to think schoolgirls shouldn't wear short skirts?

[cruelladepoppins]

I mean really short, barely bum-covering, as I saw at our local senior school open day yesterday evening?

It was just indecent. Even with thick tights. Do the boys (and teachers) just look in another direction?

How do the girls run around, bend to pick something up etc?

I was talking to the mum of one of them, and she says she's dreading when they do their work experience this year, she just can't get her DD to understand a pelmet might not be appropriate for a workplace. They think it's OK because everyone wears them to school. I'm not kidding, I didn't see a single knee-length skirt, nor even a just-above-the-knee one.

I'm the mother of boys (oh-oh) - any mothers of girls out there care to defend the teeny-skirt idea?

Booboodebat - I am not sure which bit of your earlier post you want me to respond to?

However, men at work or school are subject to the same restrictive dress codes as women. This issue does not just apply to women. It applies to everyone at work or school. Your DD does not have to deal with it as a piece of nonsense. Just go along with it as you say in order to get where she wants to be.

When I worked in an office I wore a suit every day. It was expected and actually written in my contracts. Now I work at home I wear what I like but when I occassionally lecture I wear a suit - even though it is not in my contract. DW the same.

Occassionally, I and DW will wear a suit if we go out for lunch or a meeting together, depending on the setting and the circumstances.

Actually, surely quite a few of the kids doing well academically are the geeky/quirky ones who are also experimenting a bit with their clothes?

And in any case, I really don't think that revealing a spot of thigh is the sign of an Evil SexObsessed BookBurning Slut. I base this not simply on knowing AgonyBeetle's straight-A DD1 but also on girls like Inferiorettes' various babysitters. Who seem to combine very short skirts with an admirably studious attitude - in fact the one I'm expecting in half an hour is earning so that she can go on a school art trip to New York, although I gather she's a bit knackered from her Duke of Edinburgh trek last weekend.

And not all jobs require suits. On the occasions when I shamble forth from the Inferiority Complex, I don't wear a suit. In fact if I wore a suit to see the person I'm interviewing tomorrow it would be most off-putting for the poor woman. Seriously. It would erect a Barrier of Quasi-officialdom between us.

BeenBeta, you said: 'It is said that most people (male or female) for an instant impression of someone within 30 seconds of meeting them. I'll tell you exactly what I think when I see some of the 6th form girls at DSs school wearing something more appropriate for a nightclub. My first thought is that they are not serious players and did not come to school with a serious intention to learn.'

That is the kind of attitude she will have to Deal With and not take too seriously.

Also, many on this thread have pointed out that they themselves were serious academically despite their chosen dress, so saying that it is a 'key test of how serious they are about what they are at school for' is - in my opinion - misguided.

'Frankly, if a 6th former is not willing to turn up sensibly dressed they are not mature enough to do A levels or go to university. They may as well leave and go and work in a night club. Self expression and attracting the opposite sex (if that is the aim) should be done outside school.'

This is your most naive statement. Perhaps you were able to switch your libido on and off at will in your teens, but most girls and boys I would hazard are not. What the member of the opposite sex is wearing makes not one jot of difference as to how distracting they are, imo.

To reiterate, I agree that children should be guided to see the sense in dressing to a code to help themselves, but I hope my children won't view it in quite such a Daily Mail, thiscountryisgoingtothedogs way as you.

Booboo - you and others keep talking about attractiveness to the opposite sex. I am not.

What I am talking about is turning up at a job intervew or your first job and being taken seriously. Women have a tough time being taken seriously at work as it is. I'm just making the point that girls need to be told the brutal fact (while they are still at school) that how they dress has a big impact on how they will be perceived at work.

Pretending it doesnt matter or that girls/women should be allowed to wear what they like in any circumstances and especially at school or work is just naieve.

They can wear what they like outside school/work and be as attractive as they wish to the opposite sex there.

The difference between being at uni and being in school is that one is for adults the other is for children. Children do as they're told, well they should. That goes for what to wear to school.

This is where my private schooling came in
a)all girls
b)we had to kneel down and the end of our skirts had to touch the back of our calves
c)we had to wear gym pants under our skirts ANYWAY.

I think that girls at school are told that..I certainly was...didn't stop me wearing my uniform in the most non conformist way I could get away with..I got a job, as did my dds, admittedly not a suit wearing business type job,but a perfectly good and valid job non the less ..not everyone works on an office

I wouldn't class a 6th former as a child

Agree with making them wear trousers. They wear them this short in DS2's class (primary) which is yr 5 and 6 mixed He hasn't been there long and there's no way his old school would allow this.

Honestly I think some of you are mad. Does what YOU wore to school correlate with what you wore at work/interviews?

Mine certainly doesn't, and I was never especially outrageous.

Neither does any of my friends. The girls who deliberately wore neon bras under their white shirts managed to put on a suit for city interviews and get jobs just fine.

I'm not sure why people think teenagers are so stupid that they don't recognise the difference between school and getting away with being a bit daring, and work. Where hopefully you are appearing to do something you like for money.

I class being under 18 as a child, and a uniform isn't about keeping them distinguished as children, it's about formity. I think all kids in school (6th form or otherwise) should be in uniform and if they don't like it they can go to "drop out" college where they can wear what they like.

People can moan all they like, but I believe dressing a certain way encourages a certain type of behaviour.

I'm sure my old college (where I had pillar box red hair, a tongue piercing and 4 A's at A Level) would love to be described as 'drop out' college. They get a better average 'points per student' than all of the 6th forms in the local area. I wonder if its because they treat their students as adults rather than children?

My ds is doing very well at his drop out college, wearing his normal clothes and not a bloody suit,thank you very much

We looked around 2 grammar schools for DS and decided against one on the basis that the Head kept talking about the school and the pupils as if it was some sort of business and using all sorts of corporate jargon.

School is most definitely not a business. Most people don't work in a corporate office environment anyway. As others have said, most children in sixth form will go on to HE or some other kind of learning or training. They would look peculiar if they were dressed in a business style there.

The rule at DS's school is that sixth formers should dress in a style that is appropriate to a school in which much younger children are present. This seems right to me - it reflects the reality of the situation. You don't wear an offensive tshirt slogan to school not because you want to be seen as business like, but because you have concern for more vulnerable others in the environment you are actually in.

Most people, including most sixth formers are not so incredibly thick that they cannot understand that the clothes you wear to school, an office, a university, a war, a funeral and a Saturday job in a shop are all different to each other.

As for the idea that people might get the wrong impression if a schoolgirl is in a short skirt - well if she is wearing a uniform then the impression any person who didn't have criminal persuasions would get is that she is still in some sense a child as she is wearing a school uniform. It would make no difference to me if a 15 year old boy was wearing a tshirt with Jail Bait written on the front - I am not going to proposition him. I think people who do want to proposition children are insane and there is little we can do about such insanity by tackling the children not the perpetrators.

Also, the people who have said such girls will appear to paedophiles. I have never viewed child pornography and don't know what kind of outfit paedophiles like. I am surprised so many of you seem to have such knowledge of child sex offenders' preferences.

I'm usually Mrs Conservative and providing you can't see their knickers and they wear opaque matching tights a lot of them look lovely. I really don't have a problem with it. DD's school has a black skirt and most of the girls look beautiful in a short skirt with black tights. It all goes wrong though when they wear the short skirt with white ankle socks and an acre of white flesh in between. Worn elegantly I don't have a problem with it at all. Part of growing up into a beautiful and attractive young woman is knowing how to make the most of yourself.

trousers, trousers, trousers - would be practical and so much better.! But short skirts with thick tights isn't so bad. But, short skirts teamed with bare legs, heels, caked make-up, false eyelashes, an Amy Winehouse beehive or backcombe, and orange tan it's horrible and looks SLUTTY and yes I can't help thinking 'Hooker Look'.

school trousers for girls are nothing short of the devils weavings

My dds can choose between awful trousers (one length available) or a skirt which I think is OK but they hate (one length available). DD1 (shortarse) has sewed the pleat on the skirt closed and rolls it up. She wears trousers if it is cold. DD2 just folds it over, and refuses to wear the trousers as they make her ass weird. (True!) They have nice tracksuits, one day a week, which they like wearing and I'd be happy for them to wear all week. Ds managed to make it through school unscathed, and pass exams. I, on the other hand, had navy gym knickers, and one teacher who seemed to like that idea (and in the seventies we accepted that as normal).

My school said 'black, White, navy or school colours'

So I went the school colours route and had neon blue rights and an orange pinafore and docs with laces to match.

The head went ballistic and then realized she couldn't actually fault it- she just didn't think anyone would be daft enough to do it.

I was also told off for wearing shirts with huge billowy sleeves, a ruff, bondage trousers and silk loon pants. Not all at the same time obviously.

And before you say I'm showing my age, I'm 25, I was just a bit clothes mad as a teen.

The photos are awe inspiring/awful/cringeworthy

Out of interest, when did 'employment' become 'business' (in the genuflecting to Alan bloody Sugar sense of the word)? There are gazillions of jobssome of which you require long post-school periods of education and training for, some of which you don'twhere people are not expected to wear suits. In fact, there are loads of jobs where you'd look odd, or where it'd be completely inappropriate to wear a suit.

Having read this thread, I started to look at the skirt length of the kids round here. Many girls (at both the local state schools and the myriad private schools) wear short skirts and I don't find this remotely shocking. Most of the short skirts (at all types of school) stop about mid-thigh. The arse skimming variety are quite rare as far as I can tell. And all the girls wear thick, black tights. There's no flesh to be seen anywhere. Many of the girls look quite nice in their short skirts and tights (not at all sexualised, just pretty and girly. Certainly not anything that'd have me thinking 'whore' or any other nasty term used to devalue women). The sixth formers tend to wear jeans or leggings.

I really do think this is a lot of fuss over nothing.

Went to school concert last night and DW was shocked by two girls wearing the very short skirts, had thick tights but seemd to have forgoten to put on any proper top on. I was more distracted by the quite well endowed young lady with a very low cut blouse on sitting at the front of the orchestra. Meanwhile all the other players / singers seemed to have dressed in the appropriate dark trousers and bright tops. DS2 had blue shirt on.

It did detract somewhat from the otherwise very well organised and presented event.

I'm pleased I have sons. This is not a new problem, I'm 54 and we used to roll our skirts up very short once we had had the am check at 1" above knee. And we used to go half price on the train, put our make up on and then get into X rated films and in those days they would serve you in the local pubs at 13 if you said you were 18 .... not quite sure what all the fuss is about!

I am astonished over and over again by the effect the sight of breasts - either full or partial- has on MN posters, even during a concert performance!

All these breast obsessives remind me of the religious mother in Carrie who says the world can see her daughter's 'dirty pillows' and locks her in a cupboard.

In the words of Carrie, they're called breasts, and every woman has them.

When I went to school in the late 80s, it was thigh high pencil skirts, with big slits. Our school had a minimum skirt length and no slit policy.

When my DSis went to the same school, early 90s, it was the era of grunge and long skirts were fashionable (worn with converse out of school). Our school changed their policy to a MAXIMUM skirt length. No mention of splits.

I think the schools just do it because they can, to show who's boss.

FWIW, beyond covering primary sex organs, I don't think you should modify your dress because someone may think its not appropriate and I don't think schools should exhaust so much time enforcing dress code - because adolescents will devote much more energy and imagination to infringing it.

My DM brought me up to believe that what you dress like is your own business. That people do judge you IRL is not a reason for not sticking to that belief. I think it's disgusting that people on here think it's OK to call underage girls 'slappers' on the basis of them dressing like their peers. I think it's sexist as well. No-one gets in a tiz about boys walking round in board shorts.

The issue isnt girls showing their bums. Its men over sexualizing it. School uniform shouldnt make girls feel insecure (knee length skirts are very unflattering and make my daughter very insecure). Girls should be able to wear any length skirt as its their body, they arent a walking advertisement for sex.