teaching our daughters to be feminine

[Tewkespeggy]

I have a bit of an issue with the school on 2 feminine points

1 the boys outnumber the girls two to one. But the school insists on sitting two girls and four boys on each table. ALWAYS. i just feel that we are teaching our girls to defer to boys because they are always outnumbered. why cant they have an all girl table once in a while. shouldnt we also be teaching our girls to get along with each other?

2 New school rules say that from yr4 all girls MUST wear a tie. I am SO against it becuase it just isnt feminine. I can take you to the square mile and show you 1000's of men wearing ties and how many women? Feeling i should boycot the tie, but feel torn because I let her wear trousers... which are practical in the winter. but what practical purpose do ties on a 8yr old girl achieve?

Canvassing opinions please

[kat2504]

I think it's probably unlucky that in your daughters class there is not a 50/50 ratio. It can be more difficult sometimes for teachers to have such a boy heavy class (bit of a generalisation but often true) so I can understand why you may feel that the girls are less important. Hopefully the teacher actually is giving equal attention to the girls though.
I don't think many classes would have any single sex tables to be honest. It really isn't the norm. Often the children have different "places" for different subjects, depending on if they are mixed ability or ability grouped. Also having boy/girl seating arrangements is common in many schools for behaviour reasons. They shouldn't be in ability groups for everything in my opinion, sometimes mixed ability teaching can work really well.

[BecauseImWorthIt]

Why should there be single sex tables? Why segregate the boys from the girls? Surely that will only reinforce any suggestion that they are different in some way.

And it's in your head that ties are butch.

[Catitainahatita]

Ties are horrid in my opinion for children; regardless of sex. But I hate uniforms with a passion as I said. In fact, SGM has a great post on a uniform thread that puts into brief precise words all things that are bad imho.

I think what I -and some other posters- are getting at is your worry that wearing a tie will "masculinise" your daughter (making her look "butch"). As a feminist I find this quite jarring. Your DD will be your beautiful DD whatever she wears; and if she ever should want to dress in what societ considers a "masculine way" she still will be your beautiful DD. Clothes do not and should not be used to define her. The jarring, for me, is that you are using clothes as a way of "defining her"; "teaching her feminity"; when I would think that the happiest course of action for your DD would be to let her discover for herself who she is -and on her own terms.

[Himalaya]

I know the tie thing isn't the biggest thing in the world, but it is such an early lesson that male=normal and women just have to fit in.

Catitainahatita - if the OP's school was enforcing gingham dresses for boys would you say that a parent's concern was silly and she should just stop thinking that her son's clothes define him?

[madwomanintheattic]

i wore a tie to work for 16 years. i didn't ever feel butch. it was just uniform. in fact, when the 'female' uniforms were introduced as an option, it actually felt divisive, and felt like i was being separated out as 'other'. i'm very much in favour of non-gender specific uniform (whatever it comprises).

dd1 loved her school tie. it was the item of uniform she was most excited about in infants/ juniors.

all three are now in a non-uniform school (have been for just over two years), where every single child wears jeans and hoodies. i have yet to see anyone wear a skirt or a tie, ever.

'teaching our daughters to be feminine'

'teaching our daughters to conform to what women are supposed to wear and teaching them that a tie is male clothing and she shouldn't wear it'



i think ties are daft, fwiw. but i can't get excited about a uniform policy that doesn't differentiate by gender.

ties are v odd though. v symbolic. there's nothing more ridiculous, but somehow they do carry all sorts of connotations of power and professionalism. i don't see them as particularly masculine though, which i know is weird. but they do carry the right message wrt to students, i think.

[madwomanintheattic]

[kat2504]

A tie won't make your daughter "butch" any more than a little boy can "catch gayness" by playing with a doll in a pram.
I think it is taking the argument a bit far to compare it with making boys wear gingham dresses. That is getting a bit silly. Most schools that have ties have them for the boys and the girls, even many girls only schools have a uniform with a tie. I don't like ties myself either but it is a socially acceptable uniform item, unlike sending boys to school in girls' dresses.

The boy who wore the skirt to school only did it to make a point that boys should be allowed to wear shorts in hot weather as girls could wear a skirt to be cooler in the summer.

The tie thing is a bit of a fuss about nothing really. There really are other things to worry about.

[Catitainahatita]

Himalaya if a school introduced a unisex uniform comprising of a gingham dress for all; I wouldn't like it because I don't like uniforms.
A boy wanting to wear a dress would not bother me in slightest. If my ds wore one he would still be my beautiful son. His clothes don't define him. I might warn him that other people might be nasty to him; but I wouldn't oppose him wearing it.

[Himalaya]

Caititinhatita - really ? Would you know more object to a uniform that consists of trousers and shorts for all, as one that consists of gingham dresses for all?

The question is why is it acceptable to enforce girls to wear a uniform consisting of a male (not unisex) item of clothing but silly to suggest that boys might have to wear a traditionally female item of clothing?

It's not about making them gay or butch or whatever. It's just why should a uniform be designed with male as the norm?

I know it's not a big deal, but it's not a big deal to design a uniform that makes sense for young women either.

The problem with ties btw is they are designed to hang down a flat chest.

[Himalaya]

Sorry 'no more' not 'know more'. Duh.

[Catitainahatita]

I've said twice on this thread that I don't like uniforms. I don't like the fact that clothing is imposed on either sex. I don't want my DD wearing gingham anymore than I want ds in a blazer in tie. Sadly I will just have to grin and bear it as I haven't found a school that doesn't have uniforms.
I also said I have no problem with ds in a dress nor DD in trousers.
But in answer to your question: men generally don't want to wear "feminine clothes" precisely because they are for women and a man who wears them is often considered not a "proper man". Women don"t tend to have the same disdain because it has become culturally acceptable for women to wear "masculine attire". Wearing trousers does not necessarily mark you out as a "freak" on the way a dress on a man seems to.
I think this is why it is deemed acceptable to allow girls to wear trousers to school and to insist they wear a tie. It is also why the same school wouldn't consider imposing a skirt rule for both sexes.
What I think about is that both ate unfair and in a nutshell uniforms should not be imposed on schools.

[Himalaya]

Caitintitahaitia - fair enough. I agree with you on the reason why men won't generally wear women's clothes while women will appropriate men's styles.

But I do think trousers and ties are fundamentally different. Plenty of women wear trousers everyday. Women almost never choose to wear ties outside of a uniform situation. If a woman wore a tie to work everyday, or to parties, social situations etc... she might not be seen as a freak in the same way as a man in a dress, but she would be seen as making a statement, where a man wearing a tie would be completely unremarkable.

I do think it's such a lack of imagination and thought that so many schools that want a 'smart' uniform default to male formal dress as the model.

[SharonGless]

op have you challenged the school policy on seating plan by sex or is this just from your own observations? I would be speaking to the teacher to establish how they do seat the children. Personally sex of child should have no bearing on it and it should be based on ability.

[MoreBeta]

DS1 has just started secondary school and they make 2 boys work with 2 girls on projects and they always make one boy work with one girl in some other classes.

They do it to stop boys and girls segregating. There is an equal sex mix in the school.

Both my DSs went to primary school where they were outnumbered 9:1 by girls (unusual I know) and we found girls often deliberately excluded boys from their games in Yr 5 and 6 and teachers did nothing about it.

Agree with piprabbit that making girls and boys work/play together is a good way to prepare for life and I think the school is doing the right thing. Ties don't bother me. I like uniform and both sexes are treated equally at the school and so they have to wear a shirt and tie. Sixth form girls are allowed to wear any style of business dress including trousers.

[WishIwereAtTheWiesnProst]

I assumed from your initial post you didn't want the girls to feel they needed to dress as males to be taken seriously the way you won't often see women in the city wearing ties. Which I think is a good point and I also think starting every morning with a noose around your neck is a weird habit men have gotten themselves in to. Almost as ridiculous as high heels.

However if you really don't want the girls to wear them because you think it would make children "look butch" you really either have issues or are a troll. And an obvious one.