To think schoolgirls wearing exposing skirts isn’t a feminism issue but a safeguarding one?!

[Moonicorn]

Following on from the thread about skirt length inspections, AIBU to think stopping underage girls from revealing their underwear and bum cheeks to male teachers (or any teachers) isn’t ‘internalised misogyny’ but basic safeguarding?

Or am I just ‘not enlightened enough’ to understand that underage girls can expose what they want to grown men as long as they’re ‘happy and comfortable’ with it?

Disclaimer: I believe adult women can wear whatever TF they want and are not responsible for men’s reactions to them, but this is about children which is a different ball game.

Interested to know your thoughts!

But a simple solution would be trousers surely?

All students to wear trousers.

There is no need to wear an extremely short skirt and it's not appropriate for school or work. But the obsession with measuring girls skirts is just weird and people seem to think it's distracting the poor men or putting the girls at risk.

No, predators put girls as risk, not skirts.

I think having a rule about skirt length is perfectly reasonable. And I'm also suprised that they had male teachers measuring the skirt lengths as the male teachers I know just do not get involved in girls skirt length. I'm also surprised that the school have suggested it's because boys can't control themselves etc. Because surely that's an old trope these days?

However if a man in a school is attracted to children, I don't think child flashing him her knickers is going to make a blind bit of difference.

School uniforms should be unisex. Trousers, shirt and jumper, with a t-shirt for summer. Job done.

It's not about male teachers being distracted.
It's not about male students being distracted.

It's a simple case of there's a uniform, it's rarely rocket science how to follow it.

I'm a teacher and I'm certainly not a fan of super-short skirts. I think they look awful. I'd rather have them all wearing jeans or something. I think girls' motives for wearing very short skirts do not come from a place of female empowerment at all. But what makes men harrass or assault women and girls is not skirt length, it'smale behaviour. Wearing longer skirts will not prevent women and girls from unwanted attention, harassment or assault by predatory men.
Agree with this.

All the students need to do is the same old dance that generations have done: roll them up a little, be reminded to follow the uniform, repeat.

It says a lot about the state of education and society where adults seriously think they're empowering children by protesting their right to show their underwear.

No. The point is appropriate dress. Thats the lesson to be learned.

But yes a simple solution if your pupils won't open rules on skirts is to just make the uniform trousers, not line them up and measure

Personally, I find it disgusting that female teachers are sexually attracted to 13yo boys’ knees and Adam’s apples meaning that those boys have to wear long trousers and do their top buttons up…

Oh, wait, the reasons aren’t actually about teachers finding children sexy, are they? (And, let’s be honest, no one actually thinks that’s the reason because if teachers liked staring at school girls then they wouldn’t keep asking them to cover up, would they?)

I agree

Who gives a stuff if the girls don't want to wear trousers?

Plenty of schools are trousers only and girls still attend.

It's a load of sexist nonsense and a fuss over nothing. Girls always have an always will roll their skirts up.

Exactly

It says a lot about the state of education and society where adults seriously think they're empowering children by protesting their right to show their underwear.

100% Lola. It reeks of the ‘Family Sex Show’ stuff all over again - ‘If the underage girls are happy to expose their bum cheeks to grown men then who are we to disempower them?’ Etc 🤮

I would agree if unisex actually meant unisex - but it doesn’t. Every “unisex” item of clothing I’ve ever had just means “cut to a man’s body shape”. No space for breasts or wide hips but a bulge where male genitals would go.

I’m a parent. And a teacher. I’m female.
I do NOT want to see bum
cheeks on display as I walk up the stairs. I do not want to see pants gussets when a class sit in front of me. It isn’t appropriate.
I feel sorry for male teachers tasked with monitoring uniform
and being accused of ‘perving’ or worse.

Why do you keep making this about girls exposing themselves to men? You are being revolting.

Girls have always rolled up their skirts. I used to do it and I went to a girls school with only 1 male teacher who looked about 80.

Lots of asking for it vibes on this thread

Eugh

This will never improve will it?

Why can't we just agree it's not a good look, full stop ?
Schools should just ban skirts across the board or allow the boys to sit shirtless and show off their boxers. It's very much one rule for one.

I teach in an all boys school but with girls in a 6th form. Some of the schools are full on incident, I'm regularly telling them to pull their skirts down. If I can see their bums it's too short. It actually makes a lot of male staff very uncomfortable and they don't say anything to them because of it. The teenage boys love to have a good old perv, then the girls don't like when they make comments. Yes as a female you should be able to wear what you like but when in a school setting it's not appropriate at all.

The time and effort men put into controlling girls' and women's bodies is definitely linked to misogyny.

If no dangerous men are there, then there is no safeguarding issue.

Yes, daily. I have not observed that kind of styling at all. So much in fact, that I find the people posting claiming there are large cohorts of girls showing off the curve of their buttocks at school to be highly unreliable reporters.

“AIBU to think stopping underage girls from revealing their underwear and bum cheeks to male teachers (or any teachers) isn’t ‘internalised misogyny’ but basic safeguarding?”

Why would you need to measure the skirt to stop that?

Either they’re covering the bits that need covered or they’re not.

It's not about 'exposing themselves to grown men'. It's about dressing appropriately for school (whether one with a uniformor not), as you would dress appropriately for work.

Do you understand safeguarding? That it doesn’t mean giving men free rein to underage kids to ‘see which of the men are the bad ones’? Because anything else is ‘asking for it vibes’?

This.

Don’t be ridiculous. They weren’t looking up their skirts, were they? They were looking at the length of the skirt at a length that the child chose to wear it to a place that they knew they would be looked at by both male and female staff. There certainly shouldn’t be the “odd” paedo in a school, no. Do you think female teachers should be unable to tell male students that they can’t wear shorts? Do you think lesbian teachers don’t get to monitor uniform?

When I was teaching, I was involved in this kind of “inspection”, it’s literally just looking a child up and down and saying “that’s too short”/“do your top button up”/“why are you in trainers?”/“take the hoody off”. No one is “getting off” to any part of it.

Would you feel the same about lesbian teachers doing the checks?