Yabu

I don't see it as sexualisation so much as practicality. Being able to move around a casualty and administer CPR, being a casualty without worrying about flashing your knickers isn't sexualising girls, it's wearing appropriate clothing for the very practical activity.

On my soapbox, but PLEASE buy your daughter trousers so she at least has a choice. The fact is that girls and women move differently in skirts, even in free moving pleated ones you've always got a little part of your brain focused on keeping it in place. The embodied result of what you wear has an effect on your mind and thought processes- little girls in skirts learn to take up less space than those wearing trousers. Don't get me wrong I do wear skirts but I feel passionately that everybody should be aware that it teaches girls and women behaviours that are not empowering.

What LetsSplashMummy said. I would think the clothing request has come from the hospital. They are obviously massively strict about safeguarding, these courses often have male HCPs - nurses/paramedics doing the training. It's probably one of their standard risk assessments conditions.
It's great the hospital provides this service into local schools and your daughter is lucky to have this opportunity. Just send her in trousers. Borrow if necessary. Maybe the school has some lurking in lost property she could use.

my issue really is with how it's been phrased and the underlying current of "modesty" which is bullshit

I don't see an underlying current of 'modesty' from your opening post. I read skirts are not to be worn as they're unsuitable for role play on the floor as a practical consideration. Every first aid course I've been on (all with the Red Cross) has specified not just trousers but 'comfortable trousers such as jogging bottoms or yoga pants' and 'practical, flat shoes such as trainers'.

Also 10/11 year olds are not 'little' girls, at that age many are starting to go through puberty, some will have already started menstruating and more are uncomfortable potentially showing their knickers than not. Plus schools often specify trousers for outdoor activities and trips, it isn't a particularly unusual request.

If your daughter doesn't have any trousers at all could she not borrow a pair from a friend?

It could be that the people running the course do not want to be lifting the leg of young girls into the recovery position, touching their bare legs and risking any accusations.

There are really strict rules around this now, I can coach a water sport and we have to insist on wetsuits, in part so that I don't touch their skin. My husband can teach climbing and has to be very careful with how they put harnesses on. For us the rules apply to male and female coaches equally and male and female children equally. The difference is only girls might be wearing skirts.

I'm not sure this fight is the right direction, I'd instead argue for them to wear their own clothes that day that fit the remit- so girls aren't forced to buy uniform trousers they don't want.

I have wondered whether this obsession with not seeing a glimpse of knickers on young girls is part of the sexualisation of girls in general. The whole “modesty shorts” thing started in the US, I noticed them on the US Landsend website long before they became a thing here.
I was at Primary School in the seventies, we had no uniform , so wore dresses more in warm weather, we all did handstands and cartwheels, no one made us feel bad. We wore sturdy pants, we were children. In Winter we had thick tights on with skirts anyway, or trousers.
Surely it defeats the point of a cool, simple Summer dress if a girl has to wear hot cycling shorts underneath ?
I agree with you OP, your daughters clothes sound fine for this , she must do some things at school where they sit on the floor surely ?
Having to buy trousers for this one thing seems a bit high handed.

Nurses wear dresses and manage just fine

You're clearly very healthy and stay away from hospitals as nurses haven't worn skirts/dresses for at least 10 years!

I think the best question OP, is will your daughter mind if her classmates/trainers/teachers see her knickers? If not, fine make a stand and send her in a skirt.

If she will mind then for heavens sake just put her in some leggings

I agree with Raph and Jess. This is a physical, practical course.

And the training room floors in hospitals are not cleaned to the same standards as the operating theatres!

Just send her in trousers, she wants them anyway and they are more practical.

Honestly, not everything needs to be a war. Your poor kid. She wants rhe trousers, the school wants her to wear the trousers, and she likely doesn't want to be the only girl there in a skirt or some sort of war with the school started about it.

Just get her the trousers, then you book yourself on a first aid course and go in a skirt, knock your self out.

If a skirt is not practical for every single thing that she is likely to do in school, be it a trip like this or cartwheels in the playground, then it should simply be removed altogether. That is real equality and equity. Exactly.

Off topic but TIL that nurses in the UK wear dresses as uniform? I don’t think I’ve seen a skirt in a medical setting in my life.

And the uniform thing is ridiculous. I would suggest that if schools find the assigned uniform inappropriate for the required activities of the day, students should be allowed to wear street clothes on that day, as you say if skirt is an option some will choose it. Obvs.

why does society continue to advocate girls in skirts when doing practical things like this render them useless.

I'm not sure society does, so much as schools do.

Outside of school girls of 10/11 much more commonly wear trousers, at least round here they do.

so it's the bigger picture - why does society continue to advocate girls in skirts when doing practical things like this render them useless.

Whenever I see things like this I am reminded on the woman victim of the London Bridge attack, the last inquest, where it was shown that as she ran away from the attacker she feel on her high heels. Something that would never happen to a man. Why the FUCK do we continue to push clothing onto girls and women that put them at a disadvantage to men. WHY?

If a skirt is not practical for every single thing that she is likely to do in school, be it a trip like this or cartwheels in the playground, then it should simply be removed altogether. That is real equality and equity.