Should skirt length matter in secondary schools?

[Holdonforsummer]

My daughter is 15 and in Year 10, she attends an all-girls comprehensive secondary school and they are obsessed with the girls’ skirt length. The skirt is like a tartan kilt and is supposed to be ‘on the knee’ but most of the girls roll their skirts to make them a bit shorter (think mid-thigh). I’m a bit on the fence about this but her school go on and on and on about it. They stop girls all the time, give detentions for short skirts, have assemblies about it, and have even been known to measure skirts and give girls long ones from the list property cupboard to wear instead. Yesterday, my daughter had just finished 5 hours of mock exams in 28 degrees and was walking home - outside school property - and was stopped by a teacher threatening detention even though she had left school. She came home furious and fed up of the whole thing. I can’t decide whether the girls just need to toe the line or whether behaviour from the school is bordering on a sexist, misogynistic obsession. YABU: the pupils need to obey the skirt rules, YANBU: The school should calm down and stop obsessing about skirt length.

Thank you so much 🙏! It's a massive problem and I can't tell you the hours that have gone into this.

Expecting adolescent boys not to look at girls' bum cheeks or underwear when they are blatantly on show is like expecting an ice cube not to melt in this weather. You would rather it didn't happen but it's going to.

It is not about the length of the skirt, it is about refusing to follow rules. If allowed to break this rule with your consent what will be the next rule she will want to break? If you don't like a clubs rules join another one, move your daughter to a school that allows pupils to wear whatever they want and do whatever they like.
Whilst in uniform your daughter is part of the school.

Gosh your school was easy street. We weren't allowed to remove our blazer and tie unless we were in PE , home economics or metal/woodwork. We had to sit in soaking wet blazers during the winter or melt in them during the summer. Girls were not allowed to wear trousers and nobody was allowed to wear a raincoat over their blazer.

That's depressing to hear.
Obviously not all schools/teenage girls are the same.
You're right - it probably does happen but the teen girls I know it generally doesn't.

Yes, not all the teens I teach behave this way either, fortunately!

They are. They are being made to wear really quite long skirts so they don't distract men and boys. But their PE skorts show their buttocks when they run around public places doing cross country. Completely stupid. If the skirts were a normal length they wouldn't do this. And they will be completely fine when they go to college or work without ridiculous extremes and mixed messages. Measuring my daughter's skirt length is creepy

Exactly. I would expect that even the most well behaved boys would look. I'd expect however them definitely not to touch, take pics (very illegal) or say crude remarks.

@raffegiraffecouldn't agree more!

You are such a help to the creepy, pervy men who like to letch over young girls. And no, that isn’t me saying that their clothing is a reason or an excuse for those men.

How are girls being liberated by wearing tiny skirts that show their underwear (clues in the name)?

Why do people think it's okay to dress inappropriately at school? We wouldn't be okay with boys purposely sagging school trousers would we?

I saw a teenage school girl's knickers just this week, her skirt didn't cover them. I can safely say I was in no way wanting to see a child's underwear and certainly didn't find it sexual... just very sad.

Even if her underwear is on show?

Congratulations?

Come on mini skirts have been a thing since when, 1960?

My DD and girls I know (and work with) roll their skirts to mid thigh and wear Nike pros underneath.

The only bum showing clothing is the school enforced skort, which is obscene. The schools could easily change the uniform to shorts for PE or give girls option of trousers, but lots don’t.

Locally there is a school that has ankle length skirts - but outrageous skorts once a week in public field used by the school.

There is more to this than all our girls are harlots! Society sends very mixed messages and fashion and peer pressure also play a part, as it always has.

There’s also often mention on mumsnet of parents not wanting reception girls to wear shorts under their school skirts so as not to suggest we are sexualising them - so which one is it? We all know you see more knickers in primary school, with cartwheels and sitting on the floor.
Knickers are ok in primary and not in secondary? Children are children.

sure, there are girls who roll their skirts. There are also girls with long thigh bones who have trouble finding a skirt that fits their waist and meets the length requirements. This is especially true of a specific skirt is required.

I care about girls whose bodies cause them to get caught up in uniform policing. If even one girl is shamed or has minutes taken away from her education because her body does not fit the textbook standard, that is a failure.

so if some girls get away with rolling their skirts, I don’t care. The damage done to policing girls for their real bodies is not worth it.

I’m happy that the girls you know only roll their skirts to mid thigh. Unfortunately there are many girls, as this thread clearly shows, that roll their skirts so short the bottom of their arses are on show. I don’t think anyone has an issue with mini skirts, the issue is with skirts so short they are practically belts.

Are you joking!!??
Having to dress a certain way so your body doesn't upset people is absolutely the patriarchy and anti feminist. Rarely applied to men is it? I don't understand how you could think this isn't. Modest, decent, etc. All these words to equate dress with moral superiority. You're part of the problem, you just don't see it.

No. Men are also expected to dress decently - the difference is that men and boys aren’t encouraged from every younger ages to bare as much flesh as possible, are they? Where are the teeny tiny shorts for little boys? The crop tops?

Please can you explain what is liberating for a girl to wear her school skirt so short her underwear is visible?

So you are happy for your daughter to go to school with her arse on show? You really believe that’s feminism and sticking two fingers up to the patriarchy?

I worked in a college (south coast) where the boys aged 16-18 wore their trousers fastened under their bums so their pants were fully or half on display from the back, jumpers pulled up to reveal. We’ve all seen this look.

No one said a word, no one judged their parents or said they were doing it for the female gaze, it wasn’t practical, attractive (imo) or presentable.

We only police female bodies and clothing.

Well - that’s your college. Who says other colleges don’t pull up boys dressing like this? I hate it just as much. I don’t want to see anyone’s underwear.

Sadly, I have seen far too many arse cheeks or underwear on display by teenage girls on their way to or from secondary school, even in winter. In any workplace I have worked, we would have been expected to change/sent home to change if we had turned up wearing a skirt that short as it would have been considered unprofessional.

It's pretty obvious, but it's liberating because she is doing what she wants.
Decently is such a terrible word.
No one is seeing flesh, because of tights
My son's trousers show more buttock shape than my daughter's skirt. My son is still decent when he has his top off. People need to stop policing other people's bodies