Girls told to wear longer skirts at school because the boys are distracted and male teachers feel uncomfortable.

[Exercisejunkieforlife]

My DD is 15, yesterday all the girls were kept behind in assembly and told they must wear skirts from the official uniform shop.
I have no problem with this as this is where we get DDs skirts, my problem is with the reasons given.

They were told that it distracts the boys when the girls walk up the stairs and makes the male teachers feel uncomfortable.

AIBU to think that the girls should not have to modify their behaviour / what they wear so the 'boys' don't look up their skirts and that the male teachers are responsible for their own feelings. ?

That's not appropriate for school Nancy, no.

Apparently the slow slung trousers on boys thing is to do with prisoners not being allowed belts.

*I think as far a coverage is concerned the same rules should apply to both pupils (of either sex) and staff. So if you think it's ok for Miss FrenchTeacher to be occasionally flashing her crotch at the pupils and Mr GeographyTeacher to wear knob hugging Lycra then crack on.

IF however like most of the sane world you would like the adults, who are in close contact and have authority over your children in your absence, to keep their bits to themselves then have the manners to ensure your children (of either sex) do the same.*

^This!. I don't want to see the arse, genitals or underwear of anyone over the age of 8 to whom I'm not very closely related thanks - be they my boss, my colleagues or the teens on work experience. And I don't think the fact it makes me uncomfortable means I'm a perve either.

I agree with trifle. In an ideal world we wouldn't have the problem but let's not deny the reality just because we don't like it.

Imagine being a male teacher facing a group of particularly gobby teens who happens to look in the wrong direction at the wrong time (( we've all done it ))

Wot you lookin at Sir, you're looking at me aren't you ?? Did everyone see that ??

(( gobby class group agrees ))

Sir, sir. You was looking at me.

Whole thing escalates. Poor blokes left with a mark on his record.

If everyone dresses appropriately than incidents like that can be avoided

There is a vast difference between feeling uncomfortable and having inappropriate thoughts.
This, with bells & whistles. And sorry, but if your daughter is wearing something so short that someone can see their underwear (or worse) when they walk up stairs, do you think that's appropriate for school (or work)?! We're not talking about a girl's skirt blowing up in the wind, we're talking about dressing in such a way as to put yourself on show. Not just to look nice, that's different. But to put across a sexual image of yourself because that's what deliberately showing your underwear is all about. And that's not what they're at school for.

If the desired look is business appropriate then I think that the school ought to consider that in a corporate environment women would not be invited to sit cross legged on the floor for a meeting

That's a good point, wheatchief. One of the many reasons why I find the whole 'school kids should dress like they're off to work in a bank' argument bizarre.

Sparklingbrook - my daughter goes to a secondary school with no uniform. There are clear rules, which apply to both sexes, about not wearing impractical or revealing clothing. It works just fine. In fact most of them follow their own, self-imposed 'uniform' of jeans, t-shirts and hoodies. Practical and sensible.

Right, we don't live in an ideal world, so girls had better do their bit to mitigate that.

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace:

It isn't the responsibility of the girls. They're children. It is the responsibility of the people setting the uniform policy. So I would agree that this could have been communicated more tactfully, but it is completely reasonable in its rationale.

If they don't want girls to wear short skirts, then why don't they stop the sexist shitty nonsense with forcing girls to wear skirts in the first place?

Trousers for everyone, and no problem.

Uniform skirts (that I have seen in media, thanks feminism there is no such shit in Germany) FORCE GIRLS TO SHOW THEIR LEGS. Dammit!
If schools do this to girls, then it is EXTREMELY bigoted to complain that some girls wear "too short" skirts.
They have been telling those girls, over and over and over, that their legs are there for the male gaze, by making them wear skirts of knee-length, that do not cover the legs!

And then they complain that the girls have learnt that lesson, learnt it well, and now wear even shorter skirts?

Seriously, I have some sympathy for Germans schools that try to get children who are allowed to dress however the fuck they want, to voluntarily wear workplace appropriate clothes.

But if you make girls wear skirts, you are not allowed to complain. Not ever. Sorry.

Well said Vestal.

Excellent post Vestal

Most schools don't make girls wear skirts. They have skirts and trousers as part of a uniform policy. In the same way that some schools allow shorts as part of a uniform policy.

It is reasonable in its rationale that professional length skirts are appropriate and very short ones are not.

It is not reasonable if that rationale has anything to do with how men and boys might feel about it.

Tell them 'that skirt is too short for school'. Not 'that skirt is too short for men and boys to have to cope with'. Easy.

But the vast majority of schools do let girls wear trousers. My dd almost always wears trousers to school. Lots of girls choose to wear skirts and deliberately wear them as short as they can get away with.

The message in the OP was bad. Girls should not be told that they should wear longer skirts because the poor boys and men can't cope (even though a lot of the girls are undoubtedly wearing their skirts short in order to attract the boys' attention - nobody who has spent time in a school full of teenagers could possibly doubt that). They should be told to wear longer skirts because it is in the school rules and is in keeping with a work environment.

Florence I'm not surprised about the teenagers choosing to wear jeans, t-shirts and hoodies. That's what they seem to wear out of school, as well. You don't seem to see many teenage girls wearing very short skirts. There seems to be something about school uniform that inspires them.
If I was a headteacher skirts would be banned, full stop. They're impractical. It might also help to put an end to that awful St Trinians image.
My daughter used to wear summer dresses until she was 8 or so, apart from that it's been trousers at school. She goes to special needs school and that is their policy which I support 100%.

SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace:

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. I can't think why the skirt length would need to be prescribed unless it was related to how people feel about the shortness of the skirts. But we shouldn't have this out again!

Really, noeffingidea? You should see some of the expansesof orange leg on display in schools round here on non-uniform day!

Seek

I think they already did that. It will be in the uniform policy. The school didn't act with a great deal of tact but if the girls keep on flaunting the policy, the teachers are likely becoming exasperated.

And we all resort to sexist victim blaming when we're a bit exasperated, right?

It should have nothing to do with how the men and boys feel. If a length is deemed appropriate, practical, and smart, then enforce it. And when you can't, don't wheel out the idea that the men and boys with their uncontrollable hormones will get distracted by the girls, to make them toe the line.

If a teacher genuinely feels they have a school full of male staff and pupils who cannot focus when they see a leg, they need to think about how they address that. Not tell the girls it's their responsibility.

But in all likelihood, that's not what they feel. They are wheeling out an extra reason why the girls should wear longer skirts by trying to scare and intimidate them into excessive awareness of their disastrous effect on poor old men and boys. Always be aware of how what you do and what you wear will affect the men.

About 75% of the girls at the school I work in wear skirts. They can wear trousers if they wish but choose not to.
In winter it means they can wear them with leggings and knee socks (?) so it looks like tights.

That's a silly post, Vestal. No state school to my knowledge insists girls wear skirts. Trousers are always an option. And don't trumpet European non-uniform. In my dn's school there was horrendous one upmanship about clothes, which having to wear a uniform does to a large extent do away with.

Anyway, this very issue has come up at dd's school. The girls are allowed to wear trousers, of course, but they are out of fashion at the moment and every girl has the shortest possible skirt. Even if you send in your dd in a skirt of reasonable length, you can be sure that by the time they reach the top of the road the waist band has been rolled over half a dozen times to make the skirt super short.

It doesn't bother me as long as the girls are wearing thick tights, but I have seen a few girls who do not wear tights, just trainer socks with their shoes. Now, no one wants to see someone's pants. It's not even sexual, it's just... bleeugh. I was discussing this with dd yesterday, and she said, "Why can't the Head of Year just call the parents of the girls who are showing their knickers?" I said it was probably because they couldn't tell people they must wear tights. But I don't know; I'm not a teacher. Can individual pupils be targeted? Or would this take up too much time, and what constitutes "decency"?

So basically people are saying we should let our dds walk upstairs showing their vital statistics to anyone who happens to look up.
Because they should be allowed to wear what they want. and it's everybody else who complains that has the problem.

I'm glad my dd likes her trousers. The thought of intentionally sending her to school to show her underwear, makes me sick tbh.

Mousmary we had a male teacher who once told a girl he could see her pants as her skirt was too short. He is still referred to as a pervert and various other names by the kids. This is years later.

Pastoral leads etc. Phone home but girls will roll their skirts up. Some do wear shorts underneath them but others thongs ...

Some state schools do still insist on skirts only for girls. blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2016/03/the-battle-over-skirt-only-uniform-codes-does-it-matter-who-wears-the-trousers/