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. ?

What schools really ought to do is have trousers only - no skirts. Totally removes the problem. I'm not even that keen on having uniform tbh, but skirts seem to cause nothing but trouble from all angles. At least if it's trousers only, all kids have the same rules.

...And some schools let boys wear skirts

www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2016/jun/13/uk-state-schools-get-gender-neutral-uniforms

basically people are saying we should let our dds walk upstairs showing their vital statistics to anyone who happens to look up

Has anyone ever noticed that whenever a post begins 'so you are basically saying', it's always a spectacular misreading?

The trousers girls were wearing a few years ago were grim. Skin tight and had "Miss Sexy" across the back. I couldn't understand parents allowing them to wear them. You can't police your dd rolling up her skirt, but you can certainly say no to the purchase of a Miss Sexy pair of trousers for school wear.

Just in response to those who think schoolgirls wear short skirts to impress boys and adult men....we all rolled our skirts up at school (there was a uniform length) and I can absolutely assure you it was nothing at all to do with the men. They didn't cross our minds. We rolled our skirts up for the same reason we wore our ties askew and tried to get away with non-uniform jumpers...because we were pushing boundaries and trying to circumvent the rules. Boys didn't feature at all.

I agree with this, for the vast majority of the girls. DD wore a short skirt at school, with thick black tights, because that was what all the other girls wore. Nothing to do with boys, or being provocative, she just didn't want to stand out from the others.

Now that she is at college and wearing her own choice of clothing, it's nearly always jeans. She never had any intention of being provocative or "sexy".

So yes, if the school came out with the message as in the OP, I would have a problem as it does seem to be aimed at girls, to modify their behaviour, which I agree totally is the wrong message.

Anything said to pupils about uniform should be to all, to reiterate the uniform rules, nothing else.

this is not a new thing, I left high school in the 70's and girls where always told not to wear short skirts, we used to turn them over at the waist band to make them shorter after leaving the house then get dragged in to the heads office and told to make them longer... so this is nothing new, but saying about distracting male staff well maybe they are in the wrong profession

I just remember being young, and not very worldly, genuinely not realising that short skirt I thought looked good (fashionable) from the front actually would show any underwear if I went ups stairs etc. I got a shock when I decided to check my rear view in a mirror. It was not something I usually considered doing. Until then I would have merrily rolled skirts up thinking they looked fantastic like that.

This is why the sexualisation of these 15 year olds can be a bit upsetting. I just wanted to look fashionable but was at an awkward embarrassing age where I did not really think how practical the clothes I liked were or were not to be more exact. (Similarly being burnt in the low backed dress)

I think the people on this thread who are assuming the male teachers are sexually interested in the female students need to consider why they made that assumption when the OP merely said it made the male teachers uncomfortable. Strange

Strange indeed

Also in indication of exactly why the male staff are right to feel uncomfortable, given that some are so ready to throw around accusations over nothing at all

OP are you sure she actually told you word for word what was said or could there be a bit of teenage drama going on? I'm sure they don't want to be told what length skirt they should wear but there are rules, I hate petty pointless rules but covering your backside in public seems pretty basic to me.

Girls need to learn to dress appropriately for their environment. Very short skirts are not appropriate for school any more than they are in a workplace. There is no reason for them to be wearing such short skirts and I think it is entirely appropriate that they have been told to revert to the proper uniform.

Absolutely this. The school have expressed it badly though. They should have talked about how NO ONE wants to see their underwear and about what is appropriate for a school or work environment. It isn't just men who don't want to see a flash of a teenage girls arse when climbing the stairs.

As a grown woman I would feel uncomfortable going upstairs behind a young girl whose skirt was so short I could see her knickers. There are some things that you just don't want to see. It is harder for men though simply because they can often get called a perv whatever they do.

Imagine for a minute you are a male teacher (or even a male student), you walk upstairs and in front of you is a young girl with her knickers on display. What do you do? You can't look forward because you really don't want to see that, if you look sideways it looks really shifty, you look at the floor and it looks like you are trying to hard not to look. If you blush from embarrassment you've absolutely had it and If you raise the issue you are accused of looking and being a pervert etc

These days people are quick to shout pervert or pedo but girls do need to take some responsibility for their own actions. In an environment such as school or work a short skirt is simply not appropriate. It just creates an uncomfortable situation that is totally unavoidable. What these girls want to wear in their leisure time is entirely up to them but at school/work you keep it decent. It's a case of common courtesy tbh.

What schools really ought to do is have trousers only - no skirts. Totally removes the problem.

Not always. My DD likes to wear trousers for school but it can be a nightmare finding some that aren't skin tight, camel toe creating, "sexy" black trousers, especially now she's a bit older.

I'd love for school uniforms to be all trousers though, I'm dreading trying to get her into the hideous skirt the high school insist upon next year.

Why should girls have to wear boy's clothes?

Why don't they all just wear skirts?

I agree with this, for the vast majority of the girls. DD wore a short skirt at school, with thick black tights, because that was what all the other girls wore. Nothing to do with boys, or being provocative, she just didn't want to stand out from the others

Well, yes. I wanted to wear a miniskirt when I was seven years old. Because it was fashionable.

But that does not mean that the fashion was not influenced by the male gaze.

It is the cultural double standard that adult women have to please males to get somewhere (obligatory high heels and leg-shaving in some jobs, even), but when girls try to imitate those successful older women, trying to do it even better, as is only natural for children to do, then there's an outcry.

The obligatory sexual objectification of adult women, combined with morals that oppose the sexual objectification of girls under 18, naturally results in girls under 18 being denied the completely normal teen behaviour of imitating their idols. Which, of course, they will resent.

If you allow girls to dress how they want, you have a decent chance they will choose a different way to "coolness". (When I was seven, I also wanted to have green hair).

But if you force girls in a sexist, male-gaze oriented culture to wear school uniform with skirts, you really have it coming.

Can individual pupils be targeted? Or would this take up too much time..?

They can and yes it does really take up too much time but in extreme cases I have rung the parents of pupils in my tutor group about uniform infringements - not just girls with short skirts, but boys who, say, persist in wearing a bright red hoodie indoors or who are wearing trainers (not for PE) for the fourth week in a row, that sort of thing. Trouble is, I then got "But xyz wears this and you haven't phoned them, it's not fair?" Yes, but xyz is not in my tutor group and I have got enough to do thanks.

The uniform regulations are there, parents will have agreed to them (ours had to sign and return an agreement) so no matter what you perceive others to be doing, if you aren't wearing the uniform correctly you should expect to be told about it.

At my dd school the girls can wear skirts or trousers.
The juniors mainly wear skirts, some y7/8 choose to as well.
However, if they have to sit with their legs open they have to wear trousers, understandably.
However, I see girls in state schools doing the same activity where they have to sit with legs open and yes... you guess it short skirts with everything on display.
You have to blame the parents and/or school for this.
Just get them to dress appropriately for the situation, it isn't difficult.

Not always. My DD likes to wear trousers for school but it can be a nightmare finding some that aren't skin tight, camel toe creating, "sexy" black trousers, especially now she's a bit older.

Well, yes, that is a problem with the fashion industry, but presumably, if trousers were the school uniform for girls, there would be decent trousers in the official uniform shop?

Sorry - posted too soon -

If you are not wearing the uniform correctly, then you should expect to be told about it, and there doesn't need to be a reason apart from this is what you agreed to when you came to this school and you aren't doing it.

These days people are quick to shout pervert or pedo but girls do need to take some responsibility for their own actions. In an environment such as school or work a short skirt is simply not appropriate. It just creates an uncomfortable situation that is totally unavoidable. What these girls want to wear in their leisure time is entirely up to them but at school/work you keep it decent. It's a case of common courtesy tbh.

I agree that skirts that are too short are inappropriate, however as these children are not fully mature, I think they share the responsibility with the adults that are around them. Actually, even if an adult is dressed inappropriately, it still means that others have a responsibility to point this out respectfully, rather than behave in a manner that was inappropriate.

As a young teen I did like the idea of people thinking I was attractive but certainly would not have liked them acting on this in an inappropriate manner. I was naive and did not realise how revealing some clothes were. I would have been mortified if my mother had not taught me how to check my appearance from different angles in the mirror. I was mortified when my skirt once rode up under a rucksack I was wearing and some small boys were laughing.

Well fuck me. I always thought that camel toe was something you got from wearing shoes that were too small.

Now I know better.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/3257691/britain-braced-for-arrival-of-the-25-camel-toe-knickers-that-aim-to-give-wearers-perfect-designer-vagina/

Tracksuits. Nice and comfy and allow optimal movement and for students to stuff their faces with school dinners and snacks.

In my last school too, on a few occasions, younger female members of staff had to be reminded about what was appropriate wear in the work place, it isn't always just the pupils.

I don't think there is an issue with what has been said. Boys shouldn't have to see girls knickers when the girls are walking up the stairs and the sight of a teenage girls bottom would no doubt be a distraction to any male, not in an eliciting an erection kind of way but in a bloody hell thats inappropriate kind of way.

If there is a school uniform policy then of course the school has a right to enforce it. But to give that as a reason is just weird, sexist and a bit pervy.

Bertrand So, by your reckoning, all women who wear trousers as part of the work clothes or business attire, are actually wearing boys or mens' clothes? How dare they.

Funny, isn't it. People campaign to have gender neutral toys, and not do pink for girls and blue for boys, but apparently trousers have to be for boys. Read it all now.

Gender neutral almost invariably means male that girls/women are allowed to do too.

Why should girls be forced to wear trousers if they don't want to.