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?

Women and teenage girls have breasts, it’s a fact of life. Breasts are visually there, and are just as obvious in a Victorian blouse as in a modern vest top. It is the responsibility the adult teachers to not stare at, or sexualise a child’s breasts. I knew girls who had proper boobs from 10 at primary school. They were most definitely children. It would be inappropriate for a adult to comment on their body (I went to a non uniform school and it was the 90s so vest tops) It is even less appropriate nowadays when teachers are expected to have higher standards and more safeguarding training.

For one day?

What's the point. I'd need to return to looking them up and down the next day.

Ahh Mumsnet, where people wearing pyjamas in the supermarket is vile and disgusting, but teenage girls going to school wearing low cut tops and skirts up to their arses showing their underwear is perfectly acceptable.

A non uniform day means casual wear, just as it does in the office. Learning how to “dress down” and still be appropriately dressed for the setting you are in, is a good skill. Nothing to do with “there are men here”, more “this is a school, dress appropriately”. At 16 she should be setting an example to the younger pupils.

Teenage girls can wear what they want when they are on their own time, let it all hang out, be confident and to hell with what anyone thinks. Be aware you will attract male attention, make your own choices when that happens, deal with it however you see fit.

A school I worked in stopped non-uniform days. Main reason was that it highlighted the tremendous disparity in household incomes.

Some children had so little that they pressurised parents to buy clothes for the non-uniform day. Other children could be wearing hundreds of pounds worth of designer clothing. I remember being very unsettled by the apparent differences which were not that obvious when uniforms were worn.

Breasts are sexualised by society, that's why.

Having them on display isn't appropriate in a professional environment.

I actually think this is a great point. If I look over a male student and see the outline of their penis, I absolutely would expect a male member of staff to have a word. I’m confident I could do that though without it looking like I was staring at this lads private parts. Therefore, I think this idea of the male teachers not being able to cope is nonsense and stems from a fear of the female form due to its oversexualisation, rather than any actual problem with being able to see skin of chests, arms or upper thighs. This is what we need to get over.

I meant generally

Could your daughter have, say, gone into an office for work experience dressed as she was? I get that people should be able to wear what they like but for me, if it wouldn’t be appropriate for a professional workplace, it is not appropriate for a professional learning environment for young adults. And no one should be wander around showing butt cheeks unless on a beach. Again, I cannot imagine any workplace where doing so would be considered appropriate.

But that’s a society problem, not a teenage girl one. Making girl’s hide their bodies will not make oversexualisation go away, it will only exacerbate it.

Well, it's interesting that 'school uniform' is quite a well-known fetish, if looking at things from the side in which a white blouse, tie and prefect badges is supposed to be the way to neutralise the sexuality inherent in a teenaged student.

I think it's horrible to be so close to weighing up what cup size half of a class have, as I don't think it would do body image issues any good at all - since the only thing a girl can do about it (either large busted or small) is to aim to cover up while still accepting it's a pretty obvious thing when you have 15 other shapes and sizes sitting at desks in most teaching situations.

Probably clusmy wording about covering up due to males granted. Some items of clothing are not appropriate when you have a bigger chest & rather than OP acknowledge this she would rather clutch straws about a throw away comment. Lets be honest the top sounds skimpy for school.

I’m quite conflicted on this. In theory yes I believe that girls should be able to wear what they want. But frankly, boobs are quite distracting. That’s one of the purposes of them, as a secondary sexual characteristic - to attract attention. I’m a 53 yr old heterosexual woman and I find it distracting! I find all the faux naivety about breasts on here a bit bewildering tbh.

i work in a secondary school, not the UK, and we don’t have uniforms. I invigilated an exam today, walking up and down the rows and keeping an eye on the desks / papers. And boobs galore 🙄 as it’s hot here and most of the girls are in strappy vests and push up bras.

Its absolutely ridiculous the way big boobs are sexualised. As tho the young girls who have them grew them specially to lure men. I mean ffs.
I was pancake flat at 16 and i used to get away with wearing completely see thru mesh tops to college and no onw batted an eyelid because i wasnt sexualised as i had a flat chest
Vest tops are normal clothing. No girl should be shamed just because she has large breasts. This needs to stop. Having a larger bust is not some sort of deliberate sexual act

For rhose who say that the girls should be allowed to dress as they like, would they be happy with male staff wearing skin tight vest tops and budgie smugglers?

As summer approaches it'll be time for the girls to be hanging out in the local green places in what's basically lingerie. It's what happened the last few years, no reason for it to stop.

🙄

This is why DS school has the logo on the skirt. It means staff can comment on the fact the logo isn’t visible rather than the length

Who told her to cover up

It wasn’t necessary handled well, no. The teacher should (possibly - though not all vest tops are the same) have spoken to all the girls, and shouldn’t have given the reasoning quite as they did.

But the thinking was sensible even if they shouldn’t have voiced it in that way. The comment about male teachers not being because they cannot be trusted, but because they are far more likely to be accused of looking and if looking of doing it out of sexual desire. The teacher wants to protect their colleagues and the children in their care. And these are children and their parents and teachers absolutely should be pulling them up if they dress inappropriately.

If a 16 year old is approached by a man in ‘her own time’ it is because she is young and vulnerable, not because of what she is wearing. Do you think that the Grandmothers who get raped in their own homes were wearing too revealing night gowns when ambushed in their own beds? Men rely on tropes about what women and children wear, where they go etc to reposition the blame for unacceptable behaviour.

Ours is generally based on the 3 ‘B’s…no boobs, belly or bum

Unless she was wearing a bra top there’s nothing inappropriate about a vest top!

I’m not saying breasts aren’t distracting, I think a well-toned male physique would have the same effect. Still my problem if I choose to stare at it though, not his.

There’s vest tops and vest tops…..

some of them genuinely are inappropriate for school

I have to look at uniform and there are specific rules which I have to check daily. This takes more than once glance.

How exactly is a girl with big (or even medium) sized boobs not supposed to show them?! A full covering blouse will gape if your boobs are big enough.