To think telling a child to "cover up" because of male teachers is ewwww?

[FreeeeeeeeFreeFalling]

DD and her mates were wearing fairly standard vest tops at school for an own clothes day. All dressed exactly the same. DD singled out and told to cover up (I suspect because she is slightly larger chested than the others), which she found humiliating. She was told "there are male teachers around" as the reason!
They are 16.
I kind of think if male teachers can't keep their eyes to themselves, they shouldn't be teachers, right?!

AIBU to think this is a bit off?

You’re glad not to be male?

The chances of a man raping a woman and being convicted are so low that it’s almost reached the point that men have immunity from prosecution for rape.

But you’ve seen men being punished because their gaze fell upon a woman?
Really?

Can you run us through the last five examples of this you’ve witnessed?

You can’t understand why seeing your adolescent students’ underwear on display would make a teacher feel awkward?

I can’t understand your lack of understanding tbh 🤔

Clingy vest top for school - absolutely not.

yes it’s non uniform day but that doesn’t mean they can wear what ever they want! there still has to be common sense applied! And remember they are in a professional setting, just the same as hot pants or crop tops woundn’t be allowed at school.

Why wouldn't active wear be "not contextual" at a parent's evening? They're there to discuss their child's education, not run 5k.

Its not about the child's body. It's about her clothes. We use clothes to communicate. Workwear communicates professionalism, uniforms communicate authority, cure heads communicate fandom, transwomen wear women's clothes to communicate gender, pins and badges are worn to communicate affiliations etc etc. Young girls roll up their skirts and wear revealing tops to communicate their sexual maturity. It's not a communication that many adults (particularly in a professional setting) are comfortable with.

What a weird question. When I lived in a hot holiday destination, people mainly wore light cotton and linen shirts to protect them from the sun to both keep them cool and prevent sunburn.

Tourists sometimes worse vest tops or even bathing suits around but no local would have done so, it was considered poor etiquette and even gross. That stuff was for beaches and clubs.

She could learn algebra equally well in a blouse with a bra underneath.

That's an interesting response, thanks Edithbond. I don't believe school is the place to allow freedom to non conform though. Some individuals will and you will likely never stop them but to give free reign, sounds like a recipe for chaos or at least a challenging teaching environment. In that rules exist in school I think also supports preparing children for what they will encounter in most workplaces.

Are boys allowed to wear vest tops? If they do are they asked to cover up? I don’t mind if there is a blanket rule that applies to everyone, but if it’s just girls it’s very ew.

Hilarious.

Pretty for who? By whose standards? What does 'pretty' actually mean in this context?

Comfortable? I don't think that skirts so short you always have to check you're not flashing your bum, high heels, shapewear etc are comfortable in comparison to other items of clothing.

Happy? Again, happy why? In what way?

I'm a radical feminist, but I don't particularly like seeing girls (or boys) walking around in skintight leggings that go up their bum and outline their crotch or skirts that nearly flash their bum, seeing half their cleavage, or other such things that look half-dressed. One can wear a higher-necked vest top, for instance, or a skirt that hits mid-thigh instead of the top of the thigh, and it's not going to be any warmer or less comfortable.

Skimpy clothes worn outside of a beach context draw the eye - it's what they're designed to do, generally. It's why when people go out on the pull they will be more likely to wear something short/body hugging/low cut than a sack that covers them entirely.

When I was a teenager at school, my friends and I absolutely dressed skimpily at times to try to draw attention and admiration - from our peers of course, but everyone has to see it, not just our peers. And it can make many adults uncomfortable to be put in a position of seeing parts of a teenage girl that they'd rather not see/that it feels inappropriate to see.

Honestly, I think any straight man who isn't made slightly uncomfortable by a teenage girl in a pair of shorts that show the underside of her bum, and a vest top that shows a ton of cleavage, is the real worry here. Because they're enjoying looking.

The fact is, fashion for women and girls is often deliberately highly sexualised. The boys would have to be from another planet not to perceive it that way. The girls themselves may or may not realize it, but the designers and trend setters surely do.

Clothing is driven by market forces, especially cheap fast fashion that is largely consumed by girls. They are purely reactive - they make what sells, they couldn't care less about setting trends.

Plus, I think it's naive to think 16yo girls don't know exactly what they are doing - seriously, was anyone itt really that naive at that age?

And even worse that what ….. male teachers are going to get aroused by teenage girls?!!!

omg

No way!!! Let her go nude!! When we all stare, it will be the mens fault!! Woman power! 👊

Tell me you haven't been in a school without saying you haven't been in a school 🤣. Teenagers are not professionals, unless they're professional boundary pushers!! Teachers and parents can push back, but I'm not doing it on own clothes day!

I think the film Moxie on Netflix was a good depiction of this issue

I wouldn't lump breasts in with arms and legs, its a false equivalence. (I notice you didn't add arse cheeks to the list)

I'm far from being a prude, but when it comes to children I think the rolled up skirts to the extent where they are showing off gusset, crotches & butt cheeks is completely wrong and anyone saying that this isn't designed for the male gaze is deluded. The girls need to give their heads a wobble and the schools need to come down harder on them, as do the parents. In the 1980s these visions would be in soft porn magazines and I'm sure if the boys came in wearing their waistbands around their crothes to show off their penis bulges there would be outrage.

Ps I think that vest tops are fine, only not ok if they are spilling out of them. It's a school after all.

Stating that 16 year old girls aren't beautiful and sexual is a very new thing. If they weren't they wouldn't be showing off fully formed cleavages and butt cheeks. What's the is the most searched for category on porn sites......

You may not like it, but the world needs to face up to it.

Finally most people regardless of their sex would feel uncomfortable seeing a teenagers bottom peaking out of a very short skirt or the her underwear and crotch as she leant forward or climbed the stairs.

I actually think you should be more worried about the ones who don't feel uncomfortable about it.

She's NOT 'a young child'

I had a phone call from the school once to say they were speaking to all year 9 parents as the girls skirts were too short and 1. It made the male teachers uncomfortable. 2. It wasn't fair on the boys and 3. They couldn't protect them from being attacked when they weren't in school grounds. I was flabbergasted that instead of teaching young men that they need to control their behaviour regardless of what someone was wearing, we were asking girls to change the behaviour. AND that we thought it was OK that grown men need to be shielded from having to control their sexualised feelings about 14 year old and that it was the girls fault they felt that way. AND that they were peddling the narrative that they may get attacked by what they wear, which is buollocks. Women and girls dont get raped because they wear short skirts. I even put it on here and there were lots of women who agreed with the school
Cue flabbergasted again. And we wonder why it continues to be an unsafe world for about girl, when women are playing into the narrative.

Complain to the school. If her chest is covered then she is wearing appropriate clothing. Would any boy be told to cover up if he was wearing a tight vest or a pair of skinny jeans? No, my guess is he wouldn’t.

Visible cleavage?

Why stop at not showing genitalia? It’s part of our bodies isn’t it, so why so modest and stop at genitalia? Might as well go all the way if one is serious about body confidence, eh?

by the way, I’m being facetious. I am typing this in my clothed body, and I am so body confident, I don’t even wear eyelash extensions or fake nails. My body is 100% my own with no extras added yet I don’t feel the need to go around showing my vulva and nipples.

If it's just a body, why shouldn't they go around with boobs hanging out, or fannies too? Why should a vulva be a "private part" when we all have one?

My DD goes to an all girls school. Every non uniform day there is a reminder that shoulders and stomachs should not be on display. I'm glad of this, there is no way I could turn up to work in a strappy top which purposely exposed my stomach or those shorts where my arse cheeks are hanging out. Neither look good for a semi professional setting.

At what point does one draw the line, though? Some girls come to school in shorts that might as well be pants and "tops" that are basically bras. I'd be very uncomfortable if the boys wore such clothes, but of course they don't; it's only the girls, and the question is, why? What the men feel is the lesser question; the bigger question your daughter should be asking herself is why she feels compelled to wear as little as possible in order to "look good". Why is she buying in to the pressure to make herself an object for the male gaze? That male gaze isn't going away, but she has a choice: she can cater to it, or she can reject it. Just because she's girl doesn't mean she has to cater to it.