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?

Morloth - that's true. Fighting each other is another one.

Isn't it just bright colours that signal lack of seriousness? Business suit in yellow on a man - not going to do it, is it?

Because everything has significance. So historically, and currently, the clothes identified with seriousness are dark suits and sombre hairstyles, but that is only in traditional industries. Look at the creative/ artistic/media industries, there those clothes would signify that you were dull, rigid and boring.

That's why the clothes that girls wear that are associated with "sluttish" mean that those girls are called "sluttish."

On another note, I think we are biologically designed to have babies in our teens (once puberty starts) and we have a mad hormonal urge to make every one want to impregnate us, currently the signals for this are the short skirt etc. Likewise boys do the showing off to demonstrate manly risk taking and braveness.

However, biological determinism is horribly out of fashion.

Alos, teenage girls are not women. Why do they have to dress like they work in offices? Can't they wait until they work in offices to dress in 'business dress'? shudders

I don't see why school uniform can't be more bloody sensible. What's wrong with jeans, t-shirt and sweater/cardigan? Why does it have top be all ties and blazers?

Poorly, school uniform is a hangover from Empire, it is ludicrous, agreed. Ties! FFS.

MaimAndKilloki - "Also why should women be judged on what they do or don't wear?"

I judge the boys are DSs school the same way. Those that turn up looking a mess and in non standard uniform are not serious either.

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.

I don't think HullyGully Will be placated untill everywoman is covered head to toe in grey cloth and dating is reduced to a man on his knees while the woman screams "I AM YOUR EQUAL!" while beating him around the face with a copy of "The Female Euneuch"

Er...okay then.

I would choose "backlash" for face beating tbh. It's 3 times as thick and the irony is delicious.

I chose DS's school precisely because it doesn't have a tie, and the high school it feeds to doesn't either. I can live with black trousers, a polo shirt and a sweatshirt. It's also the state school with the best results in the local area, so not wearing ties clearly doesn't do the kids any harm.

The 6th form all look perfectly fine to me in their own clothes. There is one boy with the most astoundingly ludicrous hair, though. It always makes my day when I see him on the school run. It's somewhere between a mohawk done horizontally on his head (rather than vertically) and a mullet. It must take him ages to tease it into position.

I do sometimes think that we have it all arse backwards at the moment.

Right now having a baby when you are at your physical best for it, late teens/early 20s makes it harder to get yourself sorted out for a career etc. So we do the career and then we are fighting nature later on to try and have our babies in our late 30s/early 40s.

Would make far more sense to be able to have some babies while you where young, spend time raising them and then be able to fly. The sort of cultural shift that would be required to make this a valid life choice though is so big I just can't see it happening.

Been Beta: Have you seen what students wear to university? I've taught plenty of students in pyjamas who went on to get very good firsts (at a very good university) and very good jobs.

With reference to a recent comment that BooBoo made repeated below:-

"They are naive children, and they need guidance - not censure"

Naive they most certainly are, they really do not see some of the unwarranted attention they get from older men who leer at them. Who though is going to give them this guidance exactly if some parents of these girls do not?.

I attended a secondary modern school where the uniform code was enforced; girls and boys were sent home regularly for uniform infringement. I have actually spoken to my DS's school re their uniform policy as they recently targetted the Year 7s and had their uniform inspected but this was not done for the other years. You are there after all to learn, this is not a fashion parade.

To the op - you are not being unreasonable here.

How things change. When I was at school it was during the mid seventies craze for calf length skirts and we wore our knee length uniform skirts somewhere below our hips. More than one fell off

I have no problem really with uniform based rebellion within school. I do worry a bit that some of the Year 10 and Year 11 girls are fuelling some fantasies on their journey to and from school but they travel in groups for the most part

Part of growing up is pushing the boundaries

HullyGully - am agreeing with what you are saying.

"What is the thinking behind the choice to wear a pelmet, a push-up bra and a really tight, unbuttoned shirt?

That is pecisely what me and DW say. What were you really thinking? Was it about doing some serious learning or something else?

But school isn't just about 'serious learning' BeenBeta. It is a resolutely social experience too.

I really don't care what length someone's skirt is. Wearing a short skirt doesn't stop you from working hard and doing well at school in exactly the same way that wearing a suit doesn't mean that you won't slack off and fail exams.

I dropped DD at the bus stop last week. As I was driving off I glanced in my rear view mirror and caught a glimpse of DD rolling her skirt up to an obscene length

I'm buying trousers this weekend

Poorly - its the attitude of mind that goes with the short skirt that I am talking about - not the short skirt itself. Wear what you like outside school and work.

I frankly want the pupils (boys or girls) at my DSs school kicked out who will not comply with uniform. It is a key test of how serious they are about what they are at school for.

Education and work is a serious matter. If it isn't there is no point.

You want children kicked out of schools for rolling up their skirts?

JinnyS Wow - I remember that. The craze for midi skirts (mid calf) and maxis for going out. Then the pencil skirts with one or two side slits. Forgotton all about those along with the platform shoes mentioned earlier

Kids are getting told off in school though for stupid clothing (of all variations) aren't they?

I knew I was a Mum when walking behind some teenage boys I had to fight the urge to pull their trousers up and tuck their labels in. My fingers also twitch for a hairclip when I see the latest fringe in face look.

"I frankly want the pupils (boys or girls) at my DSs school kicked out who will not comply with uniform."

really?

But you also want the uniforms to be horrible BeenBeta. I don't see why school uniform policy has to be so bloody outdated (and expensive for parents).

I also don't agree that the length of my skirt says anything about my state of mind. In my experience, what students are wearing doesn't tell you anything about whether they're going to respond thoughtfully and critically to the work in class. Let's judge people by what they achieve rather than what they wear.

If the uniform policy at your DS's school upsets you (or at least the way its applied does), why not consider finding a school where the girls are all dressed in burkas and the boys in suits?

I think you're the one being naive here, BeenBeta.

With the exception of children in single-sex schools, I would bet that the majority of teens have the opposite sex on their mind for the majority of time whilst in school.

It's just biology.

A smart, cover-all uniform makes bugger-all difference to this, imo. It just makes the kids' imaginations work a bit harder.

There was nothing on earth that could drag my mind off boys when I was at senior school.

Yet here I smugly sit with my good degree.

StewieGriffinsMom

I agree completely on the stupidity of "What you wear demonstrates how stupid you are"

I went to a very serious and very proper private Catholic school.

Suits and ties, caps and blazers for boys, ankle length skirts for girls, thick unattractive jumpers. From those uniforms we should all be millionaires right?

Nooope, I am the only one from my class WITHOUT a substance abuse problem or a child!

Clothes = Nothing worth thinking about.