To wonder how a school can allow their girls to dress like this?

[Piggyleroux]

I only have 1 ds of 18 mo so am probably very out of touch but here goes.

I picked up dh from his weekend on call at queens hospital in Romford. On the way I was stuck in traffic outside a school and was frankly shocked by how short the girls skirts were. They were actually bum skimming. They also were all wearing over the knee black socks so a vast quantity of thigh was on show.

Am I just an old prude? I felt sad tbh that they felt they had to dress like this probably to fit in. Why doesn't the school impose a below the knee rule?

I am more amazed at how dd(13)s classmates dress out of school. I didn't recognize them the other day, they had one outfit on between the three of them. Dd is very self conscious at the moment and tends to wear plenty of clothes, except jackets, which aren't cool, unless it's raining harder than a power shower...If she did want to wear a very short skirt for school, I would not fight about it, just take loads of pictures to show her when shes older! I'd rather save the conflict for the bigger issues.

We did dress up in the 80s but IMO the teen fashion was a lot less 'hookerish'. I think the amount of scantily clad women on tv has a powerful influence. When we were younger, there was a few now and again when you switched on, but not on so any channels all at the same time. It's like scantily dressed and over groomed is the 'new' normal.

Scaryteacher, do you really need to have it explained to you why that is wrong? It has been explained before on huge numbers of threads.

Children not should not be brought up to believe that dressing one way or another is more likely to lead to a sexual attack/sexual bullying or that dress is a sign of sexual availability. It has nothing to do with egocentrism but about an expectation that your spoken opinion should be respected.

It is a ridiculous stereotype. Often children who are sexually bullied and/or who are bullied about their sexuality are targeted because they don't conform to a supposedly 'sexy' , popular or mainstream look.

We dress according to our motivation, mood, and circumstances (amongst many other reasons) and most of us have a fair idea of the effect we either wish to - or will - create however the average 12 year old will certainly have less maturity and experience so therefore it's not unreasonable for a school to offer some guidance / regulation as to dress code.

I certainly agree that if there is a uniform rule it should be enforced, otherwise it undermines the school's authority.

'They think they look cool, everyone else thinks 'what the hell are you wearing, you look ridiculous'.' this is so true, but it has always been the case, I am 49 and I did it. ffs this is fashion, I went through all phases of fashion, from short to long skirts, heels to flats, punk, new romantic, dark make up, natural look,it is natural for young girls to experiment both with fashion and sexuality, school is a fairly safe environment to do so. my mum and gran used to tut just as many of you are doing and I did not care, no doubt probably a lot of what I wore was not appropriate, but it was experimental, I grew up, matured realised what was appropriate and when and hey presto became an adult. it is the schools duty to enforce uniform rules but since schools began there has always been a challenge for young people to bend the rules in any way they can. best way would be to say please wear shirts undone and ties loose and maybe they would do the opposite Great for the kids who want to follow rules and save their experiments for outside school but large numbers will be doing their testing out whilst at school (and hopefully safe) peer pressure is a big thing and whilst we may think ' what a mess' they think they look great. Oh and hats off to the big girls who follow fashion too, if they are confident in how they look who are we to judge, wish I was that body confident as a big woman at my age.

oops meant that first line to be in bold NOT crossed through

Thank god for MillyR!

It is NOT the girls' responsibility to work around what the boys may or may not think if they wear a short skirt. Short skirts shouldn't be worn to school. But not because girls should be worrying about what boys' responses might be.

If you think the boys in your class think that short skirts mean girls want to have sex with any/everybody, then you need to have a few words with the boys in your class and explain that they're wrong. Why should it be the girls who have to worry about the boys' misconceptions?

originalghoster We did dress up in the 80s but IMO the teen fashion was a lot less 'hookerish'. you clearly did not live near me and my mates! we looked a right state

But if I were in a class with, say, um... can't think of anyone I fancy at the moment but anyway, a more mature man, with his shirt off and a nice back and forearms... I would be very much distracted, I can tell you. Of course I wouldn't act on it, but I'm sure I wouldn't be thinking about the Metaphysical Poets.

So if a 13 or 14-year-old boy is seated behind a girl with a black bra on under a tight white blouse, I think that is distracting. This doesn't make the boy a bad, sex-hungry monster, just a normal being.

And we're not talking here about a bit of uniform tweaking to be fashionable, but those girls who are dressed, in a school situation, inappropriately.

herdOftinyelephants, no Bonsoir said that her daughter had been wearing over the knee socks and a short skirt at the weekend and tights to school that day.
gumball.knee high socks are fine. I think you will find it is the over the knee socks ie mid thigh socks,that people are refering to, and they look awful. Mainly because they look like stockings.
That coupled with a short skirt,is not a good look,especially on a school girl.

Which I quite agree they shouldn't be!

If I were a teenaged girl sitting behind a boy with a huge pimple on his neck, I might get distracted by that too. I expect I'd have to have a word with myself and get on with my work, though!

Which is what my dd has to do when a certain boy in some of her classes spends the whole lesson making vile and lewd comments about other girls in the class. All of whom wear trousers .

assuming he fancies girls of course but that's a whole other thread

Gramercy, I agree that people looking very attractive can be distracting, as can people who look interesting (complicated hairdo - 'scene' I think the young people might call it). I think there is a benefit to the sameness of uniform.

But there is definitely a difference between being distracted by someone and wanting sex yourself, and thinking that person's clothing meant that they wanted sex.

that was in response to gramercy comments in case it came out a bit random

"To re-iterate: I do not think girls should be wearing very short skirts to school. I think it is inappropriate, unprofessional, and perhaps most importantly in most cases, quite simply against the rules"

Can you explain what you mean by inappropriate?

Gramercy, that's a good example.

I think too much is made of the rather hysterical view that any time a teenage boy looks at a teenage schoolgirl in a sexualised way, it is wrong.

For goodness sake its normal

The 'slut' look does seem to be an in look round our way.

I was horrified to see a 9yr old girl on dress down day looking like a prostitute.

It's a shame more mothers don't want to dress their children age appropriately!

Gramercy didn't mention sexualisation. I assumed she was talking about people finding other people sexually attractive, which is normal for people of all ages.

'Children not should not be brought up to believe that dressing one way or another is more likely to lead to a sexual attack/sexual bullying or that dress is a sign of sexual availability. It has nothing to do with egocentrism but about an expectation that your spoken opinion should be respected.'

FGS - we don't live in Utopia Milly. It's not a case of how children should be brought up, but how many of them actually are brought up and how that impacts. Not all boys are brought up to be respectful of women and to know that no means no. Please explain to me why girls (and boys) should not have it explained to them that how they dress can affect the way they are perceived? It's all very well to say that your spoken opinion should be respected, but it won't always be the case that that happens.

Elaine - I have seen situations where the girls haven't worried about the boys misconceptions, and the result has been grim.

Bonkers I mean inappropriate in the sense that school is not, or should not be, somewhere you go to try to look fashionable, or as if you're going clubbing, I suppose. Where girls are wearing short skirts, they're usually spending a lot of time pulling and tugging at them and thinking about how they look. In any other situation where you were expected to look reasonably formal, or as though you were there for a serious purpose, you wouldn't wear a very short skirt - I wouldn't wear one anywhere at all, actually, as I'm 33 to a job interview, a funeral, or a place of work, for those reasons.

angry beaver "knee high socks are fine. I think you will find it is the over the knee socks ie mid thigh socks,that people are refering to, and they look awful. Mainly because they look like stockings.
That coupled with a short skirt,is not a good look,especially on a school girl."

I agree completely. I was too frightened to post it though in case i was accused of sexualising young people and being a paedo which people have done before on mumsnet when I've dared to say anything about clothing like this!

It is fine for schools to point out that people are often bullied and harassed based on their clothing. DS has just done a thing at school about how people are harassed because they wear the hijab. But at no point did anybody suggest that the hijab wearer should be in any way held responsible for that or stop wearing the hijab.

There is a very great difference between being aware of other people's desire to stereotype and discriminate, and being made to feel that you should change your clothes to accommodate that discrimination.

But as far as I understand it, hijab wearers are saying "Don't look at me" as opposed to girls in micro skirts and thigh-high socks whom I'm sure would be mortified if they thought no one was taking a blind bit of notice...

Girls in short skirts and long socks may well be saying 'don't look at me' if that is what everyone else is wearing; it is a teen herd instinct.

Girls in hijabs may well be saying, "look at me; I am a Muslim and proud of it.'

But it really doesn't matter either way. There is nothing wrong with girls wanting boys to look at them or boys looking at girls because they find them attractive. That is a totally different thing to sexual bullying, sexual harassment, sexualisation, sexual attack or presumption of consent based on clothing.

When I was at school we deliberately used to customise our uniforms, stand by the traffic lights and see how many drivers we could get gawping.

The best way was a really rolled up skirt, a very skinny tie with a loosely unbuttoned shirt and the regulation stilletoes we used to keep in our bag. We used to call it "perv baiting".

This was in 1984 and 1985