Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Misogynistic - School uniform

119 replies

LadyGAgain · 01/09/2021 23:17

Right. This is a weird one so pls hear me out.
School has a very strict uniform policy. This isn't the AIBU.
Boys can wear trousers or shorts throughout the year with a shirt and tie plus pullover.
Girls can wear the same as above (including skirt) but are allowed to wear a gingham dress only in the summer term.

So boys can wear any of their uniform options throughout the year but girls are only allowed to wear part of their uniform when they are told it's ok.

None of my issue is about uniform. It's about boys being able to do anything throughout the year and girls being told they can't until the school say they can. So the subliminal messaging is happening without people realising it.
Girls conform. Boys can just be.

The girls won't recognise this right now but it's there. Subliminally there.

AIBU?

OP posts:
Naptimenow · 02/09/2021 07:40

My dd’s uniform policy was the same. They can’t prevent a child from going in a gingham dress in winter as uniforms are unenforceable. That is unless your dd is at private school, in which case this will be a prerequisite the teachers can go a long way towards making primary school kids feel very uncomfortable about breaking their rules - law or not.

Naptimenow · 02/09/2021 07:45

There are many parents who do not ensure their children are adequately dressed for school for a whole plethora of reasons. what about outside of school - what’s to be done with all these feckless parents who can’t dress their kids properly - we need more laws don’t we - a national uniform that kids would have to wear all the time - that would ensure that all kids were adequately dressed all the time.

onelittlefrog · 02/09/2021 07:45

But the girls have more options than the boys plus a special extra option for Summer.

Sorry but I think YABU and getting worked up about nothing here. Boys have two options, girls have those two options plus two more. If anything the boys are being treated unfairly with fewer options.

Gingham dresses aren't warm enough for Winter anyway, and having an extra option also makes the Summer feel special.

This is not about misogyny. I thought you were going to say they are being made to wear skirts or something.

Ducksurprise · 02/09/2021 07:45

This is crazy, the girls have an extra option. It's not teaching them some subservient lesson it's protecting the girls whose parents will send them in a cotton dress in the mid of winter. Those getting funny saying that parents are sensible enough to make the decision, you maybe but plenty of parents for whatever reason are unable to make sensible decisions

DynamoKev · 02/09/2021 07:52

All school uniform is utter pish but I don’t see misogyny here.

There is a risk of devaluation of the term if it’s applied to almost everything.

There is clear discrimination on both sides; one of many reasons school uniform is a shit idea.

itsgettingwierd · 02/09/2021 07:59

@Backonceagainwiththe

Boys have less options as no dress (girls can do dress shorts/skorts too at any time). If it were truly fair it would be exactly same uniform for boys and girls. Why does it need to be boy/girl. Why not trousers for all?

It's a lot more sexist at high school. Blazers and shirts don't work with women's body shapes and blazers and ties in particular are not generally worn by women elsewhere as they don't flatter (they're pointless for boys too but at least some men wear these items by choice). The skirts are often a set type such as tartan where as boys can buy any grey or black trousers from Asda. No idea if this is a statistical fact but seems more heads at secondary are men. Does this have any bearing on this. Who knows? The female teachers don't have ties and blazers though with tucked in shirts.

It won't be fair until they just let them wear polo sweatshirt and joggers with trainers. Why do kids need faux business attire?

Agree with this.

I've always said in a world where we are encouraging out young woman to be happy in their bodies (especially with SM) why are we insisting they dress in clothes not designed for body shape etc and limiting their options.

A size 8 and size 16 young woman are not going to fit the same style uniform the same way and they often feel uncomfortable and that will affect their learning - not benefit it.

JellySlice · 02/09/2021 08:06

It's clearly nothing to do with fairness or number of options. It's about the subtle messaging that boys have freedom to choose whereas girls do not. It's one more little drip in the constant drip-drip-drip of feminine socialisation.

RoseAndRose · 02/09/2021 08:08

@JellySlice

It's clearly nothing to do with fairness or number of options. It's about the subtle messaging that boys have freedom to choose whereas girls do not. It's one more little drip in the constant drip-drip-drip of feminine socialisation.
No, boys don't have the freedom to choose, because that option is not available to them, ever. Girls get one term of additional choice that the boys never have
PurpleOkapi · 02/09/2021 08:09

How does giving girls additional choices, plus all the same choices the boys have, suggest that they're not free to choose or capable of choosing?

ThinWomansBrain · 02/09/2021 08:15

the girls have wider choices through the year, plus an additional summer term option - seems unfair on the boys, rather than mysogynistic.

EmpressSuiko · 02/09/2021 08:24

Isnt just because a gingham dress is too thin for the winter? Boys don’t get an option of a thinner item of clothing, they can only choose shorts to help keep themselves cool.

WineAcademy · 02/09/2021 08:27

Uniform options based on the sex of a child is outdated and sexist. Depending on the policy, this will disadvantage one sex more than the other, but overall I've seen girls stuck with the worst of it, over and over. YANBU to complain.

vivainsomnia · 02/09/2021 08:33

Typical example of a society desperate to look for reason to shout discrimination. Thank God the majority challenged OP. This has to be the most twisted one I've heard from for some time!

HarrietsChariot · 02/09/2021 08:36

You're right it's wrong, but it's misandry that's the problem here.

Girls can wear the same thing as boys for the whole year.

Girls have an extra option in one term that boys don't have.

If anyone is getting treated unfavourably, it's the boys. They're the ones not getting the extra choice that the girls have.

splodgemaster · 02/09/2021 08:58

I loved my gingham summer dresses at primary school. How is girls having more choices than boys misogyny ?!

Hemingwaycat · 02/09/2021 08:59

Misogynistic? Haha! This is absolutely ridiculous. The gingham dresses are completely optional, not many wear them at my DC’s school and certainly not past about year 3 because they aren’t cool anymore. Your DD can wear a skirt or pinafore dress without tights all year round if you want to make a point about boys being allowed shorts. I don’t think you’ll do that and equally don’t think any young boy will be wearing shorts in January.

Needapoodle · 02/09/2021 09:01

Get a fucking grip. Im all about finding examples of every day sexism but this is just fucking stupid.

Aprilx · 02/09/2021 09:05

Do you even know the meaning of misogynistic Op? I am not sure you do, it means contempt for women, dislike even hatred of women, hostility towards women. Offering girls the option of a gingham dress but not boys is not an example of contempt for those girls. It is not an example of anything in particular. Girls and women face enough challenges in life due to sex, there really is not need to make up stupid ones like this.

TheViewFromTheCheapSeats · 02/09/2021 09:06

The problem my old school had was gingham is very cheap, so some girls were dressed in it all year round. It’d be sleeting and some would have plimsolls and gingham on. Both ended up being banded as the kids would be freezing and soaked, totally unable
to operate in class. It wasn’t about girls items, it was simply a ban on weather inappropriate clothing.
It gave us an excuse to send kids back home in spare uniform if they came in cold and wet. We’d dress them warmly in unclaimed good condition lost property and put the dress in a carrier bag for hometime. Before we made the rule some parents when mad if we did this, saying we had no right to etc. They’d get aggressive with staff who got involved and said it was their choice etc.
Realistically no one was bothered if they wore it on hot days in the spring term.

ChateauMargaux · 02/09/2021 09:07

There are lots of things wrong with the gendering of uniforms, imposing gender norms which lead to girls being less free to run and climb and do cartwheels which has long term impacts on their involvement in sport and the objectification of their bodies, but giving them choices.. is good. The fact that they can choose trousers and shorts is good.

The insistence that summer dresses are only worn in the summer term is rooted in ensuring that all children have adequately warm uniforms for colder weather.

CaptSkippy · 02/09/2021 09:13

Wow, the MRA's are being active on this thread.

I agree with you OP. It's ridiculous to hold girls to a different standard regarding school uniforms. I would so hate this. Glad my school never had uniforms, because I hate skirts and dresses.

halcyondays · 02/09/2021 09:14

I think when mine were at primary they said gingham dresses were for summer term, some did wear them in September and nobody cared.

daisypond · 02/09/2021 09:14

I think school uniforms should be exactly the same for both sexes. So, everyone wears trousers or shorts. No dresses or skirts for anyone.

Topseyt · 02/09/2021 09:21

@Fauvist

The boys do have restrictions. They cannot wear a gingham dress at any time of year.

But really, doesn't this just show how ridiculous uniform is? High time we got rid of it entirely.

I totally agree with this, and I used to be someone who was very pro school uniform.

By the time all three of my DDs had left school I was so utterly fed up and exhausted by silly rules and ridiculous levels of enforcement that I favoured just ditching it altogether. I still favour ditching it.

irresistibleoverwhelm · 02/09/2021 09:22

At most schools I thought there was an unspoken rule that girls could wear their summer dresses up until the autumn half term! Lots wearing theirs in our drop-off queue this morning.

The real sexism is that girls get the extra option because way back when, it was that girls must have a pretty dress option because girls should wear pretty dresses as a default training for life. In the 1960s when lots of state schools adopted uniform standards as a widespread thing, it was unthinkable that girls shouldn’t look pretty and girlish in a cotton frock in the summer 🤷‍♀️ Look at the designs of the gingham frocks - they might switch between fashions for dropped waists or not, but ultimately they still look exactly like dresses little girls and women would have worn in 1950 or 1965, and nothing like dresses most women or girls would wear today.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that look and think it’s gorgeous - BUT that doesn’t mean it wasn’t rooted in an earlier, very much more gender-roles codified social world.

However the gingham dresses are actually nicer and cooler to wear than the boys’ uniform, so what is a rather outdated relic of a social system that thought girls = pretty frock, because that was the default dress for women, actually ends up nicer than the scratchy Teflon trousers the boys are wearing. The confusion over who’s benefiting is because it is ultimately a relic of sexist roles for girls and women in clothing - it’s just that now we think of it as actually being a nice extra choice for girls, rather than something that was originally imposed because the idea of little girls not wearing a cotton frock to look pretty was such an unthinkable one.