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?

Were none of you ever 15?

What do they wear for PE? We had rules on skirt length and then had to spend the morning running round the field in "athletic knickers" or tiny netball skirts.

I agree that teenagers are a law unto themselves. It's a phase ....in a few years will soon realise that a skirt that short is doing them no favours in the arse/leg department and then one day they'll be mothers too ha ha

I see them about and instantly think "how on earth can they wear that?!", then have to stop and remember my school skirts, never mind short, mine had a slit up the thigh too

They're only legs - does seeing an extra 3 inches of them really make so much difference you want kids sent home from school?

6th formers in suits - eurghhhh

That's the easiest way to distinguish public (state) school girls from private here in Sydney if you don't recognise the uniform. Public schools = skirts to their bums in true Neighbours style, private schools send them home for inappropriate dress. Harsh but true.

I really don't understand why schools don't just ban skirts all together. Girls don't need to wear skirts at all [although of course should be free to wear them outside of school in their own time.]It would certainly save a lot of time.

Another one here who thinks they should all wear trousers.

MY dd is 4, so no battles about short skirts - she wears a little pinafore just below her knees - and as soon as she sits on the carpet to play you can see her pants. I really don't see why little girls should have the option of either showing off their pants or 'sitting elegantly'.

Ooooh I'm getting angry even typing about it. They are there to LEARN and PLAY and get filthy and arrrrggghhhhh at 4 years old my dd is ALREADY put at a deliberate disadvantage to the boys in the class who get to run and leap and squat and lounge and be 4 year olds in their sensible, comfortable trousers or shorts.

It was getting bad at my school - especially for poor male teachers who have to walk upstairs behind girls whose skirts didn't even cover the top bits of their tights - so they brought in a "knee-length skirts only" rule and enforced it rigorously for a week or so. Result: about 1% of girls wear skirts now and they all look much smarter.

Only skirts allowed at dds school. But oddly they are supposed to be just on the knee (of course they all roll them up) - rules specifically forbid below the knee which I find odd.

I do keep telling dd that having your skirt stop at the fattest part of your legs is not flattering to anyone but she ignores me of course - she is still at the age where it is more important to wear the same as everyone else rather than what suits her....

Trousers trousers trousers trousers.

The entire debate is beyound ludicrous (not MN debate, the question of skirts).

And while were at it, how about a bit of cultural adjustment so that girls aren't constantly bombarded with the idea that cool girls look like prostitutes?

When my daughters were younger, I got increasingly depressed and angry that the only party or "smart" clothes you could buy that didn't look like a paedophile's rape fantasy were from Mini Boden, and the postman must have got fed up with the endless parcels. And that before before sexualised underwear, etc. And I thought: maybe, somewhere, there's a man who buys his daughter's clothes, but the vast majority of clothes for girls (and, I suspect, boys) are bought by women. So why the hell are they simultaneously getting more and more hysterical about paedophiles on every street corner from whom their daughters needs must be protected, whilst also dressing their children in ugly, impractical clothes designed solely for the leery pleasure of sexual inadequates?

The premature sexualisation of girls is a horrible social problems. But it's not something that mothers can escape responsibility for. Those horrible clothes in shops that make your daughter look like something of out Nabokov: just who's paying for them, eh?

I've worked in two schools, one uniform - girls had the option to wear a maroon skirt or beige cord trousers - all sold from the school. Most opted for the trousers! Every lesson started with - Where are your shoes? take your trainers off etc

I now work in a school with no uniform. As a teacher, it is nice to be able to teach, and not spend your time picking up uniform misdemeanours. Most of the girls wear jeans or tracksuit style/yoga pant trousers - even in summer. Problem mostly sorted!
The occasional girl who turns up mid summer in a tiny (almost bikini) top and hot pants gets sent home.

Quite.

Although I would add that peer pressure does play quite an enormous part.

(Quite was to Tokyo)

Problems equally with no uniform - one friend of mine was bankrupted by her daughter's need to fit in with the rest of the pack..And no, she couldn't be different and proud, because she got bullied.

"Although I would add that peer pressure does play quite an enormous part."

There's a lot of mothers who want their girls to be women as soon as possible, though. And not women in a good way, either. Little girls are dressed as potential sex objects from a very early age, and it's not men doing it. I've tried to understand the rationale, but I really can't.

where we are all the skirts are floor lenth at every school in area and only available from one shop .

Though im hoping dd grows before she needs to wear as there going to drown her

round - are you somewhere in Pennsylvania?

oh and at her school atm its skirts dresses or trousers she prefers trousers but am dreading it as grows up ,And have overheard ds1 and ds2 talking about girls and short skirts

Chipping, in at least one case the poster is talking about being able to see the girl's thong (and not the top of the thong, either). Which, unless I paid even less attention in A-level Biology than I remember doing, isn't just legs.

what i don't understand is why the staff do not enforce their uniform policy.

this is about the sexualisation of young girls, the parents who know the girls are doing this - wtf ? why are you letting them?

the schools that are letting this trend continue, letting girls think that dressing in a sexual manner and getting that kind of attention is good - wtf? whyare they letting this happen

dd wore trews to school. i bought them. she wore them.

I used to do it, then my stupid schooll switched to a unisex uniform.

It isn't new. i think I mostly did it to annoy people.

My dd tells me that they wear their pe shorts under the skirts so they're not revealing all. DD is year 7 and not yet bold enough to roll hers, but I'm sure she will. I adapted my school uniform and it's what you do at that age. I will so everything I can to stop her making it thigh length though.

In Plymouth I saw a girl of about 15 walking around with a bare bottom.
She had one of those little tutu frills on, but as she was very chubby it had ridden right up behind.
If she was wearing even a thong it did not show; what showed was an entirely bare bottom.
It was about midday on a Saturday, town full of shoppers.
The high schol girls here all wear skirts so short it is shocking, and yes, I was 15 once.
WE did not go to school with our pants on show.

BuntyPenfold 'WE did not go to school with our pants on show.'

I did, but Mum would only ever buy me granny knickers. So they were not very exciting pants.

Morloth I bet some men thought they were exciting enough.
It was all girls at my school. A really daring thing to do was to take off your tie - on the way home.