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?

not having uniform doesn't mean they don't have appropriate rules for dressing for school or sent home if something is inappropriate.

How can you be sure if someone is perving rather than looking in surprise/shock?

So to clarify, I do think that staring for an extended period of time at any part of a person is impolite. I'd say 'staring' for me is anything longer than four or five seconds - and obviously it depends on whether someone is standing right in front of you, or if you're looking at them across the road while they're oblivious, etc.

I also think if body parts are covered then a person is clearly trying not to expose them, so it's particularly rude to let your gaze linger. And obviously, sometimes men will lech at women and girls who are aren't exposing anything, and the men's sexual motivation is clear in their demeanour.

But if someone is wearing shorts that show half of their arse and a top that barely covers anything, it is unreasonable to expect people not to look for a few seconds before they move on with their day.

I do wonder why staring is such an upsetting thing for you, though. Impolite, yes, but why is it so bothersome? Frankly, most of the time, I have to hear from my DH that a man has been staring at me because I'm too busy getting on with things to even notice them. I don't wear anything that would expose body parts I'm not okay with exposing in the situational context, so I don't really have any reason to feel exposed by someone staring for several seconds.

I just think it's weird to unnecessarily show people something that they're not allowed to look at?

That’s a bit different - you were out of school on an activity that required certain clothing.

That just does not follow from what people are saying though.

It's an overly emotional non sequitur designed to derail the discussion.

They're children, not adult women. That is all anyone having difficulties with seeing them wearing their clothes needs to remind themselves of.

Telling children that their clothes are wrong because male teachers are around is sexualising them.

It's really very simple.

Yes I think that is the problem in this thread: the teacher muddied the issue by mentioning male teachers, which, as op says, was a bit ew.

But saying certain items of clothing are inappropriate for school is a sensible intervention.

Predictably the nephew who was "looking" at some girl's backside is now said to have been "perving", "staring" and god knows what else

Personally I wasn't there - perhaps the PPS were? - but this sounds to me very much like the excitable school gate ramping-up of a situation mentioned earlier, and all because some seem to think teenage silliness should be enabled

It's all a bit sad though. I remember the poster from a few weeks back on the rolled up/micro school skirts. She had a 10yr old daughter and proudly stated that she wears a tiny skirt to ps and that her dd looked great in it. I was a bit shocked tbh. Dreading the 8yr old getting older 😱

Or is it the women teachers 'protecting' the men? I think we had one of those upthread.

There's so much naive talk here. Well men shouldn't look. Well it's rude to stare. Well nobody should be sexualising breasts.

OK - carry on thinking what everyone else SHOULD be doing while the world carries on being as it actually is.

Even if formal business dressing is on the way out, that does not mean wearing revealing and unprofessional clothing in the workplace is acceptable. For example, staff in a Nationwide I visited were wearing polo shirts bearing the logo, not vest tops.

Not really children at 16.

Yes, the male teacher comment was inappropriate.

But I have to think that most male (and female) teachers would rather their students didn't have their breasts half showing, or their arse/knickers out.

Any male teacher who said, 'Oh, I don't mind when Alexandra shows up in a low cut vest top and a miniskirt that nearly shows her bum - I don't even notice' is the real worry here, and lying about not noticing.

Because adult men shouldn't stare lecherously at teenage girls, but they will see/notice/look. And unless they're a pervert it will make them uncomfortable and be irritating for them, because now they feel awkward looking in the girl's direction while teaching, because she's a child who has her breasts/bum half out, and that's not something that anyone decent wants to look at. It's weird.

Plenty do understand. I have however met some, especially the younger teens, who just follow trends without much insight. Perhaps these are the ones who become women on threads like these who think that women's clothing is not sexualizing in any way.

I used to work with someone who wore low cut cleavage showing dresses. Male colleagues said it made them uncomfortable. All very well saying they shouldn’t look - but when she was leaning over their desk looking at something on their computer screen…..

I do too. Don’t we also have public decency laws as well in this country? I don’t want to see anyone’s bum in a public place, unless it is a beach or similar. Even if it’s just a bit of it!

I think the person who told her to cover up because male teachers were around shouldn’t have said anything about her clothes if there were other girls wearing exactly the same attire.
However when I worked in a school as a TA staff were not allowed to wear vest tops or shorts/skirts shorter than knee length because it was deemed to look unprofessional and too casual for the work place.
If the teacher didn’t like what the girls were wearing she would have been better not saying anything directly to the pupils, approaching management and asking that ahead of the next non uniform day guidelines on appropriate clothing could be sent out.
I have boys so I doubt scrappy tops to school will enter my world however I would advise my sons that wearing a vest and shorts wouldn’t be appropriate for school, and would ask they wear a t-shirt instead. If they chose not to listen to me at 16 then there would be little I could do about it, however they don’t usually totally ignore me 😂

Same for boys. To show bare chests or bum cheeks is not appropriate for school.
School is like a professional place of work for the kids.
Different if it were the beach or a swimming competition.

This thread has inspired me to be a naturalist. If anyone has an issue, it's entirely not my problem. Excellent

I see both sides but also I’ve seen the way some blokes look at young girls in school uniforms and it sickens me. I remeber it from when I was at school I used to think my mum was up tight for how much she bollocked me for rolling my skirt up but now I understand. In an ideal world girls could wear what they want but we don’t live in an ideal world we live in quite a dangerous world for girls.

The issue isn't really about the top- it's about how it was handled, and the reasoning given. Worth raising with the school calmly but directly, focusing on the inconsistency and the language used rather than just the decision itself. Some large variation on here too around how much flesh is ok to show. Schools have a hard time!

I think it's naive to think 16yo girls don't know exactly what they are doing

Obviously there'll be exceptions, but on the whole you're right.
More to the point they'll know what the "Queen Bee" is doing, and that peer pressure being what it is she'll ridicule them if they don't do the same - and worse, if they don't follow her lead in insisting "Mr such-and-such is a paedo"

We could avoid some of this by teaching them to value confidence above following the herd, but sadly some of them have parents who also care more about that herd and dragging confrontation into every blasted issue

I for one won't even be noticing! I don't see nude.😂

'Because adult men shouldn't stare lecherously at teenage girls, but they will see/notice/look. And unless they're a pervert it will make them uncomfortable and be irritating for them, because now they feel awkward looking in the girl's direction while teaching, because she's a child who has her breasts/bum half out, and that's not something that anyone decent wants to look at. It's weird.'

Yes exactly. Won't someone think of the poor men who are uncomfortable and irritated. At least boys are being spoken to kindly by court judges and avoiding prison after planning, carrying out and filming gang rapes.

Men must never be made to feel uncomfortable. That would be dreadful.