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?

Good point...

This!

I mean yes and no. I had this argument with my daughters when they were young.

Our brains are our brains. You can't stop automatic thoughts. I'm not a man so I have no idea whether this would be the case. But if it is, it's not their fault, they don't want it. Thoughts aren't actions, you can't hold someone to account for their thoughts.

Also, young girls are naive. They don't understand. I think we should have standards in place that protect everyone and prevent embarrassment.

*And it's not unheard of for the odd mean teen girl to wrongly say a

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

Not sure what you think you mean by 'statistically significant' but the 'appropriate processes' often lead to a poor outcome. Before I retired, 20+ years ago I was behind a girl who was walking along a corridor, a male teacher coming the other way said to her 'I need your coursework in to give me time to mark it', she yelled at him 'Why are you looking at my boobs, you fucking queer' and this was escalated by her and her mother, despite my saying that I was behind her and this never happened. It took a week to eventually sort it out, the man was totally exonerated but it didn't stop the girl repeating her rubbish all over school. The man, an excellent teacher, left because of her lies, it badly affected his mental health.

This

Unintended consequence = many men not applying to be teachers, when schools badly need them for male students.

How terrible. It's a tricky subject as one doesn't want to imply that girls regularly lie about sexual harassment but it's also wrong to ignore that some do.

A few years ago .. about 2004 .. I was a lunch time lady at a girls grammar school .. they wore short skirts then but not as short as some are now. There were male teachers there too … we had to tell the girls it’s best not to sit on the desks ( lunch time ) as when dinner time / break time ends the male teachers will walk in and maybe see their underwear. … I was mortified having to tell them but it was essential as most will appreciate 😬

Where does it say the male teachers can't control themselves?

🤣

18th and 19th century men used to wear tight breeches that showed off their crown jewels and women low-cut, cleavage-heaving dresses (in some decades).

• I bet some women weren't keen on the tight breeches fashion: that codpieces were a thing seems gross to me.

It's true that 18th century included low cut dresses but this was also criticised: Jane Austen does in her letters, for one.

Not having your tits in everyone's face, maybe?

Similar happened at a local school. Girl was about 12 I think and she said male teacher had been inappropriate. Parents reported to school and police. Other kids came forward to say she had been told off by him earlier that day and had said she'd "get him" for it. He was suspended and then exonerated. I heard parents saying "no smoke without fire" and he became very ill and was medically retired. I don't know if she was punished but it was an awful thing to do.

I think this is much more what it is about than directly trying to appeal to men.

Think back to being a teen girl. Who did you care more about when dressing? It's the other girls and it's the pressure of fitting in, the pressure of trends. It's up to the adults in their lives to rule a line when they are getting misled by all that pressure.

I think making this a male vs female shoot-out is the wrong approach. Do the men want them in revealing things for gratification? Do they want them not in those clothes to allow women to do the work of helping them control what they are unable to control themselves? Who knows, but to me the males are beside the point to some degree. I don't think its about defying men not to look, it's about supporting girls to shape their identity so they don't feel the need to push boundaries using their bodies.

There are so many healthy ways girls of this generation could look to push boundaries - ways that actually have a real impact.

No I did it to appeal to boys in the boys grammar nextdoor.

she yelled at him 'Why are you looking at my boobs, you fucking queer'

Apart from all of the other issues in that case, she doesn't even seem very good at rational reasoning, does she?!

This...I mean- where's the logic in that?

Cleavage is not private parts. It’s a sexualised characteristic, but it’s a normal part of a woman’s body

Let's be honest about this. Some 16 year olds are thin as a rail and straight up and down and a vest top fits really neatly on them. Other 16 year olds are far more developed and buxom and tend to spill out. Same item of clothing on a more mature (and buxom!) 16 year old puts an entirely different perspective of appropriateness. It's not fair to the more well endowed to not be able to wear this stuff without looking like Lolita. But that's life. I was always the skinny one who couldn't have looked sexy in a vest top.

*I am now quite fat and still can't look sexy in a vest top.

School is a place where these situations shouldn't arise at all, hence rules.
It's not just about showing skin. It's the presentation. You just innately know if your daughter is going to school looking a bit like she's flashing a few more attributes than she would in an office situation.

Finally, I don't swallow the feminist "It's just skin, it's just a chest"

Penile erection in men is entirely involuntary. Totally and entirely involuntary. That does not reflect on their integrity.

Anyone justifying girls being asked to cover up need their hard drives checked

What’s the matter with you? Genitalia isn’t shameful, let people express themselves how they please. A birthday suit is still a suit.

Why - in case they find they have decent photos of fully-dressed children on there?

so anyone who expects basic standards of dress to be met in specific situations is some
sort of sex offender? 🙄

maybe you could turn your “argument” around to question why some people are so keen for school girls to be allowed to show whatever body parts they want! Does that make them perverts?

So if they go to school naked we should just act like the villagers in The Kings New Clothes? I suppose its fairly typical that it was a boy who pointed out his nakedness.

Penile erection in men is entirely involuntary. Totally and entirely involuntary. That does not reflect on their integrity.

• this. I'm a strong feminist but I think some discussions overlook this.

Otoh : I also think there's no reason women shouldn't be able to be topless at the beach. Men's pecs are likewise a secondary sexual characteristic, doesn't mean they can't go topless there.

But I don't think anyone should be topless otherwise. I don't like seeing topless men in the street in summer.

My thoughts exactly.

I taught teenagers for many years, and hated it if female students came in half dressed (ie with ridiculous amount of flesh on show). I thought that it made them look very vulnerable.