Sexism in education

Tey introduced trousers at high school when I ent in the 90,s most chose to where skirts. My daughter chooses to where skirts rather then the trousers at her school too. She plays rugby and football but she is quite girly so these are not her thing. (Boys don,t play netball though.)

Thr English Lit. curriculum my son followed at GCSE consisted of all male writers:
Shakespeare, Othello
An Inspector Calls, J.B.Preistly,
War poets, mainly Seigfreid Sassoon
Dickins, Christmas Carol.
I thought it was odd because there are so many good female novelists, but I heard somewhere that they were trying to interest boys more in English by choosing male themes.

We should probably also look at toilet policies.

Many girls are getting urine infections as a result of not drinking in school because of being refused access to toilets in lessons.

And of course there have been cases that have made the news where girls have bled through their clothing on account of being refused access to toilets.

Lack of pockets in blazers for girls, they have tiny pockets.
Used to calm disruptive boys through seating plans.
Lack of girls in STEM, I have a son in 6th form and there are no girls doing computing at all, v physics 1/5th girls and 1/6th girls in maths.
Such a lot of girls are doing options like photography (which in itself is not a bad thing but if taken to degree level, there are more photography graduates every year in uk than photographers working in the business across the whole of Europe).

I don't know how to phrase this but I think some behaviour schemes at a primary level are about boy's behaviour and not about girls.

But girls behave badly too - just in different ways. I am thinking about bullying between girls and the huge impact it can have on a girls day.

I am finding this difficult to explain as why would expecting boys to behave like civilised humans be a negative to girls education because obviously we need the boys to be civilised! But there is something going on. Girls cannot simply be perfect and boys terrible. So where is the scheme that supports social interactions between girls by rewarding / sanctioning more typically female 'bad' behaviours.

The school I used to work in does not allow girls to wear trousers. I always thought that was prity outragous.

I would have hated being forced to wear trousers. I am busty with curvy hips, wearing a skirt helped me hide my bum and hips. I had enough issues with people staring at, and talking about my breasts, I didn't need tight trousers highlighting my backside as well. The boys in our sixth form used to grope our bums, especially when girls wore trousers. The school was all girls except for the 6th form

Also, when on my period I preferred to wear a skirt and thick tights. I always worried people would notice the shape of my pad in the school uniform trousers. If I leaked a bit into my tights it was easy to change them - I always carried a spare pair in my bag.

I still wear skirts and dresses on my period mostly wear skirts and dresses to work. I only wear jeans at the weekend and some casual Fridays.

At school we had to do PE in tiny shorts, which we hated. They weren't far off hot pants. We were allowed to wear a skirt over them for some activities like tennis and netball, but running was always outside in winter in tiny shorts. A lot of gardens backed onto the school field, as did a pub and hospital, so people could easily see us outside in these tiny shorts. It had to be extremely cold before we were allowed to wear tracksuit bottoms. At least gym was indoors!

Our school split into ‘houses’ recently.

Three named after men. One after a woman. But they’d included a white man, a black man and a gay man, so they patted themselves on the back for inclusivity anyway. I know they did, because I protested (too mildly) that a 50:50 split would be better and that’s the answer I got.

Jesus jelly, that was only 10 years ago?!

Skimming th eg bread and can't see it; on the back of the bbc prog no more boys and girls, the GEC was set up tackling gender stereotypes.

Somewhere there's a breakdown of the sexes and the subjects they take at gcse; and a level, very obviously divided by gender/sex but unclear why.

Not sure if it's exactly what you want but it's clear that sexist approaches have impact.

thegec.org/

I did a PGCE about 10 years ago. One of the topics we covered was 'How boys and girls learn differently', which was just lots of stereotypes about how boys like to learn practically and need to move around and like non-fiction.... I truly hope this isn't being taught anymore but there are lots of teachers from my cohort still around and teaching in schools.

Leggings and skinny jeans seem to just fit better. It's not the end of the world if they are a little on the large/long side

Unlike other styles where you trip over them

I never wear dresses either unless its an wedding or a funeral and that's only because I seem to have a body shape which means that by the time they get over ny hips arse and thighs they are massive round the waist and fall down . Legs always trail across the floor.

Both my dds seem to have the same issue where they are long in the body but have short legs. Dd1 hates skirts. However finding trousers that fit her is a nightmare. I see alot of men on skinny Jeans round here. Dd1 likes them because finally theres a pair that doesnt trail along the floor and get soggy/ frayed.

Dd2 wears trousers to school but that's only because I buy her skinny trousers as for primary we can get away with it. The more " normal" style trousers not only make them look like they are wearing nappies with the excess material around the arse and crotch they appear to have never been anywhere near a child/girl in their design_construction. You cabt ride a bike or run when the knees dont bend properly and the seam threatens to slice you in half lengthways.

All dd1s friends are the same. Wont catch them dead in a skirt outside of school but good luck finding trousers that fit

I remember my first pair of trousers in 6th form as that was when they allowed you to. They didnt fit at all but I wore them out of principle

Our girls school started trousers recently, very few girls wear them, they don’t last well in terms of size and they get holes in them when you crawl around in bushes. I agree that forcing girls into trousers along with encouraging them to play football is just pushing everyone to default male. If you want to fix the problem at its root then deal with the behaviour of the boys. Do you think the young girls in single sex school care about people seeing their pants when they crawl through the bushes? We tolerate boys pointing and staring with no comment - that is what needs to change.

@SarahTancredi - those are all good points (although as a teenager, I can categorically say that if I'd been able to wear trousers when on my period I would have been a LOT happier as finding ways to ensure my sanpro was snug and comfortable without any additional layers being visible under my skirt was pretty hard. Admittedly, in my day, wearing shorts/leggings etc under skirts was not acceptable visually so perhaps it's different for teenagers now).

I'm still struggling with this one myself because I agree - the fact that unisex tends to be default male and taking away choices from girls feels wrong. But, in THIS case, the reason I'm leaning that way is because

1. trousers (done properly - you're totally right about crappy fit/ style etc) are less likely to lead to the girls having modesty issues and therefore choosing not to run/play/take part
2. I WANT girls to be choosing skirts by choice but I am deeply suspicious that it's peer pressure. DD is 5. She wears trousers and leggings at home a lot. She loves a dress/skirt but doesn't wear them all the time. But she point blank refuses to wear trousers for school because she says that it's not as "pretty"?! WTF?

But I haven't come down on a definitive answer as yet. I struggle with the girls clothing thing overall. eg, I'll defend to the death a girl/women's right to wear what she likes and if that shows her body that's up to her and you better not dare to shame her for that. However, I'm equally troubled by the fact that we seem to bring up girls to think the default way to dress is to wear tight/short clothes. Eg, default trousers for girls are leggings, leggings or skinny jeans. Why is that? When I see groups of teenagers the boys are usually wearing t-shirts (style varies from slim cut to baggy), hoodies, jeans. The girls are almost always wearing skin tight jeggings/leggings and little boob tubes with their bellies exposed. I am thrilled they are comfortable with that. And very concerned that it's the default.

It also highlights how unisex is always default male.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that CHOICE in school uniform shouldn't be a thing and that girls and boys should both be restricted to trousers/shorts. Simply because social pressure means that the girls tend to wear skirts, even when it's not necessarily their preference. Skirts at school are entirely impractical for reasons from sitting on floor during assemblies, playing in playground, walking up and down stairs etc

Thay immediately makes things harder for girls though. Skirts are easier for many when it comes to periods. You can layer up with shorts and you dont get the bulges if you have to double up or whatever on sab pro. What schools deem as acceptable trousers for school ars also the worst ones to find to fit should you have dared hit puberty but still are short and there are far to many instances of sporty girls being accused of wearing skinny trousers for having more muscular thighs.

Its removing options for girls and making their lives more difficult.

I think the football/playground thing is a huge thing and in the context of what your'e looking for, you must read that chapter in Invisible Women. The basic premise is that to prevent this domination of playgrounds, the idea is that girls should be encouraged to play football - ie to conform to the male stereotype.

I recently discovered that boys at DC' school are not allowed football on the playground at playtime and am THRILLED.

Still on football, because fewer girls sign up for football, at our school, girls football is practiced on the somewhat dodgy playground while the boys go to proper astroturf facilities a 5 minute walk away. I appreciate that with a small group the facilities on the premises are probably acceptable but the point is that the boys are getting a much better experience because it's convenient.

I'm increasingly of the opinion that CHOICE in school uniform shouldn't be a thing and that girls and boys should both be restricted to trousers/shorts. Simply because social pressure means that the girls tend to wear skirts, even when it's not necessarily their preference. Skirts at school are entirely impractical for reasons from sitting on floor during assemblies, playing in playground, walking up and down stairs etc.

DDs school is pretty good but I had to take the inequality of the football teams up with the sports dept. The boys football was well resourced and supported but the girls was a bit of an after thought , they didn’t have kit or even a proper coach. I Did manage to get this changed and I also got the school to stop referring to “Football” and “Girls Football” and now it’s “Boys Football” and “Girls Football” but I faced a lot of eye rolling and the sports dept vanishing when we they saw me coming for quite some time first.

One of the things I hated when my DD was in primary was that at playtime, a lot of the boys used to play football. It would take up a huge amount of the playground, and it was impossible to walk across it in case you got hit by the ball. So girls would end up huddled in corners.

That’s an interesting point about minorities but then they are minorities rather than 52% of the population. The American civil rights movement was given airtime but not the Suffragette movement, Gandhi got a place as well. I think we are actually better at discussing racism than sexism especially when the race movements are lead by men. Other minority groups - disability and sexuality are absolutely hidden in the curriculum but is it wrong to start with objections to leaving out half our population?