AIBU to think it isn't fair for school to ban skirts and dresses

[helloall987]

My kids attend an all through school they start at 4 in reception and it goes up to 18. There is a primary and a secondary site.

From September they have changed their uniform to trousers and shorts so no school dresses, skirts or pinafores allowed. All children boys and girls to wear black trousers or shorts. No school shoes either just black trainers. The two reasons they cite are modesty and a gender neutral approach so there is no distinction between girls and boys. This is for primary and secondary school pupils. My DD loves wearing pinafores and patent school shoes. I just think think that with this policy the idea of "feminity" is being taken away.

Most parents think it is a great idea but there are a few of us who want to contest it.

Is a dress masculine if a boy is wearing it?

Pants depending on what part of the country you are from, not sure why you'd feel the need for the correction and in italics no less.

Pants is the normal word for them in some parts of the UK (for example where I live in NW England, though I'm from the SE so I don't call them that).

Most girls wear jeans/leggings/joggers outside of school hours. You don’t see girls in the park, skateboarding, riding their bikes, queuing up in McD in skirts or dresses. I can’t see any issues with trousers for school.

I know trousers are popular these days but I think it's really unfair. Girls should have the option to wear them but they should have a dress option too. Teenage girls love to wear short skirts and this has been the case for decades. The idea that it's unsafe seems strange to me as it wasn't an issue when I was at school or years later for my stepdaughter. But somehow boys are now considered wild beasts.

Then you ban not skirts, not ALL skirts. It's giving a ridiculous message to the children than skirts are immodest!

It sounds like pandering to a tiny minority whose religious or cultural beliefs require "modesty".

That's unacceptable in my view. Why does the left wing require that we always bow down to the most awkward, restrictive group?

It's a bit like the hospital I worked in. It started saying all the meat was halal, even though only a minority observed halal meat conventions. The reason I object is principally about economics - it favours one type of butcher. It's also ethics around animal slaughter.

Yes I thought the same

let girls have a choice

why should they have to be gender neutral

skirts are cooler in the Summer rather than black polyester trousers

I think you're reading this wrong. Like many, I'm an atheist who just thinks a bit of decorum in schools is important, and that the evident social pressure on teenaged girls to put their bodies on display is depressing. There's a big gap between sexist modesty culture and girls attending their place of learning in clothes that barely contain their arses.

This would be a nightmare for my daughter. We’ve never found any school trousers that she can wear due to the fabric and/or the fit.

I wouldn't have liked it. But school uniform is just that.

Id have liked a pink uniform but I had to wear blue.

Appreciate some kids won't like it but I don't think uniforms are about that

And yet every schoolboy in the country manages somehow.

I’m staggered as to how many girls apparently can’t wear a pair of trousers or shorts. Presumably they manage with other aspects of uniform - because there wasn’t been any choice.

I mean, I thought this lack of choice was exactly what most British people love about uniform.

Is it surprising to you that teenage girls and boys have different shapes, and that there might be more choice and fit for boys’ trousers than for girls?

We’re all perfectly aware of how women’s and girls’ clothing is often more expensive, yet less well cut, less good quality and less durable than men’s clothing. My DP can order shirts in a wide range of combinations of length, fit, collar size and arm length, but for me it’s just the standard 10, 12, 14 etc., and only a Petite size once in a blue moon from the occasional manufacturer.

Trousers for girls have to accommodate a much wider range of hips, stomachs, bottoms and leg lengths, yet you’ll find none of that variation available in school trousers.

I’m tiny and curvy and have struggled to find any trousers that fit my whole life, so you must be quite a standard size if you think women’s trousers are easy to fit!

As well as being very convenient, it also is modest in the sense that it doesn't show the child's underwear, which is so embarrassing for a girl of P7, who just started her periods. As girls go to middle school they'll get bullied by other girls if they don't roll up their skirts. If your child's used to GN uniform, she's less likely to be pressured by stupid actions of her peers in the future. I think it's a very good policy in the long term.

A quick visit to M&S site shows me 5 different fits for girls trousers as opposed to 4 for boys.

Girls top halves come in a variety of shapes and sizes too - should girls not be expected to wear uniform shirts?

Your argument is for no uniform, which I would be completely in board with. But if you want uniform you accept a lack of choice.

It not trousers that are the issue. It's school uniform trousers can be very restricted in terms of cut. Depends how the school handles it.

I have sons and actually one was difficult to buy for. He has very big muscles (rugby player) and the school specified trousers were tight if they fitted on his waist. his friend was overweight and regularly had to buy trousers too long and take them up.

Why is gender neutral being interpreted as what the vast majority of men wear? Challenge them on this and ask if males are being asked to dress ‘modestly’ ?

YANBU. I hate that I have read this policy is being introduced in schools a few times now.
It should be a free choice; skirts or trousers/shorts (for all!)

Absolutely agree with this. Let the girls have a choice as to how "modest" they want to be. Let the boys wear skirts if they really want to.

Why do they have to wear trousers though

skirts are easier to wear.

i find trousers difficult to buy and I used to as a teenager

I think it’s fine. I’m an adult, and where I work the uniform - for men and women - is black jeans or trousers with our company logo Tshirt or jumper and black trainers. Neither skirts and dresses, nor open shoes, would be practical when doing a physical job with plenty of bending, lifting, etc. Little girls should also be free to move without risking showing their underwear.

Change school. Write deserving reviews. How horrible. Mysoginistic. "modesty" - wtaf. Everything we fought against.

If course there are some who support it, most people are mysoginsts.

Nobody should be sexuslising their underwear and if they are they need locking up and not allowed around children.

Yeah my daughter used to wear trousers as she much prefers them but has had to switch to skirts as she was getting bullied / misgendered.