Short school skirts

[Kteeb1]

AIBU to think the reason given to me for girls not wearing skirts at school is worrying? So just been called by the school. Apparently all parents have been because girls skirts are very short and it's against school policy. I can only assume the little tyke (13) is rolling her school skirt up because it's not short when she leaves the house and ill sort it when she gets in, but I am concerned with what the female teacher said to me. The reason why the girls skirts shouldn't be short is because male teachers and other boys may feel uncomfortable. Also out of school grounds the girls might be attacked. And young girls must learn to protect their dignity. I have no problem with a uniform and following it, but if male teachers are uncomfortable in seeing a 13 year old with a short skirt, should they really be teaching? And why are we saying what a person wears means they may be attacked. I did ask if any girls had been attacked and I didn't get an answer. I just think it's a really bad message that girls have to change what they wear for those reasons.

The simple answer at my daughters school is trousers only, male and female. No skirts. They still have a trouser policy but it’s just ‘black, not skin tight or leggings’. Simple!

Oh and 100 denier tights all year round. No pair of trousers has ever passed the school uniform test - too tight, too cropped- because shops just don't sell them for that age group.

I agree with saying skirts must be a certain length or they are not complying with uniform regulations. Same as length of boys hair and so on. Saying they make male teachers/boys uncomfortable is an unwise red herring.

It's worse this time of year, definitely. No tights. I'd say trousers for all. Shorts in summer.

I'll give an example. Walking towards stairs in school today. Ahead of me, going upstairs a girl in a very rolled up skirt. I got a total eyeful of bare cheeks. I can only assume she was in a thong... I was mortified as I definitely wasn't looking, it was just....there and I averted gaze immediately.

I can totally understand why it can cause issues because a male teacher just can't tackle that without accusations flying.

@ProfPickles

I'm female and work in a school and the girls in short skirts make me feel uncomfortable.

They're so short I see one of their bums every single day and these are children. I don't want to see the bums of children and girls wearing skirts so short that if you walk behind them up the stairs you can see up.

I feel like the boys uniforms present them as smart preparing for the work place (one argument made for a smart uniform) and the girls does them a disservice because mini skirts so short you can see bum cheeks every day isn't good enough. The women working there wouldn't be allowed to wear them so why are our girls seen as less important?

I'm always a bit confused when people stick up for girls wearing tiny skirts, it just seems like an obvious way girls are sexualised from a young age

This. I HATED the pressure to wear a short skirt as a teenager, so much so that I got a petition together, signed by most of the girls in my year and the years below/above. The headmistress was pretty annoyed, but eventually (with some parents roped in, including a solicitor) it prevailed.

It's not good for young girls to feel pressured to wear revealing clothing (fine if it's genuinely their choice, but society pressures young girls to fit a prematurely sexualised profile - it's rarely a real "choice" IYSWIM).

id rather they got rid of uniform altogether than waste time and energy policing how much they try desperatly to personalise it or make it cool.

Make them all just wear jeans and tshrts like on the continent

I think the reasons given are a bit off.

It shouldn't be about male gaze, or victim blaming.

But, skirts at my school are indecently short. No-one, male or female, needs to see a 13 year olds arse cheeks in their place of employment or learning (certain medical or caring professionals maybe).

Male staff and pupils may be more uncomfortable than female because of it being a body different to their own, in the same way female staff and pupils might be more uncomfortable than male if Mr Jones went about shirtless. But flashing your arse is just plain unacceptable in school really.

I'd ban stretch fabric skirts for starters, they are our main culprit. The PE skorts are awful too. I don't know why they make them so short, if they wear them with a hoodie it looks like they have nothing in their bottom half.

I promise I'm not an old moaner, but when I went into teaching I did not expect to be seeing so much arse.

NeverDrop

Male teachers are uncomfortable being falsely accused of being paedophile. Can't think why

Crikey, girls have been rolling their skirts up since forever. The only thing that has changed is how the teachers approach the matter. It was detention and then suspension in my day. Why do teachers feel obliged to justify their uniform rule? I’m sue the length rule has been in place for donkeys years, long before this particular teachers weird interpretation. You wouldn’t go to work with your Mary on display, why would it be acceptable at school?

i can understand the “feeling uncomfortable” bit. i know that most girls at our local secondary wear tiny thongs. i know that because they are on display when they walk past. As a teacher, I would feel extremely uncomfortable.
i would also feel very uncomfortable seeing most of a boy’s bum btw.

It's ridiculous. I remember being pulled aside by the head of year 11 during my GCSEs (back in '99), she told me that my top was unacceptable and was making the male invigilator uncomfortable. It was nothing racy! Just a tight-fitting vest top with shaggy from scooby doo on it!! I will always remember how confused, sad and embarrassed I felt, I really liked that top and was only interested in boys my own age, no history of flirting with the staff...

@Frlrlrubert

I think the reasons given are a bit off.

It shouldn't be about male gaze, or victim blaming.

But, skirts at my school are indecently short. No-one, male or female, needs to see a 13 year olds arse cheeks in their place of employment or learning (certain medical or caring professionals maybe).

Male staff and pupils may be more uncomfortable than female because of it being a body different to their own, in the same way female staff and pupils might be more uncomfortable than male if Mr Jones went about shirtless. But flashing your arse is just plain unacceptable in school really.

I'd ban stretch fabric skirts for starters, they are our main culprit. The PE skorts are awful too. I don't know why they make them so short, if they wear them with a hoodie it looks like they have nothing in their bottom half.

I promise I'm not an old moaner, but when I went into teaching I did not expect to be seeing so much arse.

Absolutely agree. I had one girl the other day in a sort of all in one over her shirt and tie: vest style with a ruffled skirt. It was so short her blazer was longer. I discussed it with her and she seemed to think that since a) she had microscopic shorts on underneath (no more than a pair of black pants, really) and b) her parents think it's okay that she was completely fine. I had to inform her otherwise and she was sent to her head of year. Unfortunately now I'm the bitch in her eyes.

It's the overt sexualisation of children that I object to. With the weather so hot there are many young girls in lycra short, shorts at the weekends. Many, again, are like pants. I saw one group with a variety of cheetage on show, disturbingly one girl of no older than 13 with at least half of her bum cheeks on display, made worse by the fact that her shorts were flesh coloured.

As many have said, the reasons given to the OP were not valid but the problem remains of super short skirts and shorts.

Cheekage

Do all the girls turn up their skirts because of all the other girls doing the same , and its trendy, Or is there something they don't like about a skirt that is a little longer, say knee length or such,, or do they hitch up skirts to get attention from males., and stuff they see on videos.

Its a long time since my daughter was at school in the 1980's. I don't remember any problems with school skirts then. My daughter was into heavy metal music then, courtesy of her Brother, and once went to school with a dangly heavy chain necklace, and some dangly earrings with silver crosses on them, and was swiftly told to remove them, and not wear them again,

I'm afraid I've disengaged from the whole issue of short skirts, after I threw a fit about a short pleated skirt with built in shorts, and my dd specifically asked a teacher, and was told it was fine, they were only concerned about the tight lycra pencil skirts. I have, however, told her to not expect any back up from us, if she does get pinged in the future.

I kind of expected some support in support of their school policies. Apparently not.

Crikey, girls have been rolling their skirts up since forever.

Yes, we did when I was at school in the 60s. But not so short that our bums and knickers were on show. Mid thigh was about as short as it went, and only a few of the girls wore them that short. And if a teacher (male or female) spotted you with a rolled over waistband, you'd be told to let it down. And as a pp has said, there were no very short, skin tight Lycra skirts in those days.

I think in schools where the have a uniform skirt or pleated skirts they roll them up cos all the other girls do (or we did in the 90s, but not to the point of flashing arse).

At my school though they just wear stretch fabric mini skirts a size too small and spend the whole pulling it down to cover their knickers as it rides up constantly.

My school is piss poor at enforcing the rules though. Girls come in in black skinny jeans and just get away with it because their parents back them and if we put every uniform infarction in isolation for the day it would have to be held on the field. So they get negative points and the go on report and they do not give a shiny shit.

I work in a school. The girls' skirts are supposed to be knee length, but most girls wear them much shorter. We have small individual desks in my school and the girls often sit in such a way that the short skirt falls away and I can see right up to the top of their legs. I'm female but I still feel uncomfortable; I don't want to get a flash of their underwear (or more) every time I look at them.

The school skirt is a pleated kilt, so it doesn't even look good when it's rolled up!

[quote Mymapuddlington]@SoupDragon I’ll probably get pounced on for this but I blame the media, it’s normal to watch music videos with half naked women writhing about singing about sex, social media seems to be a bizarre competition of half naked / full naked images. No getting away from it unfortunately.[/quote]
Girls have been hoiking up their skirts since long before the current generation of soft-porn music videos.

Two reasons I'd advance for them doing it:

1. Conformity - everyone else does it
2. Teenage rebellion - you know that adults don't like it.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup

I don't particularly enjoy seeing teenage girls' inner thighs and gussets when they sit down/their arse cheeks when they go upstairs either. Sometimes I see even more than that, not because I'm looking with malevolent intent but because it's in my line of sight, I can't work blindfolded and frankly, it's all out on display for anybody to see anyhow.

If I chose to deliberately shorten my clothes so that was what everybody saw at work, neither they nor their parents would appreciate it.

I have cringed at some of the sights I have seen recently.

@HarryBlackberry1

My daughter is in sixth form, and was telling me yesterday that they get repeatedly told not to wear short skirts, because the male teachers see it as a distraction. Like a previous poster said, should they be in the profession then? I'm a teacher myself, and think this is bizarre. Mind, I hate to see horrendously short skirts. It does make me feel uneasy.

It looks like male teachers are just the scapegoats then when the real reason is that no one wants to see someone's buttocks.

We spend all of Primary school teaching our children that private parts are private, and then we are supposed to just accept body parts hanging out at high school?

Male teachers in particular I would say are extremely concerned at being accused of something very unpleasant if they are to look at or mention girls skirts.

I am pretty sure that a lot of the short skirt wearing, is to show off to other the girls, as much as to attract the attention of boys.

I completely agree with PPs who say that there is a time and a place for certain clothing. My test is, if it’s not okay to wear your pyjamas in that situation, then there are probably also other clothes that it is not okay to wear.

Nobody wants to see anybody else’s private parts in a school setting. My view is that it is parents responsibility to talk to their daughters about both the messages that they are sending, and how other people may perceive them, depending upon how they dress. We all send signals when we dress, and it is important to understand what these may be.

@StoneofDestiny

I didn't ask. The information was told to me. I didn't say a word at the beginning.

I'm afraid staff at schools aren't going to choose to fight this battle all the time, just have a look at some comments in this thread to see what they're up against from some parents. In an ideal world the school should be able to enforce policy (leaving out that BS about the menfolk feeling uncomfortable, obviously!) without being called 'handmaidens of the patriarchy'

We all just have to pretend as if it's totally normal for girls to have their actual arses out and for boys to be in trousers, ties and blazers.

Girls have been hoiking up their skirts since long before the current generation of soft-porn music videos.

True, in the 90s I was one of them but it was a good few inches below my bum though. The local secondary school here is awful, always see girls with their knickers on show and boys smoking, feels like the school have given up really.