Constant detentions for skirt length

[Falcon1]

My DD is 13. Since starting year 8 she’s had weekly detentions for rolling up her skirt and has been on report. She was also on report twice last year for the same thing. I keep getting emails from the school about it, but really - what can I do? This last detention we’ve said enough is enough and have grounded her but she is entirely unbothered. Her take is that she wants to wear her skirt the way she likes it and will keep doing so, and that the teachers should stop being so obsessed with her legs being on display. I kind of agree to be honest, particularly as she is doing fine academically. But I worry she’s going to be in detention her whole school career and it’s making her hate the school.

any advice most gratefully received!

Mmm, maybe. I consistently rolled my skirt up, but I was hard working and got on very well with all of my teachers.

Is there a trouser option for girls? If not, ask the school to introduce and explain that you are all for having long skirts (your daughter isn’t!). My daughter always wore trousers as this an option in her school.

Tell her about the men/boys whose gaze she is serving.

Then remove the skirt. I can assure that, as teachers, we have far more important things to be doing than teaching your child about the risk she’s putting herself at. That’s your job.

Or, continue ‘not really caring,’ and enjoy the consequences in 3 years time.

Oh yes you are. You are not here to deal with the perverts or blame and shame them, you are here to tell us girls and what they wear are responsible for the perverts.

If it was down to me I would simply get rid of uniform and then everyone would just rock up in jeans, pretty much.

I can’t be bothered to school you on feminism (actual feminism, women’s liberation - not fun feminism that supports Only Fans as “empowering” and re-defines prostitution as “sex work”) on a Sunday morning. But you are 100% on the side of men here. No question about it. You think your putting girls first but you really aren’t.

Is this a comprehension issue, or deliberate antagonism?

Pervs gonna perv, but maybe let’s not encourage girls to make it easier for them?

Was your underwear on show? When you stood up, could everyone see the front of your pants? When you went upstairs, was your arse on full view? I'm very interested that the parents who are happy to buy their daughters these mini tube skirts don't send their sons to school in tight mini shorts.

As a teacher (female); it’s worrying when we see girls with skirts so short you can see the top of their tights. They are walking to school, in school uniform (so identifiable) with lots of people driving past them. It doesn’t take a massive leap of imagination to think what could happen. In school, walking upstairs you can see their underwear. Sitting in class behind a desk, you can see their underwear.
The kids reaction is ‘you shouldn’t be looking’ and of course, male teachers are scared to confront because they are called paedos. But actually it’s about safety and decency. They are children and we have to try and protect them. Maybe explain that to your daughter.
My school have banned skirts for this reason.

This is an excellent idea. 👆

One uniform, trousers, for all.

Parents sign up to a school and know the uniform. The parents are the authority. Either make your children wear the set uniform or change schools / home school.

The 15 year old that refuses to stick to the uniform rules would be sacked at 18 for refusing to adhere to work dress policy. It's no different.

I actually saw teenage girl buttocks on the school run the other day. FFS. Are we so obsessed with the body shaming, modesty policing and victim blaming bullshit jargon that we can't see common sense? School is the equivalent of work for children. Dress appropriately. Your teachers should not have to be exposed to seeing your child's baby making equipment. It's borderline abusive. Imagine if the teachers dressed that way! And those same students are the FIRST ones to be affronted if anyone does look at them.

When my dd started skirt rolling, she had absolutely no sexual motives. She just hated wearing a dowdy skirt that was designed for children in the 1930s, and last worn by her great grandmothers generation.

I can’t understand why schools don’t let dc dress in comfy tracksuits - then they’d all rebel and dress smartly once they got clear of the school gates.

I’d have a chat with her, listen to her pov. Discuss some of the issues around sexualisation, respect, rules etc and listen more than you talk. I respect her determination, but what she might need help with here is building an off ramp. Figuring out how she can extract herself from her cause, without losing face. That’s a really significant skill to learn.

People have been doing this for generations! I remember doing this too. Unless boys are allowed to wear skirts shorter than the girls are, then it’s not really discriminatory. Just stop engaging with her about it, let her get detention (it’s only really affecting her after all). Most children try and rebel against authority at that age, wearing trainers, shortening their tie, etc. It’s pretty much a rite of passage.

So how appropriately covered should females be?
Judging females by how they look and not what they do and contribute is the problem. Insisting females dress a certain way else they procure the responses of the ‘helpless male’ is doing the patriarchy’s work for them.

On the skirt issue, this is about learning that rules should be followed and that there are clothing conventions that apply across society and through life. A uniform is a forerunner to business dress and very short skirts are not considered smart or appropriate there, but they’re fine at a beach or a nightclub.
I’d be adding my own appropriate punishment for repeatedly breaking school rules. A removal of privileges such as screen time or particular trips out.

We do not live in an femin-insta feel-good vibesy world. Teenage girls are more vulnerable to sexual harassment and threat. How they dress can amplify the risk. Men will never change. If my DD pulled any f*ckery with me or DH after we'd given her the option to wear the skirt sensibly, and if not given her trousers, she'd be finding out about it.

I'd get rid of uniform too, but on non uniform day we have lots of girls turning up in tight mini shorts, or short bandeau dresses.
Even from yr7, girls' clothing is so sexualised.

The problem is why do girls feel they want to wear their skirts this way. Why do they feel the pressure to roll up skirts to display more flesh (a way of dressing that is often less comfortable or warm than unrolled).

It’s not a decision made in a vacuum. Society teaches girls from a young age, looking attractive for the male eye is the most important thing.

No, my skirt was an over-the-knee kilt which I rolled up to above my knees. There’s nothing to suggest the OP’s daughters skirt is the way you describe either, which would obviously be indecent and a problem in any setting

She wont just 'keep getting detentions'. The sanctions will escalate.
You need to be the parent and support the school!

It isn't about victim blaming. But if you think all these girls are making independent choices of self expression, rather than conforming to a culture where girls are not respected and expected to present themselves for the male gaze, then you are missing what is happening with young people today. That's the conversation that needs to happen. Its why misogyny and the manosphere is beefed up in the new RSHE guidance. It's incredibly hard for girls not to conform. Some schools have moved to trousers only, and I understand why.

If I were you I’d just let her deal with the consequences.
She’s 13 and she’ll soon get bored of the detentions and realise that if she doesn’t want to go she’ll have to follow rules.
It wouldn’t be something I’d follow up with at home.
I had a similar situation with my son who didn’t like wearing a blazer in the classroom (to hot apparently) He also didn’t like in his opinion the hypocrisy of the teacher wearing a short sleeve top but he had to keep a blazer on. He was forever in detention for it.
He’s 23 now and I’m happy to report it hasn’t affected his life in any way. He’s an electrician, has to wear a company Tshirt, electrician trousers, steel cap boots and all sorts of goggles/gloves ect.. Does it all without complaint.

OP, the rationale is simple: “it’s the rule, and by choosing this school, we choose to follow its rules.”

@Greentulipriding, I’m not sure what “unacceptably short” means to you, but if you’ve never seen a teenaged girl with a skirt rolled so high you can see her knickers or even her bum, you’ve obviously never been in a UK secondary school. I’m constantly saying to the girls I teach, “I think it’s shorter than you realise.”

She’s doing something against the (frankly stupid) rules, and accepting the consequences. Fine. There is nothing for you to do. She’s doing well academically, which is after all, why she’s at school, so why do anything? If her grades slipped that’s different. Leave her alone.

Op, you sound very wet. Be a parent.

Other than the perverts, no one really wants to see teenage girl vag. This sounds like exaggeration I know, but in a local carvery a few weeks ago, a teenage girl walked past me while I was seated and could see the crotch of her underwear. FFS. I was trying to eat.

Just to be clear, I don't want to see male nipples in muscle shirts either. On a beach, fine. While I'm working or eating?

The problem is that it is indecent. Above the knee wouldn't bother us at all. The issue is the current trend for these micro skirts. Every school is having to deal with it. Many parents just don't seem to care or be aware.
It is definitely not the skirt rolling of bygone days.