AIBU to challenge the school’s wording about pupils rolling skirts up?

[GreenSalon]

Weekly newsletter today from DC’s secondary school contained a paragraph on uniform including the fact that there have been complaints from the public about “pupils who choose to wear skirts” rolling them up to wear them extremely short. It finishes with asking parents to speak to their children about why this is “not a good idea”.

Now, apart from the fact I assume that they must mean girls, is this not clearly implying that short skirts = making themselves vulnerable and if is, then if anything bad happens as a result it is their own fault? I thought we had moved beyond this kind of nonsense.

I only have boys at the school not girls but want to write to the head to point out how utterly sexist this is. DH agrees with me pov but thinks I shouldn’t write. AIBU?

Is this not an issue as old as time?!
I'm 54 and my mates at school did it. I didn't. I didn't have the confidence, but my DSis did. My DM said they all did it in the 60s.

I'm sorry, but no they didn't. If they did what is being discussed here, wow- that would have been headline news in those days!

If you've seen the sort of 'skirt' referred to here, you will know. And you won't be able to unsee it...😮

Suspect you’ve either not read the full thread or haven’t seen for yourself how ridiculous the situation now is. This is not your run of the mill skirt rolling that you or I (at high school in the early 00s) experienced. They are now so short it is essentially indecent exposure.

Who measures it, throughout the day?

One thing to roll up your skirt by a few inches but surely you have eyes and have seen what’s been going on recently?

Ah I remember the tie thing. A certain amount of stripes had to be showing below the knot DD1 was a regular offender. However the school " stopped caring" about it and the impetus to play silly buggers with the tie and many kids didn't bother after

YABU
I think it’s a terrible look and it also looks very cheap.
It always has and always will imo.

FGS this isn’t even an issue you need to be concerned about if you’ve got boys. It’s not sexism at all to say ‘don’t roll your skirt up’. It’s an age old thing too. My mum now in her seventies said she used to do it. School sets the rules, they’ve said no. Leave it

As long as you’re not complaining about the wording of “pupil who choose to wear skirts” which is perfectly acceptable wording (some boys may choose skirts, some girls may choose trousers), then I’d probably send a letter asking them to consider how this message was communicated and about victim-blaming and shaming.

When looking for a secondary school we are impressed when we see good uniform out and around the local area. In fact there is a general correlation of good uniform = good behaviour. Then our own DC start the school and we wish they could do as they please.

I get the fact hormones are raging and they want to look attractive (slightly ick when it starts when they’re 11 years old), but sometimes and I appreciate they don’t want to and shouldn’t need to be protected from predatory behaviour from boys AND girls, but also setting an example about sometimes less is more etc.
When their blazer is longer than the skirt and seeing a thong and not the under shorts we think they are all wearing, sometimes as adults we need to offer a layer of protection as well as enforcing school uniform rules.

If something did happen say from a passing van, the first to blame would be the school for not enforcing something. Schools cannot win.

I feel the school should address this with the girls during their pastoral care lesson. My daughters went to an all girls school and these lessons spoke frankly about all sorts of things including abusive coercive relationships as discussions. This issue is down to peer pressure.
we have all been teenagers and took no heed of parents in matters of wearing make up short skirts or smoking behind the bike sheds. The moment they step out of the house and are around the corner…..

The girls at my local school have their skirts so short, it’s awful. When they sit on a chair, their underwear must touch the seat rather than the skirt. It’s unhygienic.

You are almost always, 99% of the time, being TA if you challenge a school’s enforcement of its rules. Teachers have way, way more than enough on their plates without keyboard warrior parents, who’ve usually never worked in a school, going on a crusade about every little thing. Support teachers, don’t add to their problems.

What does TA mean in this context?

The Asshole I assume?

It can unfortunately make them
more vulnerable, not victim blaming anyone here. They can get verbally harassed for having their skirt shorter on the way to school. Tbf some skirts are rolled up like a belt.

In that case… I’d agree

challenging the school over this? Yep, falls in to that category

I remember choosing to wear a tie when they said we didn't have to 😆sticking it to the man 🤘

No need for all the personal comments from some posters.
I'd say it was an unusual choice of words, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that they're basically victim blaming. I think the word they were looking for was "inappropriate", which it is because school hold certain standards of dress code.
I view it that, when out and about in public it's generally accepted here that men can have their tops off. If they were go to work/school without a top, it would be inappropriate. In their free time, girls can dress how they want, but parents should be helping to teach them about dressing appropriately for the situation.

In order to 'level' the pupils they make parents buy things at designer prices though. How does that help? The only item that doesn't need to have the school logo on is the trousers. The tops, jumpers, skirts, coats, 2 types of PE kit including socks all have to be the official expensive school version. We spend hundreds of pounds on it, so it might as well be from Hollister.

The girls around my area do it and they roll them up so high you can see their arse cheeks. It feels very icky because it smacks of desperation. They’re clearly not doing it for their own benefit.

It's because many, many girls roll their skirts so high you can literally see their bums.
Everyone absolutely should be able to wear whatever they like, but appropriate. Their arse should not be on full show on a teenage child in a school.

I wonder how the girls would react if they got what they wanted and started getting commented on? Especially by their male classmates

Or any child!

It's kind of ironic, and rather depressing, that after all the efforts by women (led by Gina Martin) to have upskirting made a criminal offence these stupid girls are now actually helping voyeurs to avoid prosecution.

The legal definition of upskirting is defined in the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, s 67a (1), which states that "a person commits an offence if they operate equipment beneath the clothing of another person (without that person’s consent or a reasonable belief in their consent), with the intention of enabling themselves or another person to observe the person’s genitals, buttocks or underwear in circumstances where they would otherwise not be visible, and this is done for sexual gratification ..."

But because of the way these girls are dressing, the voyeurs no longer have to operate "equipment" (i.e. a camera / video) beneath the clothing - they can get away with committing what would normally be a criminal offence thanks entirely to the active collusion of the girls!