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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

883 replies

Flowersinyourhair · 05/12/2016 22:35

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??

OP posts:
MsGameandWatch · 06/12/2016 15:17

I'm glad you never had to experience it, I really am but frankly and with all due respect that means you don't really know what you're talking about do you?

MephistophelesApprentice · 06/12/2016 15:18

I think the PE teacher has arrived...

LauraBiding · 06/12/2016 15:20

Re. the difference between boys and girls showering... I think as society tells girls their pubic region AND chests are "rude"/to be covered, whereas for boys it's just the pubic region, then girls would feel more self-conscious naked. I mean, if I had to shower publicly in an old-fashioned long bathing suit I'd feel fine, whereas a woman who habitually wears a burka (for eg.) might feel very self-concious in the same outfit.

Not that it's ok for boys either, of course.

Not on the same level but one of my earliest memories, aged 4 or 5, is of having to do PE (as a one-off) in just our knickers. I remember it because I found it so upsetting.

itsmine · 06/12/2016 15:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

thisisafakename · 06/12/2016 15:22

Have you actually read the thread? For fucks sake hmm This isn't about getting in the shower, it's about the ritual humiliation of pubescent girls every fucking week

Yes, I have. I am talking about MY experience at MY school. Nobody had a shower and nobody was forced to either. People tried to get changed showing the minimum flesh, taking their bras off under their jumpers etc. If you as much as raised your eyes from the floor, someone would imply you were a weird lesbian. If you had had a shower, you would have confirmed you were a weird lesbian. This was strange to me. I had come from a place where you would take off your clothes, have a shower in the communal showers, go back, dry off and get changed. So I was thinking more along the lines that there must be a cultural aversion to nudity which would make the request to have a shower seem more extreme.

But it seems that you all had different experiences, so perhaps we should leave it there.

DeleteOrDecay · 06/12/2016 15:22

OK, but the deliberate humiliation and sadism described is unlikely to have been quite as widespread

Really? Have you not read the 300+ posts on this thread alone? Is that not enough evidence for you?

Trying to minimise what many look back on and feel was traumatic and humiliating for them and their peers is unhelpful.

You can't see the problem with a teacher standing and watching a group of naked, vulnerable and body conscious young girls take a shower? Taking their towels away and only giving them back when they are deemed to have had a 'proper shower'? There is and never was any need for it! Secondary school age children are more than capable of taking a shower without supervision, and in a school setting showering after pe should always be a choice.

Whether the teachers 'meant' to humiliate them by doing this or not is by the by. The point is it was humiliating for the girls at the time and this thread has really opened my eyes. It's a shame some people feel the need to defend such a gross abuse of power and invasion of privacy.

MsGameandWatch · 06/12/2016 15:23

But it seems that you all had different experiences, so perhaps we should leave it there.

Yes I think that's a good idea.

thisisafakename · 06/12/2016 15:27

I think the PE teacher has arrived

Oh, I can assure you that I am NOT a PE teacher! I was terrible at PE and didn't much enjoy it.

I do realise we have different viewpoints and I am sorry that PPs had the experiences they did. I did not however appreciate the homophobia on this thread. The posts that mentioned that lesbians should not be allowed in changing rooms belongs back in the 1980s.

itsmine · 06/12/2016 15:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mirandawest · 06/12/2016 15:32

The showers people had didn't make them clean in any way. People didn't use soap - they just stood there in water with their hands over their bodies

oldlaundbooth · 06/12/2016 15:34

My female PE teachers didn't force us to shower, no period checks, nor were they into humiliation, other than knicker shorts, freezing cross country etc etc. A fairly crap comp in the North West.

The male teachers were a different story however.

I'm amazed by the experiences on here: it's so recent too!

WendlaBergmann · 06/12/2016 15:36

I'm not sure how anyone can have issues with the veracity of this as an experience, when faced with what - 400 women saying very similar things.

I think posters who mention it being about power, and humiliation stemming from the prevailing thought that children were ultimately worth less than adults and so didn't deserve to be treated nicely.

Supervising showers needn't be done whilst logging who had their periods that week, questioning that if your period dare last longer than 7 days, insisting that girls wore gym pants to run around local streets and fields whilst following in full ski gear being derogatory to those at the back who had asthma etc...

I've since looked after groups of girls & young women because of work I do and have never felt the need to supervise any showers they do or don't take after activities. If I was worried about bullying or similar in those circumstances, no one would shower rather than me be in there with them.

Lovelyskin · 06/12/2016 15:38

The fact that in some other European countries they have a different attitude to nudity doesn't mean it was ok to make (as in enforce) girls shower naked together. That's precisely why it was so humiliating, because adults in the UK would never ever have done this, people covered up their bodies except for teenagers, which was even worse as we had all gone through puberty/comparisons were rife.

In our case, we didn't all go in together naked, we had to lift up the long shower curtain which then exposed all the other girls, then throw our towel over the top quickly to show we were showering and indicate we were using that cubicle- this then led to girls who weren't quick enough getting exposed, and everyone shrieking when the shower curtain was raised.

Ugh, that and the knicker shorts which were knickers. Really humiliating at a time when you need respect and kindness towards growing (or grown) bodies. No period diary thank god, we were told periods were no excuse for missing PE though, which in my case wasn't true as I quite often vomited.

I'm sure our obviously lesbian PE teacher was uninterested in us as were the other teachers I never got any untoward vibes. However, people who did have an interest in under-age girls and boys would have had a field day. By making it fine for teachers to break social norms about nudity, and to wield power over teenagers in a really direct way, this then created conditions in which on the rare occasions people were abused/felt violated/were in ambiguous situations, they couldn't speak out. Some teachers undoubtedly got off on seeing lots of teenagers naked, because we know these people exist. It's a bit ridiculous to claim this is impossible, given the scandals now coming out about coaching sports.

paddypants13 · 06/12/2016 15:39

I was in West Yorks too, mixed comprehensive. Good school in a nice area.

I wouldn't allow my children to be subjected to it and I'm generally a stickler for rules.

treaclesoda · 06/12/2016 15:42

Someone asked about PE teachers body shaming. When I was a teenager it was impossible to buy a sports bra in my size, they simply didn't make them. So when I was forced to run, it was humiliating ad it was painful. I tried to run whilst holding myself in place with my hands, or folding my arms across my chest and was regularly shouted at and told I was lazy for doing so. Especially by one particularly nasty male teacher. We were made to weigh ourselves in front of the class. I was slim but had such huge boobs that I weighed much more than other girls of a similar build, so I was berated for being too fat. It was hell on earth.

Serialweightwatcher · 06/12/2016 15:43

I live in West Yorkshire, but my High School was in North Yorkshire ... we had this every week - late 70s to early 80s

Lovelyskin · 06/12/2016 15:44

Wearing knicker shorts also exposed (or you feared exposure of) sanitary pads which were big and bulky and not streamlined and thin like now. Running around with nothing but a pair of stretchy pants on, hoping no-one could see you had a pad in, no thanks.

phoenix1973 · 06/12/2016 15:47

Our school was the same. All girls high school with rumoured lesbian teacher. Communal showers. Had to walk out past the teacher .
I didn't like it, but it paled into comparison with the bullying I endured for 5 shitty years.

TheHiphopopotamus · 06/12/2016 15:47

I am talking about MY experience at MY school. Nobody had a shower and nobody was forced to either

So because you never experienced it, it must have not happened? And we're all just prudes? Because that's what I'm getting from your posts.

Your posts are actually making me quite angry, so perhaps you should leave it there.

thisisafakename · 06/12/2016 15:52

So because you never experienced it, it must have not happened? And we're all just prudes? Because that's what I'm getting from your posts. Your posts are actually making me quite angry, so perhaps you should leave it there

No, that is not what I meant. That sentence that you quoted was written in response to what someone else had written (if you read that, it makes more sense). I am sorry my posts are making you angry. That was not my intention. I did not suggest that these things did not happen either, if you read my posts, I am sure there were some sadistic PE teachers out there. Originally I posted on the thread for a different reason- I did not mean to doubt the veracity of anyone's experience. I hope that is clear.

PerspicaciaTick · 06/12/2016 16:00

I don't think my PE teachers had any sexual interest in us at all, although the PE dept. was rife with shagging among the teachers and several marriages began and ended over the years.

However, the showering stuff was pure bullying. Very distressing for the girls in years 7&8 and completely pointless because everyone in y9 and above ignored it and the teachers stopped bothering to enforce it (possibly because the girls were bigger and gobbier than them by that stage). Also pointless because I don't actually remember anyone moving enough in PE to break sweat.

Lovelyskin · 06/12/2016 16:01

I think the whole point is that it isn't about a few isolated sadistic PE teachers, it was about how routine and normal it was to treat children and adolescents like that. Some may have gone farther than others but the general communal showering/lack of privacy and feeling exposed/humiliated at a difficult bodily time in our lives seems to have been incredibly common (I'm talking 80's for myself anyway).

BitOutOfPractice · 06/12/2016 16:01

opaltree there have been comments of thunder thighs, and looking chunky. Girls are exorted to try harder so they will have "beach bodies" etc. It is appalling.

And yes I have complained about it (and many other shabby practices in the PE department) including standing by while boys shout sexual comments at girls running by and openly laughing at less-able pupils' efforts. It is all denied.

This is at a school which is obsessed not by sport for fitness and enjoyment but for winning at all costs. They regularly perform at the top of national athletics competitions. Only very able students are treated with respect

Elanrode · 06/12/2016 16:02

I think education was pretty dire until what - mid 90s? Some brilliant teachers but honestly the sarcasm, random cruelty, humiliation and even casual racism shown in those days is unbelievable when we consider how recent it actually is.

What regulatory bodies existed for teachers in those days?

MrsMoastyToasty · 06/12/2016 16:10

I was a day pupil at a girls boarding school. The showers were in a c shape and the pegs were on the external wall of the long side of the c. The idea was that you put your towel on the peg went in at the top end of the c and exited at the bottom end before picking up your towel. Hated it.

Boarders also had the joys of communal baths plus sleeping and changing in the dormitory in front of everyone else.