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?

This!

if they think it's inappropriate they can deal with it on those terms.

And it's not unheard of for the odd mean teen girl to wrongly say a teacher was staring.

If that's a thing, which it isn't in any statistically significant sense, then there will be appropriate processes in place to deal.

Once again - NONE OF THESE RESPONSES MAKE ANY SENSE UNLESS YOU THINK MEN ARE INCAPABLE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT AND THEREFORE ADOLESCENT GIRLS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MEN'S BEHAVIOUR.

This! I don't mind skin showing in some contexts but it's gone way too far. The most extreme end is the gruesome dynamic with Kanye & Bianca Censori.

Indeed. Flashers in the park are also just wanting to feel sexual... and if people don't want to see it, they just need to either look away or manage to focus on his face and not his body, which they also shouldn't complain about him wanting to show, as that is body-shaming him and they're perving at him if they see anything (which they should have learned to control) and it's just ordinary body parts that half of all humans have anyway........

Yes, I still remember a thread from quite some time back about 16yo girls with boyfriends who were several years older - sometimes even driving to pick them up from the school gates each afternoon.

There were about three of us on there who were saying that it was disgraceful, predatory behaviour on the part of the men; but the vast majority of the posters on that thread were coming out with "they're over the age of consent; girls mature much earlier than boys; they're virtually adults anyway, certainly not children anymore; they know their own mind and it's patronising to suggest that they can't make their own choices..." I was reading it open-mouthed; but apparently I needed to get with the times and accept that it was supposedly completely normal.

YANBU to say that the reason was not great.

YABU to not understand that certain clothing is appropriate in certain places.

This is a basic rule in working life and good to learn early on.

Edited typos

This, basically

Vest tops are not appropriate for school., as in the name “vest”. However, your daughter should not have been singled out and this should have been discussed before non uniform day what is appropriate.

Somehow we all survived the 60s/70s/80s/90s wearing very short skirts to school.

I think that was just an excuse for weak parenting - a kind of "we pick our battles" nonsense.

I think pp was fair to point out we have a different climate to Oz, of course in a hotter climate showing more skin will be more standard.

Generally it's a norm not to show shoulders at work : I wouldn't have agreed with a male MP wearing that either

Me too.

Car drivers should stop at a pelican crossing’s red lights without pedestrians having to look, but having legal “right of way” is no comfort when you’re fighting your life in ICU.

Blokes shouldn’t perv, but having the moral high ground is no comfort if involved in an s*xually based incident. Personally, I wouldn’t be prepared to use my 16 year old daughter to make a point about wider society. Get her to put a T-shirt on and when she’s comfortably into her adult years she can challenge the patriarchy as much as she wants.

It's awkward because seeing bum cheeks isn't appropriate in a classroom.

I think maybe you haven't seen the skirts we are all talking about.

I first heard them mentioned on MN and thought more or less the same: since when has a short skirt shocked.

BUT these are something else, with butt cheeks literally hanging out, one frill across the upper buttocks. If they bend even slightly, as a pp put it, it's gynaecological. On one thread someone mentioned seeing wings of a sanitary pad.

Unless you are going to suggest public nudity, there has to be a tipping point and imo these skirts have tipped. I think we all agree there IS a point at which it goes too far. What point do you suggest?

Asking them all to cover up would have maybe been fine (still stupid but whatever) but to say it’s because of male teachers is disgusting, are they paedophiles or what? Why does it have an impact on them🤢

Shall we play three guesses?

Modest

'the girls lose the option to wear standard female clothes - ergo male becomes the default.'

• I do see your point but in a way this feels a bit old-fashioned. Trousers haven't been solely male clothing for about a century in the UK & elsewhere : we're not in the 30s when it was shocking for Coco Chanel or Katharine Hepburn etc to wear trousers or slacks. And women wearing trousers is hardly new globally: traditional Asian salwar kameez include pants, for one, and plenty of cultures have had men in skirt-like clothes (kilts obviously)

I also see your point re only girls being in trouble as only they wear skirts, but the boys aren't flouting their rules. The problem is being caused by the subset of girls behaving stupidly, not people trying to enforce basic standards.

I work in a school and fed up of seeing girls with their school skirts rolled up. Going upstairs behind them is uncomfortable to say the least and I’m female. Out in public I see young girls with their midriffs and chests out. Those shorts that look to be spray painted on and short, short make me cringe. I’m a parent to teens and there has to a point where a parent intervenes and tells their kids that their arse is hanging out and to dress a little more modestly? Not only males that notice this, us females do too.

Yes I think seeing sanitary pads is a whole different matter but that’s just disgusting.

This too . People in hotter places generally manage to have a basic dress code which isn't super revealing.

Ok op you’re that parent, raising that child. No one will be able to get through to you. Crackers on

I don’t disagree with this on a societal level, because clearly this is very much the case, but it’s very complicated in practice for teenagers.

The girls wear tiny skirts on regular school days and then turn up to mufti days in heatwaves in thick, baggy joggers. I think it’s more about fitting in and about rebelling against uniform rules than it is about being admired by boys.

I think many do but others are just trying to look cool, especially younger ones. Notably this problem occurs at single sex schools too where there aren't boys around (in the school day at least).

'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.'

• I think this isn't the full picture. Trends have been set for skirts to be extremely short. This wasn't the case to such an extent in previous decades. Teen girls aren't the only drivers of this.