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.

What would you do if your daughter saw a skirt or dress in a shop and asked you to buy it? It would be extremely controlling to refuse. I was the girl who actually refused to wear dresses for years as I wanted to be George from The Famous Five. Lived in dungarees, laughed at the idea of wearing frilly socks, refused point blank 😂 My daughter is different, into everything girly and princess related (I never was, never played with dolls either) and I absolutely respect that. She is free to do her own thing.

I’ve noticed a lot of Mums at baby and toddler groups moaning about relatives buying their DDs dresses, definitely steering them away from wearing them, I find it controlling and bizarre. When are people going to stop trying to control what girls/women wear?

Nobody is arguing for skirts as PE wear.

I’m not rich or posh, but I personally detest jogging bottoms/tracksuit bottoms, especially for girls/women. I haven’t worn a pair since I was a rebellious 16 year old, and would now never wear a pair. I prefer jeans or leggings. I’m so glad my children’s excellent state school has smart boy’s trousers/smart girl’s pinafore/trousers/skirt. Not constantly trying to alter things to make a point.

My personal belief is that as a society we’ve massively lowered our expectations of how we dress for school/work/weddings, etc. I guess this is since covid and everybody WFH more/boundaries being blurred between home and work/casual and more formal settings. People shouldn’t be pressured into following these casual trends if they don’t want to.

I’ve noticed a lot of Mums at baby and toddler groups moaning about relatives buying their DDs dresses, definitely steering them away from wearing them

Really? That's a very unusual demographic then - little girls wear loads of dresses, frills, bows etc. Shops are full of them.

So at the more middle class baby/toddler paid groups the Mums were very into beige, casual (boring 😂) gender neutral clothing for both boys and girls, no bright colours/patterns/prints generally.

However, interestingly at our more working class primary school then yes the dresses, huge bows in hair, patent shoes, jewellery, book bags adorned with decorative key rings are out in full force! 😂

Just an observation where I live, will no doubt be different around the country.

DD would have really struggled with this as school uniform is usually by age, not by waist/hips/length. With a super small waist, wide hips, and short in height, she had enough trouble with skirts, let alone trousers.

No, no they don’t. Are you aware that 1 in 6 people have sensory issues? She couldn’t even wear a skirt at primary school. My friend’s son had horrendous issues with school trousers at secondary age.

DD had skirts and dresses although I kept them in babygros until they were nine months old. She enjoyed wearing them in ‘dressing up’ type occasions - weddings etc.

However for school, weekends, holidays she lived in jeans or shorts. I can’t remember anyone wearing a skirt or dress to school.

For people saying women and girls “aren’t allowed a choice in what they wear anymore” and “when are we going to stop policing what girls are allowed to wear” bullshit and trying to paint it as some kind of sexism/anti feminism…has no basis in reality. Why are we policing what girls are allowed to wear by making them wear skirts? Or giving them the choice to wear either? - when we all know girls who might prefer to wear trousers get bullied and told they’re “boys” for wearing trousers, therefore they’re forced into wearing skirts despite how uncomfortable they feel, just to avoid being bullied. Time to stop enforcing outdated gender stereotypes on girls that aren’t even a reality in the adult world - the world we are supposed to be preparing them to live in. Imagine your workplace implemented a policy that only male employees can wear trousers and female employees must wear skirts. People would be up in arms everywhere about the sexism of it. In fact, it’s probably illegal! So why the hell are we enforcing this ridiculously outdated idea on girls?! Thank god schools are finally catching up to modern society. Also having a uniform is, in itself “policing” what ALL children wear. It’s got nothing to do with society policing what girls wear, it would be policing what they wear regardless of whether their policy was pink frilly dresses for girls and camo tracksuits for boys or whether it was the other way round!

Why are we policing what girls are allowed to wear by making them wear skirts?

Well, nobody is, so calm down.

What a great idea, hope they roll it out everywhere.

Yes babies are a whole different ball game- babygro so much easier when constantly changing them anyway 😂

Interestingly, and I can only speak for primary, there aren’t issues here around dresses/skirts. The things the school are constantly emailing about and asking parents to stop sending their DDs to school in are enormous hair accessories/huge sparkly, crystal book bag key rings and nail polish.

I guess each school is going to have different rules flouted, and different parents have different views on whether they’d even like a uniform at all. Very hard to please everyone, so at least there are a range of schools for parents to choose between.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/skirts-blamed-for-schoolgirls-lack-of-exercise-as-half-fall-short-of-target-6mnm59brx

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/school-uniform-policies-linked-to-students-getting-less-exercise-study-finds

But sure, having one kid who scampers about in a skirt TOTALLY disproves research 🤔

It's not about feminity - and I find it weird that the wearing skirts is a defining feature of feminity - it's about what facilitates confident movement for ALL children (not just wunderkind who clearly leap buildings in a single bound while wearing a skirt).

but, contrary to popular belief, not all girls wear their skirts that short. You pick on the few girls who wear them ridiculously short and think it speaks for the majority who wouldn’t feel at all comfortable with their bums on show. I wore mine pretty short but I’d have been horrified in anyone saw my pants!

there is nothing intrinsically sexual about young women’s legs and we have to move away that baring any flesh is somehow immodest

What is bizarre is you considering a parent choosing how to spend their own money controlling.

As an aside, dresses for babies and toddlers are daft. Completely impractical, especially for those who can’t yet walk.

That is a shame for Primary age children, I loved my patent shoes, I vividly remember wearing mine with pride, away with those cumbersome awful wide ugly big buckle and brown leather and in with sparky shiny shoes.

however for secondary the thing i constantly hear is girls rolling their skirts too high. No matter on design, threatened sanctions etc quite a few do this and it (is not much different to any day and era), but they’re now rolled so short walking behind them on the stairs quite frankly is awful for staff and also other pupils. Also there is general a link the higher the skirt the more behaviour issues that student has in school. Safeguarding too. Parents choose said school as has good results and behaviour under control, but then go up in arms over sanctions over their own children who they want away from all said policies they so wanted in the first place.
so secondary schools are just going over to trousers, wait till the summer when it gets hot…
If you want to keep skirts as an option in yours, support the school uniform policies.

Surely the response to that is to have the boys taught not to do it. Or to get them to wear skirts. Otherwise it is policing what girls wear because of boys’ behaviour.

I spend a lot of time at my daughter’s school. The uniform of choice for girls is very much really short skirts or trousers. Girls in knee length skirts don’t exist in her school.

So the vast majority don’t. And those on this thread complaining haven’t mentioned anything like this, as far as I can see (I haven’t read every comment). It’s just personal
preference.

Of course there will always need to be individual adjustments (though if there was no uniform at all you wouldn’t need that!) but at the end of the day uniform is anti-choice/preference. If you like uniform you need to suck that up.

It is controlling, the money is irrelevant. A parent has to buy their child clothing, and refusing point blank to buy a dress for a girl who’d like one is awful. It’s the same with hand me down clothes- if my DD is given a bag of dresses, skirts, jeans, leggings, trousers, whatever, then removing only the dresses would be very weird and controlling. Show all options and let the child pick.

TBH, trousers of any sort are also impractical for babies who are wearing nappies, the quickest and easiest thing to put them in is a baby gro or sleepsuit.

Why does a girl or woman wearing a dress and feeling good in that and enjoying that bother you? You don’t have to wear them, no one is telling you to, but you cannot dictate that others can’t wear them, of course.

The sooner the UK moves to a non uniform policy the better. Non of these problems happen in non uniform schools

You can ascribe skirt wearing as the manifestation of, 'outdated gender stereotypes'; I would argue that position is an expedient ploy of those whose interests lie in preserving the patriarchal hierarchy. How is, "girl/woman, you are comfortable in this but not this, you will wear this but not this", ever a win for feminism!

At least 4 or 5 posters said something along the lines of “why are we policing what girls wear?” I was responding to it, I didn’t just make it up lol. I don’t have time to go back through the thread and pick out every single one.

What do you mean? Do you mean boys are taking photos or purposely lifting up skirts? That's a big no no and definitely illegal.

Or do you mean teenage boys are just looking with their eyes if a girl's underwear is showing?

My DS went to a grammar with a mixed 6th form. The skirt rule was that it had to be of a certain length (above the knee). Some girls wore skirts, some wore trousers.

As far as DS knows no girls were teased by anyone (boy or girl) for their choice. They just had to adhere to certain standards in dressing (as did everyone)