to think stripping naked to shower after PE at school was horrific? **title edited by MNHQ**

[Flowersinyourhair]

Recent conversations with my daughter about PE at school (she loves it, I hated it) have got me thinking about why I disliked it so much.

I was reminded of the hideous shower experience. After PE, the girls would be obliged to have a naked shower, all in together. We would then have to go to the teacher, totally starkers and dripping wet, and bit ticked off on a register to say we'd had a shower.

I can't to this day understand why it mattered so much. It's a safeguarding nightmare really and I'm so glad it doesn't work like that anymore.

AIBU to think it's no reason I hated PE and to ask whether my school was particularly weird??

And as for the groping etc by teachers....makes me SO angry. I was groped by my piano teacher, I also found out he did it to other girls. The bastard died years ago otherwise I would report it now.

Exactly here. Looking back it was actually very cruel - especially at this stage. Older you may have more self confidence, younger kids are carefree about being naked. But 11 -14 the worst possible age for naked humiliation such a divergence in development.

Also something upsetting about forced nakedness and compulsory showering in basic conditions with shouting and aggression, though accept may be overthinking it.

I wouldn't be fazed by communal showering now (though would prefer cubicles) but I was at the age of 12 it was mortifyingly embarrassing. Luckily our teacher was not so bothered about checking whether we'd showered. I certainly didn't when I was on my period and wearing a towel.

Us too. Teacher used to sit in a chair and tick us off. Absolutely awful. I hated it

Yes - gym knickers in winter! A skirt if you were lucky! I was incredulous about that at the time- we'd had tracksuit bottoms in primary school.

As a contrast, DD1 the other day played hockey in several layers of clothing - base layers on top and bottom, a t shirt, tracky bottoms and top. I hope all girls have proper kit these days.

Does anyone know the story of how these rules got changed?
Sometimes it feels like people are very holy-minded about rules: "you knew those were the rules when you sent your dc to that school", "don't teach your dc it's ok to break rules" etc -- we hear that a lot on MN.
But this is a great example of rules that shouldn't be rules -- rules can be unfair, damaging, unpleasant, and can mean things (like PE) have the opposite of the intended effect.
I'd like to know who set about changing these rules, when and how it happened!

Interesting to hear all this about how girls felt. I was never personally bothered showering with other guys, there was the usual joking about lack of pubes or whatever, or whipping each other with towels...but i suppose it is an expected part of male sporting activity in some ways, we've all seen the pictures of cup winning football sides in the bath together and stuff. The showers were totally disgusting mind you.

I want to know why there haven't been any PE teacher apologists on this thread - normally any 'I hated school PE' thread gets a few popping up. Where are they now?

We had this too, middle school (age 9-13) in the North East early 1980s.

I dont remember a period register and dont remember being inspected but the teachers were in the room shouting at us to hurry up, i also remember them standing in the shower area (victorian building - big open plan shower area with a row of shower heads) watching us shower to make sure we all got wet, and then handing us our towels at the other end

I particularly remember a girl in my year, she was painfully shy and self conscious, she was also a bit awkward and old fashioned, her periods started when she was about 9 and she was mortified, i remember the teasing bullying she got from some of the girls laughing at her sanitary pad bulging from her white knickers. The teachers did fuck all.

By the time we went to High School (13-16) thankfully the showers were never used.

We had a walk through shower and the teacher would grab the towel off of us at the beginning, we'd walk through and then she would give us (the wrong) towel at the other end - or spend ages faffing around looking for it. You could only get out of it if you had your period and they would write it down to check we weren't bluffing. I hated PE and partly as a consequence, I have not exercised since leaving school.

Same here. Left high school in early 80's. Absolutely dreaded the compulsory communal shower after PE.

I had the same, communal showering with the teacher watching, having to leave our towels at a rack by the entrance and having to walk naked to the showers as a teacher watched us. The embarrassment of having to call out "period" when they did the register and having a red P marked down. The questioning us in front of everyone if we called out "period" 2 lessons running. This was early 80s

I'm always grateful to my mum. I told her all of this in year 8 as she couldn't work out why I hated PE and would claim to be sick and miss the whole day. She went ballistic. In many ways she was years ahead of her time. She was at the school for a chat later that day. I've no idea what she said but I never showered again and wasn't expected to. Other girls saw how I got out of it and their mums also came in. By the end of year the compulsory showers were scrapped. Even in the 80s there were some questioning it although it sadly seems to have been so widespread

As a teenager, boys sports team regularly group shower naked. I had no idea women hate group showering so much. Why is that ? (serious question, not meant to be goady).

Women's bodies are public property so openly stared at by anyone and everyone (men and women alike). Girls are taught all their self-worth comes from their body and how much it measures up to our society's standard of beauty. Women are also taught their bodies are shameful and something to be embarrassed about (breastfeeding in public is apparently terrible and attention seeking, for example).

"So, forcing a load of pubescent girls to shower naked in front of people is humiliating because they will almost certainly instinctively feel it is shameful and if they have any imperfections they will know these will be scrutinised and they will be judged as unworthy. It also further brings home the fact that girls are not allowed any sort of autonomy over their bodies and anyone in a position of power over them has more right to their bodies than the girls themselves."
Excellent post from Bigdamnhero. Nailed the issue

for HoneyBunny's mum. And all the other parents who kicked off the rebellion

Good for your mum honey

When to secondary mid-late 90s. The shower were never used apart from us in the Rugby team after matchs and practice. Me and a couple couple of other lads would have a show after PE if we had been doing dirty outdoor stuff. None of the other boys would shower. Everyone would think that was odd but we thought it was odd to go back to class minging. Anyway know one had the balls to take the mick out of the Rugby team.

Although it probably not best to have a school full of sticky, muddy, minging teens it far better than a school full of traumatised teens. Being inspected on exit, that is very intrusive so I can understand.

Been thinking a lot about this thread. I was a very sporty youngster, tennis, gymnastics, rounders, athletics, cross country, modern dance the lot. I stopped enjoying sport when I moved from my private boarding school to my state secondary where showers were compulsory as I described earlier on. It was all part of a much harsher and crueller regime though I think. My boarding school got a lot wrong but sport wasn't one of them, we all loved it and couldn't wait to get out there doing it. Thinking of my friends too, the ones that till play team sports are the ones who went to private school and uni and played on teams at both. I run a lot these days but that's from my army days and having a super fit Dad who really encouraged us to be fit. State PE provision back then seems to have been totally unfit for purpose, especially for girls.

I started secondary school in 2002 and although we did have showers in the changing room no one ever used them. I had/have major issues about my body so the communal changing rooms were bad enough. I would have found the experience of having to shower absolutely horrifying!

I remember being infant school age, and we didn't even have a p.e kit until I was in year 2. Before then we used to just do it in pants and vests! Seems mad now. I've no idea why they didn't just get parents to send in shorts and t-shirt for p.e.

So this was basically done late seventies through to late nineties? WHY? What happened before then? Who made it stop.

My school had huge communal showers that were never used. I would've detested having to. I don't think I ever would've done PE at all.

Wow, no wonder so many hated PE! We didn't have to shower when I did PE (started secondary school in '98 I think). There were showers but no one used them, not even sure if they worked. We must have stunk though! No gym knickers either, we wore shorts, or trackie bottoms if we were doing PE outside and it was chilly. Possibly the boys had to shower after rugby but I'm not sure about that.

I wonder what it will be like for my DD. She'll have to shower before and after swimming and its the community pool where swimming costumes are banned in the (communal, no cubicles at all) showers. I just hope that because it starts when she's 7 and still young enough not to care, that she'll just be used to it by the time she is in that awkward puberty stage. She doesn't mind it now when we go swimming but she's 5 so doesn't care who sees her naked. Starting showers at that 11/12 is definitely the worst possible idea!

We had compulsory showers but at least we had private cubicles, so it was easy to pretend you'd had a proper shower.

Excellent post from Bigdamnhero. Nailed the issue

I don't think I've ever had a post picked out like that on MN before.

I have read this thread with my mouth wide open with shock, I am horrified. I never had this at any of my schools and if I had I would have felt completely traumatised. I am so sorry for all of you who went through this (and there are so many!!), and I am astounded that it carried on right up to the late 90's for some of you. If this happened at my DDs school I would be up there kicking the headteacher's face door in. This has 'Inquiry' written all over it. There will have been some dodgy teachers out there who must have had a field day with this. This culture of forced nudity and showering sounds to me like a form of abuse, and these days would probably violate the Human Rights Act. Utterly appalling.