Policing women’s clothes or reasonable expectation?

Now that’s a policy worth challenging - why can’t the girls wear the supermarket pleated skirt, same as the boys wear supermarket trousers?

Uniform rules are uniform rules though 🤷‍♀️

Can girls wear trousers? If so, I’m guessing the girls in slacks got waved straight through? Same as boys? If so it’s skirts that are policed, rather than girls.

My DD goes to an all girls school with the same rules re skirt length, however, at her school girls regularly get sent home for wearing skirts too long and the wrong style (ankle length, not pleated) because wearing short pleated skirts just isn’t a trendy thing there (lots of the girls are Muslim).

I’m all for petitioning to change the rules, can’t see why our school can’t offer a uniform long skirt as well as the current choice of knee length skirt or trousers.

if your daughter objects to the school rule or the way it is enforced then encourage her to start a petition and get the rule changed to one that she and her cohort are happy to agree too. Or break the rule as an organised day of protest rather than try and slide past the rules daily.

You can’t wear a miniskirt at most jobs (nightclubs or goth shops excepted) but adults don’t tend to need that policing, especially not in this weather!

@SorryAuntLydia well we take very different views on this because I personally don't see young women dressing in short skirts as a middle finger to patriarchy and find it absolutely baffling that that's now considered a feminist view.

However, since you seem open to a discussion how about some questions. If it were up to you, where would your line be on what girls can wear to school? Can they wear crop tops and hot pants? Bikinis in hot weather? Nothing at all, if they want to? If not, why not? And if you do draw a line there, are you then part of the patriarchy policing girls bodies?

The difference being a work place would find themselves in court if they herded up all the female staff and separated them based on their clothing. The issue is not the school uniform policy, it’s how they’re treating the girls in order to police it.

Your dd is going to have to cope with a working world where you can't wear whatever you want and your clothing choices need to fit dress codes and appropriacy to the situation. I wouldn't for example turn up to work with my cleavage on show or a skirt that just about covers my bum, particularly as my job often involves working with people from faiths and cultures where that would be offensive. I wouldn't turn up for work in jeans on a formal day and expect that my personal self expression is all that matters.

I don't care what people wear, males in skirts, yada yada. I do care that it's appropriate to the situation, which is respecting other people and the situation. That's the part getting lost in the 'don't police me, it's cool to abandon boundaries'. Baby and bathwater. Hence we now live in a world where the guy turning up to work as a teacher with false boobs to his waist and nipples on clear show, is wailing about don't step on my vibe.

They also did this at my DCs school. Where the school skirt costs £25 and is only available from one supplier, the boys trousers can be bought from a supermarket. The skirt only comes in one length per waist measurement, so if you are tall and skinny you have to chose between meeting the school on the knee length or it falling off at the waist - it's got an adjustable elastic waist button but no belt loops or anything. It's beyond archaic. In the last couple of years the girls have been allowed 'tailored' trousers but most of July and September's emails from school talk about the bloody skirts.

Then you hear about other schools where the girls are being policed for wearing leggings not trousers - or that boy in the Daily Mail last week with his prize winning mullet - and I'm very glad I'm not a teacher.

I can see your POV and it’s one that my DDs would agree with.

However, I’ve also seen what Givemepickles described in their PP. If you don’t wear your skirt short, according to my DDs, then you’re going to be seriously looked down on. There’s an awful lot of peer pressure you’d have to ignore.

Having a policy and enforcing it means that the ‘square’ kids can comply and not be (quite so often) picked on. If you have a uniform for a school then make it so, in the sense of imposing uniformity, otherwise just go for casual clothes… and watch how much of a social minefield THAT becomes.

It's nothing like Iranian women, how insulting to them. Your DD can go out in a belt if she likes whenever she wants, just not in school where there is a policy. You agreed to the policy at the time and it's a reasonable one. There is a lot of pressure on young women to conform. Some will want to wear their skirt longer but not feel able to because all the other girls wear it short. Uniforms keep everyone the same with no peer pressure interfering. Perhaps the school should have measured in a classroom but then some parents would say why are they doing it in secret. This ensures parents know what's happening and why.