Headteacher bans skirts as if too short they 'put girls at risk'

Girls are exploring their sexuality at that age, but it's perfectly fine to ask them to stick to boring clothing during school hours.
NID SHOE FASIWN YW'R YSGOL! my homeroom teacher used to screech at us.. err, which means "School is not a fashion parade!".

All the headmaster had to do was say something similar. WHy did he have to go on about schoolgirls putting themselves 'at risk' of perverts by what clothes they wear? If you're worried about that completely separate issue, then as dittany says, create a zero tolerance rule for leering and touching, etc

I don't really see what the big deal is. It isn't appropriate for young girls to be wearing very short skirts in school.

The head teacher is obviously sick to the back teeth of dealing with the problem and has decided this is the solution.

I agree with the concern about the sexualisation - and both goldenticket anf noblegiraffe articulate that well.

Dh and I have both commented - negatively - about Girls Aloud videos/concerts at the degree of sexualisation that is being paraded (and I use that word deliberately) in front of a target audience of young girls. Some of acts/song routines are bordering on the pornographic - graphic at the very least. And we are not prudes by any means.

My concern is that there doesn't seem to be any balance in the headmaster's comments: he has put the entire onus on the girls and the messages that they (supposedly) are sending out and none on the boys/men for reacting to these supposed meesages.

I agree with noblegiraffe about the practical reasons against short skirts (inadverently showing knickers) - but those aren't the reasons that he gave.

teenage girls do shorten theri skirts ( and it's been this way for a long time) becuase they do like to
a) fit in with peers
b) an act of exploring their growing sexuality.

We shouldn't put a negative context to the latter. We shouldn't apportion blame to girls or infer it in any way.

What a head teachers duty should be, is to ensure that school is not a place to disregard uniform policy and openly explore sexualised behaviour. School is primarily for learning

So whilst i agree with the descision. i think this should have been done without the apportionment of blame and 'rape' aspect

hear hear - golden ticket.

I do not wear skirts above the knee to work. It is not because I fear that my male colleagues will not be able to restrain themselves. It is because I feel entitled to be respected as a professional - and I dress in a way that broadcasts my confidence in my skills and contribution. I expect my daughter's school uniform to put across the same message: "I'm here to learn".

No because he thinks that changing what girls wear will remove the problem, goldenticket. AS others have said, change the uniform to trousers by all means, but if you claim that skirts "put girls at risk" he is avoiding the real issue of sexual harrassment and assault. IME skirts are pieces of fabric, they never catcall and rarely grope passers-by.

"subliminal signals" FGS - Er, Headmaster dude, if they don't realise what signals they're sending out, maybe they're not "sending them out" at all? Maybe it's in the eye of the beholder.

Girls wear short skirts IME to look like their friends, to cheekily subvert the boredom of school uniform, and possibly in the hope that Jake in 12A will think they look fit. They are not doing it because they want Skeevy Headmaster to think they look totally hawt, or to impress the generality of boys and men with how they're up for it.

This kind of fucked up thinking is totally prevalent still, it's unbelievable. Because women in Afghanistan are totally protected from sexual assault aren't they? Oh no, wait, it's just been enshrined in law. Two seconds of thinking proves that changing what a woman or girl is wearing does not prevent sexual assault. If people can tell you're a woman, you're at risk from some blokes, wheter you're wearing a micro-mini or a sack.

Hmm, my instinct when I first heard about this was pretty much the same as the OP's i.e. how very dare he? But my understanding is this affects girls in Yrs 7-10 i.e. 12-15 year old children. Just reading through the "let girls be girls" MN campaign, I tend to think that this falls under the same remit i.e. children are feeling pressurised to dress in a sexualised way.

From the campaign:

◦In 2007, a study by the American Psychological Association found that: "Sexualisation has negative effects in a variety of domains, including physical and mental health, and healthy sexual development." Possible ongoing effects identified by the research include: low self-esteem, poor academic performance, depression, and eating disorders such as anorexia. The report also warned that sexualisation may contribute to the prevalence of paedophilia.

◦A 2008 study by Girlguiding UK and the Mental Health Foundation found that premature sexualisation and pressure to grow up too quickly are two "key influences" in the anxiety felt by girls.

◦The Mental Health Foundation said: "Girls and young women are being forced to grow up at an unnatural pace in a society that we, as adults, have created and it's damaging their emotional well-being. We are creating a generation under stress."

So isn't the Head Teacher doing what we are asking retailers to do? Or am I missing something?

As a teacher, I know it is easier to get in contact with parents and tell them that skin-tight fashion trousers their daughter is wearing are unsuitable for school and could they please buy some tailored ones than it is to persistently try to get the girls to keep their skirts a decent length. Even if you get them to unroll them in front of you, you know that they're only going to roll them up again as soon as they leave the classroom.

And for people banging on about how the male teachers shouldn't be harassing the poor female students...as a female teacher I am fed up of catching sight of girls' knickers. When you are stood at the front of a class and they are all sitting facing you, you can't help but sometimes get a view that you'd rather not. I feel sorry for my male colleagues who, if faced with this have the added pressure that they might be accused of something unsavoury if they tell the girls to sort it out.

The girls themselves may be unaware that they are flashing more than they intend.

HerBeatitude, I think his reasoning is sexist, but the result is anything but - all members of the school wear the same uniform and it is appropriate work wear. I could certainly support that.

I fail to see why the onus is on the girls to not dress 'provocatively', although I agree that the school could enforce a strict uniform policy (ie no shortening skirts or whatever).

How hard is that to implement? My school did. we even had to wear regulation socks fgs!

But why deny girls choice? I would have chosen a skirt given a choice, I just think they look smarter. And we had no boys at school to 'attract' anyway!

On the radio I heard the headteacher (I tihnk) justifying the ban becasue the girls "don't realise that they are giving off subliminal messages"

I agree with those that have said that he should be doing more to address the males' (I was going to say "boys'" but realised he could also be concerned about the teachers) attitudes - inclusing his own - that the wearing of short skirts is automatically a subliminal message saying "I'm fair game"

What is he going to do when the girls start wearing skin tight trousers?

As someone said, the logical extension of what he has said is that the girls should wear burqas - that way, they can't give off any messages

I think they are at risk of being seen as lightweight, irrelevant slappers - just at the point of their lives where we want our daughters to grow a backbone, and set themselves up as confident, intelligent women.

Teenage boys do make innuendo and lewd comments to teenage girls.

Clearly, at this school skirt shortening has become the mainstream.

Like I said, I went to a school with a large hippy and goth contingent. There were some very ballsy girls there - think combat trousers and facial piercings - that gave back as good as they got to the twunts who were passing round girly mags.

A compulsory dress code + 'compulsory' (i.e. you'll get teased if you don't) skirt shortening: looks vulnerable and available and not empowering the girls to brush off this kind of crap.

maktaitai, there is no way I would support a sexist policy in school, anymore than I would support a racist one. There should be no place in schools for racism or sexism.

Riven, schools could tackle sexual harrassment exactly the same way as they do racial harrassment - with policies of zero tolerance.

I think one problem is that short skirts in the adult world are worn by

a) women who are trying to look sexy and atract a chap, or
b) women who want to follow fashion and look good, and are quite confident in their ability to tell a man who interprets it as a come-on / license to molest that it's not.

Neither of which group we can reasonably expect a school girl to fall into.

ergo, banning mini skirts until the sixth form seems wuite reasonable to me.

i partly agree with the mainstream of the thread but LOL about it not being appropriate to wear gymslips to school, gymslips being surely the original school uniform?

Nostalgia for my school where our constant fight was to be able to wear trousers. I reacted to having to wear skirts by wearing an unbelievably old cotton dress of my sister's which was ankle length but so worn out that it was completely transparent and full of holes. Large chunks of my torso and legs were visible.

In the end, however, despite the obvious problems with his reasoning, I sympathise too much with head teachers having to impose a dress code of some kind (even in non-uniform schools) and think that all parents should support the head teacher without exception if they want their child at the school, provided nothing illegal or actively dangerous is going on.

Why are people confusing the fact that:

1. girls not wearing short skirts is a good thing for everyone (everyone agrees on this: girls are in school to study)

and

2. the fact this is a good thing has nothing whatsoever to do with them 'being at risk'. That's just the worryingly sexist projection of a headmaster's fantasy/blame issues and the way he sees teenage girls.

"I expect school to be a 'safe' place, with regards to unwanted sexual attention "

Me too.

The way to make girls safe, is to make sure that boys and male teachers aren't allowed to harrass them.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I don't think that the school is at all saying 'if you wear a short skirt you are asking to be raped'. I think they are saying 'rolling up school skirts demeans you'.

I have to agree - and I don't think young inexperienced teenagers under the influence of peer pressure are in the best position to understand these things. I expect school to be a 'safe' place, with regards to unwanted sexual attention - and I would support a uniform that resisted 'tarting up'.

As a kid, I refused to go to my local catholic school. Every morning at the bus stop there'd be a gaggle of girls with their rolled up kilts getting leered at by the lads. It made the school seem like a meat market. I went to my local no-uniform comp, and enjoyed wearing mismatched DocMartens and hippy skirts!

I think it is sexist that boys wear trousers and girls wear skirts. The school uniform should be the same.