Teenage daughters not allowed to wear school ties!

[mountainavalanche]

My younger son is starting in year 7 at the same high school as my other three next month, his sisters are starting year 10 and year 11, and my older son is starting his first year of sixth form, which has the same uniform.

Their uniform has until now consisted of a sweatshirt and a choice between either polo shirt or shirt with school ties being optional. But the school has changed the uniform for September so that all those starting in year 7 must only wear polo shirts and that although older pupils still have a choice between shirts and polos, older girls should no longer wear school ties although ties are still optional for boys.

My older lad occasionally wears a polo but prefers wearing a shirt and tie, as do both girls, who want to continue to be able to do so. My youngest lad is happy to wear polos but I have also bought him some proper shirts.

If the girls continue to wear ties, they won't be visible under their sweatshirts so I don't see why girls shouldn't be able to wear them when boys can? Most pupils currently wear shirts rather than polos so why ban those for new starters too?

It sounds like kids at the school choose to wear ties is that it makes it easier to wear a shirt with the top button undone without the collar uncontrollably going over the sweatshirt as the tie keeps it in place. Hadn't considered that.

Of course men usually only wear ties in the adult workplace, but that's not the issue here!

Why is it ok to tell girls, who HAVE been wearing ties, that becasue they are female they are no longer allowed to wear a tie?

It's stupid, doesn't make any sense and I expect would be pretty annoying for the teenage girls concerned!

Yeah it's not fair on girls who want to wear ties, they could always wear them to school and take them off just before they go in?

Would your son be happy to stop wearing his tie? Then they would all look the same.

If they have a tie on, surely their top button should be done up? Tie with undone top button just looks sloppy!
blueqwerty what? Wear a tie but take it off before going in to school? This makes no sense.

Ties are generally considered a 'male' piece of clothing (I once worked in a school with a large, very traditional, Muslim intake and the Muslim girls were not allowed to wear ties for this reason) so I guess that is where the school is coming from saying boys can still wear them. If they have professional or public facing jobs as adults they will likely have to wear them. Girls, on the other hand, will likely not, apart from some uniformed roles.

I'm not normally in favour of telling girls they can't do something simply because they are girls, but I don't see what there is here to get worked up about. It's not a big feminist issue, surely? Many schools have different uniform regs for boys and girls.

It's not a big feminist issue, surely? Many schools have different uniform regs for boys and girls.

Exactly.

I think it's a really silly thing for either you or your daughters to waste time on, to be honest.

The rules should be the same for boys and girls but kids wanting to wear ties? That's unheard of. The whole point of a uniform (whether you agree with them or not - I'm not keen) is to have everyone looking the same, so making different rules and having optional bits defeats the whole purpose of having the uniform in the first place. Have you asked the school why they have this bizarre rule of no ties for girls?

I don't know of a single school where all items of the uniform can be worn by both boys and girls.

Therefore, why on earth would you care if ties were now designated 'boys only'?

I would care, because in the adult world that everyone appears to be obsessed with, so far as I'm aware, if there is a uniform involved in the job and the uniform includes a tie, both men and women are expected to wear a tie.

Not entirely true rabbit my old job had a uniform and the men had to wear a tie for 9 months of the year. Women, however did not. A tie was not a part of the women's uniform despite it being identical otherwise unless women chose to wear a skirt or culottes, which very, very few did.

No child I know would choose to wear a tie to school and they almost always wear the knot 4 inches away from the top button of their shirts.

I don't see what children you know have to do with the OP's children, though, Solo? You could hardly say the school is succumbing to pressure if it says girls can no longer wear ties, but boys can choose to - you don't ban something for half the cohort if none of them want to wear it anyway... Also, apparently, despite the fact the tie has never been a compulsory part of the uniform, most children have chosen to wear it. Clearly it's a school full of children you don't know!

It makes one wonder if the girls were doing something inappropriate with their ties - like wearing them as skirts, or something...

If the school is still allowing the older girls to wear the sorts of shirts that look smarter with ties than without (presumably to save parents money, so they don't have to buy polo shirts until the other shirts have been grown out of), I see no particularly good reason why it should ban them from wearing ties with those shirts unless it also stops the boys from wearing them. It would have been far more sensible to phase out the old shirts and ties gradually, rather than phase the shirts out gradually, but go all weird and partial over the ties.

No need to be snotty!

Sorry, Solo. Didn't mean to be snotty, just got carried away!

No problem rabbit :)

I actually think that ties are a really stupid part of school uniform. Kids are going to be using Bunsen burners, wood saws and sewing machines. A nice dangly bit of flammable nylon doesn't sound sensible to me.

So I quite agree with phasing it out.

But I'm pretty sure that boys are no more Bunsen safe than girls so banning it for half the school just seems like a pointless way to cause upset.

I also think this is a fascinating study in psychology. When I went to school we all had to wear ties and we all hated them and spent endless time trying to make them smaller and smaller and pretending to have "lost" them.

Suggest your dc complain about going from a gender neutral uniform to a gendered one.

What is the point in making it obvious that there are different gender expectations of women and Ken when they are still at school and should be being encouraged not to view their future down rigid stereotypes?

It's totally backwards.

*men not Ken. Obviously!

Oh. I preferred it when it was Ken.

It did seem oddly appropriate...