male teachers distracted by school skorts

[Deadringer]

i have read similar stuff on here but am gobsmacked that this has happened at my dd's school today. Dd goes to a fee paying girls only school, they have a strict uniform policy which i am happy with. On pe days, because of covid the girls have been told to wear their sports uniforms as changing rooms have been closed, so they are wearing their tracksuits, and the badmington and hockey teams have been wearing their skorts on training days. This morning one of the girls was stopped at the door and told that her skort was too short. It is a compulsary uniform for the hockey team, and they only come in one length. This girl is particularly curvy which is presumably why she was singled out. A couple of hours later, she was called out of class and told that her skort was distracting to the male teachers and she wasn't to wear it again. Then an announcement was made to the pupils that the skort was no longer to be worn in school or at training, but might possibly be worn at matches. This seems utterly ridiculous to me, that an item of uniform chosen by the school has been deemed inappropriate. I can't believe too that the principal was stupid enough to tell the girl that she would distract the male teachers. Surely ianbu?

I suspect that a lot of these decisions are people being offended on other people's behalf. The male teachers probably couldn't care less and if they were the sort to be interested in young girls the length of skirt wouldn't make much of a difference.

It's a minefield, as clearly yes, he had had to notice the uniform issue, but there's nothing sinister in doing his job but can be left absolutely at the mercy of accusations.

Except there was no uniform issue. The girl was wearing the school mandated uniform just like the other girls in her class. What the teacher was noticing was that the uniform made her look to his eyes improper in some way.

Friend's daughter has just joined sixth form of a boy's school. The girls were told to be careful in what they wore as were in a testosterone filled environment and if skirts too tight/short they would get comments.

OP It sounds like other teachers at the school pointed out the Head's error and helped to craft a policy that was appropriate instead of shaming individual girls for becoming women.

But I would be concerned that a man coming into a girls school who makes that sort of mistake may not have really considered what the world is like for teenage girls. And so may not provide the leadership in helping the school encourage its students to become confident women in a sexist world. Do parents have any kind of say on the governing board?

@CarrotCakeCrumbs

I will never understand why girls are the ones who are supposed to change their uniform for the comfort of the men and boys in schools, and then we wonder why victim blaming is such a huge problem. My guess is that the boys are never told that their trousers are too tight because they are distracting to the female teachers. (I know OP's dd goes to an all girls school, but this does happen in other schools too.)

I can well believe the headteacher said that, when my secondary school got a new headteacher he called all of the girls into an assembly where he told us that short skirts and tight polo tops were distracting to the boys and male teachers in the school - and that we would be sent into isolation if we didn't learn to dress more appropriately. Both the school skirt and polo top had to come from one uniform supplier because they needed to have the school logo, so a taller, curvier girl was obviously going to a tighter, shorter uniform.

There is a very obvious reason for this - the media and fashion industry doesn't target men they way they do women, so their clothes aren't usually designed to be provocative.

I find it sooo weird that people general know this about women's fashion - they talk about portrayal of girls on tv, or advertisements, pressure to present a sexual image, etc. - they see that men's fashion doesn't look the same and covers more - but then they ask why it is that boys aren't being asked to change what they wear. Apart from trends like sagging jeans - which was often banned from schools - the reason is that men's fashion doesn't try and turn them into sex objects.

@differentnameforthis

Poor grown men who are unable to control themselves around girls in school uniform... I'd be asking about their suitability to be teaching in an all girls school...

I certainly wouldn't want someone who was distracted by a child to be teaching them.

I think it's a little unreasonable to talk about teen girls in this context as children. Their minors, yes, but lots of them have the bodies of grown women, they are sexually fertile, they have developed secondary sexual characteristics.

It's one thing to say, these girls are young and so they are untouchable. It's another to imagine that somehow that means that their biological state isn't going to be noticed, just because the age of consent is set at this particular time at 16.

We are still in the end animals and thousands of years of evolution insist that we notice other humans that are potential reproductive prospects. It takes work for a society as a whole to try and shape that kind of behaviour so that adult men tend not to consider fertile females as attractive and interesting, and it's never 100% successful either, on a population level. If it's important we should try and make it as easy as possible, which suggests that clothing these "children" to look like available women might not be the best idea.

Don’t forget the long hair distracting school boys thread

Does anyone actually know any male teachers that get distracted by this? Not necessarily even in a sexual way.

It often seems that they're used as an excuse for some twat to impose and explain away their antiquated views and prejudices when it comes to girls/women.

All the moaning and "distracting " I've seen so far was from female teachers .

For the disbelievers, don't forget it starts much younger than this. Random staff telling little girls(as young as 5) that they can't do cartwheels,play football or go on the monkey bars unless they wear shorts underneath their skirt or that "mummy must buy you some shorts". Despite there being nothing in the uniform policy stating this . Grown ass women making arbitrary rules for little girls based on nothing but their prejudice.

You bet your ass I firmly believe that continues throughout a girl's school life and even later on.

I find it sooo weird that people general know this about women's fashion - they talk about portrayal of girls on tv, or advertisements, pressure to present a sexual image, etc. - they see that men's fashion doesn't look the same and covers more - but then they ask why it is that boys aren't being asked to change what they wear. Apart from trends like sagging jeans - which was often banned from schools - the reason is that men's fashion doesn't try and turn them into sex objects.

This would be a logical argument (though not a compelling one) if you weren't using it against a situation where the girl was wearing what the school mandated. The case in the OP and the message you responded to have nothing to do with fashion. In both cases the girls were wearing the school uniform which can only be bought from one supplier.

but then they ask why it is that boys aren't being asked to change what they wear. Apart from trends like sagging jeans - which was often banned from schools - the reason is that men's fashion doesn't try and turn them into sex objects.

No one is asking that. Boy's clothes aren't an issue,their behaviour is or at least it's implied it is.

So why do girls have to change what they wear (school imposed uniform,compliant with the policy) as a form of behaviour management for boys?

The girls aren't in the wrong, so why do they have to change and get consequences for following the rules?

If boy's behaviour is such an issue then that is what should be policed,controlled and "punished".

@Goosefoot for the most part yes, but there has been a rise in very skinny jeans/trousers becoming fashionable for boys, and yes the low slung trousers that were rightly banned in schools. I also remember there being an issue in my school about see-through blouses - which were just as see-through as the boys shirts) meaning that the girls were all told to wear white or skin coloured t-shirts underneath but of course the boys were not told to do this. Blouses and shirts were replaced with Polo tops shortly afterwards.

The excuse of the male teacher being distracted is exactly that an excuse. I doubt he was distracted and I suspect if he knew he had been used in this way he would be livid. It is the school's way of telling you what they prefer...and what they think is acceptable. Stop vilifying this poor bloke as a pervert/ pardon...

Flaming auto-correct.

@Bearnecessity

No sorry I agree with the school, school girls going around like porn stars where I live I can't believe parents allow it and schools don't do anything about it. Tiny mini skirts with black suspenders type socks. I saw one girl with actual suspenders on show this week.My mind was blown.....I am no Mary Whitehouse but it takes my breath away god knows what men think.

You missed the bit where she was in SCHOOL APPROVED SPORTS UNIFORM.

@Goosefoot regardless of what their bodies look like, a 16yr old is a child.

@Bearnecessity

The excuse of the male teacher being distracted is exactly that an excuse. I doubt he was distracted and I suspect if he knew he had been used in this way he would be livid. It is the school's way of telling you what they prefer...and what they think is acceptable. Stop vilifying this poor bloke as a pervert/ pardon...

Exactly why it’s important that whoever at the school is making this is asked to name the male teachers they claim are distracted.

If they won’t name them they don’t exist.

If he does name them then that’s very useful information.

I don't get sweary often but why the fuck are our teenage girls having to hear the brunt of the sexual harassment of grown men?