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?

We had to put out a dress code for non uniform days before stopping them completely. Skinny Vest tops, tiny shorts, pyjamas ... not great for school.

It's literally part of a male teachers job to check the uniform of every student as they enter the classroom in my school. How do you suggest they do that by only looking at a child's head?

The funny thing is that once they get to college they often revert to comfy hoody and joggers!

It’s not uniform day!! They don’t need to check

Are they? In the work place? We have a strict dress code (nhs) and previously a journalist. We weren’t allowed bare legs and definitely not strappy tops. If we’d had to cover a court case we’d have been found to be “in contempt of court”.

I work just fine with girls in tight tops etc. Mostly because I know where their faces are and that’s what I look at when I’m teaching them; either from my desk at the front, when I’m walking around the room or sat next to them helping with individual problems.

The school should be saying "cover up" to all the children or none

The school should not be saying "there are male teachers around", how inappropriate

But ops daughter was singled out so the problem wasn’t the vest top the problem was bigger boobs then her friends in a vest top because you know.. poor men.
Fuck this attitude, definitely complain op, it was a disgusting comment.

Not showing cleavage

You have put this so well. I agree.

Yes - it’s this. As a teacher you have to look at uniform when they come in to ensure it’s all correct- shirt buttoned up, tie done up, shirt tucked in, skirt decent length, shoes on not trainers. It’s literally a whole body scan of 30 kids x 5 or 6 times per day. It’s totally automatic

When your brain is used to scanning every student, it's a hard habit to get out of for one day. It's autopilot a lot of the time in teaching, lots goes into the subconscious because you do it all the time.

I agree with this, a lot of it is about pushing boundaries. I work in a secondary school, and in my experience year 7-11 girls wear the uniform skirts as short as they possibly can, but the minute they get into sixth form - where there is no uniform to rebel against - they instantly resort to comfy hoodies, joggers and jeans. I have literally never seen a sixth former wearing a skirt to school in nearly 10 years of working there.

This was on a non uniform day and what was said to the OP's DD was totally wrong - (a) she shouldn't have been picked up on what she was wearing simply because she has big boobs and (b) absolutely no way should there have been any mention of male teacher discomfort.

There’s clearly many parents who have zero concept of what this means 😳

Because it's no more appropriate then the boys wearing shorts and no top would be. It's fine for the beach, but not appropriate at school or in the workplace.

Saying it's because there's male teachers around is a terrible choice of justification though.

Which you've trained yourself to do. As opposed to me that scans them routinely to check their uniform.

Just look at them generally. You can run your eyes over someone quickly, without staring at cleavage.
However, I do agree with your point that it shouldn’t be up to staff members to individually tackle girls or boys about uniforms being short etc. Simple solution is to give a point of they notice something and a female member of staff picks it up with the girls and a male with the boys. It what we do in my school. Takes the confrontation out of it. Becomes a more general chat than an accusation.

Obviously because your DD said this was the reason - apparently verbatim - it must be true.

It's only school, not quite the real world yet. I'm actually a supporter of wear what you want; but I do baulk a bit that this perspective gets bastardized into a needing to show your tits and arse as asserting your independence as a female who wants to wear what they want.

Quite simply - young women want sex so no surprise so do young men.

Do the math and don't be disingenuous about it.

Yes, I’ve gathered people don’t like cleavage, shoulders or upper chests (on girls) 😂 But why?

Fair enough, but she wasn’t in no top. She had a tank top on.

Looking at them generally can open you up to accusations....

If kids wear vests every day it's more usual and won't feel wierd. If they don't, and you go from no cleavage, to cleavege for a day, it is uncomfortable. Equally I wouldn't want to see the cleavage of any of my colleagues, or penis outlines on the men.

My cousin’s daughter was sent home from school (Wisconsin, USA) for wearing a vest top because the straps were deemed too thin. Sweeping statements about other countries aren’t really helpful.

May I gently suggest retraining yourself then? 😁

Appropriate clothing to me is clothing that you can’t see up, down or
through.

Personally I don't think it's appropriate to let your boobs or butt cheeks hang out in any context. But certainly not on the workplace or school.

But it should be nothing to do with male teachers.