Please help me articulate my point about school skirts

[KonnieLingus]

My dd will be attending our local secondary school in a couple of years. The uniform is a crested jumper,shirt, grey trousers for boys and a tarten skirt for girls.
The skirt is more than three times the price of the trousers,there is no alternative to the skirt for girls. I would like to argue the following points to the school.
The parents of girls are having to pay more for the uniform.
The girls are subjected to intimidating behaviour from the boys by them looking up their skirts as they go up the stairs.
The skirts are heavy and poorly made.
If they get dirty or wet they cannot be tumble dried which is difficult as most families can only afford one skirt.
They stain easily so if a girl suffers a heavy period,the skirt is ruined.

This is research I've gathered from secondary school girls and their parents.

There's a couple of links that might help you.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2092821.stm

www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/before-the-equality-act/guidance-for-students-pre-october-2010/being-treated-with-respect/school-uniform/

Seems a ridiculous inequality to me.

Thank you,I'm always thinking I come across as a bit thick. Those links,especially the equality one are great. They made trousers for girls a few years ago in the same heavy tarten material. IMO it was a passive aggressive exercise to say look,we tried and no girls wanted to wear them. Again the trousers were way more expensive than the boys. In fact the boys can get grey trousers in any supermarket. The girls could wear grey or navy trousers.

I mean if they take on board the suggestions of girls wearing trousers they could wear navy or grey.

Just send her in the school trousers, the ones the boys wear.

ThreeTomatoes agree that is odd - what if pupils born female who don't have gender dysphoria experience great discomfort being forced to wear stereotypical girls' clothes? Does that matter less?

Although admit haven't read the link

OP I think your LEA might be able to assist you with this as well - you could find out what their guidelines / rules are. I must admit I thought in the state sector, they had to give much more leeway now.

Oh lookee here govt site.

Schools can decide whatever they like, up to and including the girls' uniform consisting of a thong, toga and a live chicken on their head. Boys meanwhile will obviously have comfy practical clothes.

I honestly thought girls had to be allowed to wear trousers in state schools now if they wanted always shocking when you realise that something you thought was a normal sensible thing for 2013 is actually not in place at all and actually it's still 1913. Hmph.

I think if you can rally / cite support from other parents this will help.

Your reasons are extremely good.

Aren't these points on the govt page entirely contradictory, which is impressive given it's so brief:

"Each school decides its uniform and must not discriminate based on gender..."

"Schools can decide if girls can wear trousers..."

Sorry OP going off on one a bit here I am genuinely flabbergasted.

Crap like this will only end when parents band together and refuse to buy said skirts.

35 years ago we were meant to have awful pinafores, fortunately the suppliers cocked up and the shop didn't have any until after the start of term.

By then all of us had navy skirts like years 9-13 and school was stuffed. No Y7's ever heard the word pinafore again.

There's all the point that this doesn't take faith issues into account. I live in a city with a diverse religious population. While some groups - Orthodox Jewish girls and Muslim girls - would be okay with a mid-calf length skirt, a just above the knee skirt is not culturally appropriate. All the state and independent secondary schools have trousers as an option for girls. School uniform needs to be inclusive, both in terms of different socio-economic groups and in terms of different faiths. So an expensive short skirt is simply inappropriate. It's also discriminatory if half the school's students - boys - can round around freely, while the other half is constantly having to be careful about not being stared at. I'd have thought the likelihood of harrassment would also depress the girls confidence and academic achievement.

I would add that the skirts are less practical in terms of weather, etc. In cold weather, just having tights and a short skirt with shoes is very cold, especially when travelling to and from school.

I'd also make the point that it's not just a question of cost, parents of boys can benefit from competition amongst retailers, but girls are subject to buying from a monopoly provider.

I honestly though that the EOC sorted this out years ago -news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2092821.stm. Though it's now the EHRC and the Equality Act 2010. It seems it never got a decsion from their current webpage though -www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/before-the-equality-act/guidance-for-education-providers-pre-october-2010/fair-treatment-when-in-education/school-uniform/

Thank you again for the comments. Unfortunately I am in Ireland where the schools get to decide but I am certainly interested in a coming at it from a gender equality point of view. Socio-econmic groups was the phrase I was trying to think of FrauMoose. I think it also discriminates against those who have daughter/s and who may be in receipt of benefits or low paid. So if I just consider that angle it would be approximately €40 per skirt,€44 for the crested jumper, €15 for shirts,a total of €99. School trousers €15, crested jumper €44,shirts €15,a total of €74. That's a difference of €25 just for being a girl. No other reason.

It seems so ridiculous that we are still having this battle in 2013. I remember my sister going to see the Headmaster of our school back in the 70s and persuading him to allow girls to wear trousers.

This might be relevant.

Oh, sorry x-posted, didn't realise you are in Ireland so my link isn't relevant for you.

Konnie the schools get to decide in the UK too so it's no different in that respect.

I think your arguments are excellent. Put that to them. Ireland is a part of the EU that has been hit particularly hard by the recession caused by the banking crisis and €25 difference between trousers and a skirt ie same function is ludicrous. PLUS you need to buy tights so add that on, then you have the whole looking up skirts, heavy when rained on (and stinky sometimes IIRC) and uncomfortable all day and PERIODS will frighten the pants off them (no pun intended) if that spectre is raised.

I for one, when I was young, felt more comfortable in trousers when grappling with hefty sanitary towels and the like.

Talk to the head, with your reasons, find out the head's reasons, take that back to parents, drum up support for change, take it to the governers. Cite other nearby schools of similar type that have more reasonable dress code?

Thinking out loud HTH

Meanwhile, there are other schools that have been mentioned on Mumsnet where they've told the girls that from now on the uniform is trousers and no arguments, because they just won't wear the uniform skirt properly.

I never heard the end of the story about the boy in ThreeTomatoes' posting. Did they change the uniform policy, or did they just let him wear the skirt until he gave up the protest? The bizarre thing there is that it's not all that long ago that boys had to wear shorts to school regardless of the weather, and now it's forbidden. You have to wonder if girls and boys have an equal burden of arbitrary rules to obey, have we achieved equality?

Isn't it indirect sex discrimination to have the girl's uniform much dearer than the boys?

I would just love a test case to be taken against these wanky schools. Why are they still doing this shit? Why? Why? It is simply incomprehensible.

There was a brilliant case last year. The reverse of yours.

The boys had to wear trousers in very hot weather, no shorts allowed, while the girls could wear short skirts. One of the boys protested and was told, no, tailored school shorts not allowed. So he wore a skirt, got into the papers, made national headlines etc, and the school backed down.

I think that you should use the points in your op and focus on gender discrimination and price inequality

whoops, sorry didn't realise the story had been linked

Isn't it indirect sex discrimination to have the girl's uniform much dearer than the boys?

No it's direct discrimination.

No idea on Irish law but would contravene the SDA here. I'm sure there will be some European law too.

Perhaps she should go to school in trousers, as the boy who wore the skirt did. Get the press involved. Get them to fund a pair of boys trousers. I would donate to the trouser fund!

My dds wear tartan pinafores for school (not in the uk). They say dry clean only but I machine wash and tumble dry them. My oldest has been wearing the same ones for five years. So they have been good value despite being expensive in the first place.

The boys wear track suit bottoms. Well, the girls an wear them too. They cost about $8 whereas the dresses cost about $50.