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.

Three Tomatoes - I think it is.

There's this really good girls' school in my area which I wanted to put as DD's first choice. The reason she didn't want it as first choice, was because there was no trouser option except for religious reasons (WTF?) and she didn't want to either have to pretend to have an imaginary friend who wanted her to wear trousers, or have to wear skirts for five years.

Everything apart from that was good about the school. It was slightly further away than the other best choice but I would have been prepared to drive her en route to work to get round that inconvenience. I really liked the school and would have tried to talk her into putting it as a first choice if it hadn't been for this skirt rule - it indicated to me that there's a sort of fuck-wittedness at the core of the school which no amount of marketing and nice school-ness can get round.

But that's the point - because there are no boys who are being treated differently, they can get away with having skirts only or other stupidity.

Surely forcing a girl to wear a skirt is illegal?
They tried this at ours 10 years ago,
Our Headmaster actually said in our report, no word of a lie "Some girls don't have the figures for tight trousers"
dirty bastard he's still there,
But we got to wear trousers waay!

I think there's probably some sound evolutionary reason why girls' knees get less cold than boys' in winter, but at this moment in time I can't work out what it might be. Science was never my strong point.

Why they cant just say, the uniform is trousers but ALL pupils have the option to wear the skirt. Job done. Its crazy. I am staggered by the Govt guidelines.

Saying "the uniform is trousers but ALL pupils have the option to wear the skirt" leaves you with the situation that the little boy who was mentioned was in--it's hot weather and the girls can put on skirts, so must the boys do the same if they want to be comfortable? And very likely some of the girls would like the option of shorts too.

As for "girls' knees get less cold than boys' in winter" it wasn't all that long ago that shorts for (the younger) boys were compulsory year round, and no they didn't have the chance to wear woolly tights. Those were the days, toughen 'em up, we don't want any milksops here.

Well, I guess, I think that would allow boys to wear skirts should they wish. Gender identity disorder seems to be on the rise, everyone seems to have an opinion on why and what should be done...so give everyone the choice of skirt or trousers. This would overcome the issue of parents having to beg the school to allow their son to dress as though he were their daughter. If a fully grown man can spend his spare time wearing a dress and claim to still feel like a man, he just likes wearing a dress (and this might in some part be due to a maturity of outlook) but children who desire to wear the clothes of the opposite gender are deemed to have some psychological disorder that hems them in and labels them. And it all starts with this kind of stupid discriminatory practice.

What would be so terrible about boys wanting to wear skirts?

Ds's primary school allow the girls to wear trousers, I thought that was the case everywhere.
Utterly ridiculous that anyone thinks they can force girls to wear skirts, of course it's sex discrimination.

Nothing, WidowWadman But should boys who want to wear skirts be diagnosed with Gender identity disorder for the school to allow them to. If the guidance was: wear trousers but ALL pupils have the option of wearing a skirt, it would assume that boys who wish to wear skirts could do so without any special dispensation.

You may not have a case with requiring girls to wear skirts but definitely on cost and care of garments. Some upmarket schools have similarly expensive/constricting uniforms for boys but it sounds like yours let boys wear cheap clothes out Asda etc. and the girls need a stuffy expensive outfit. Thats not acceptable. Alternative skirts would be the best approach, in certain colour/style (eg. M&S bos pleat/equivalent from Tesco and so on).

The Education department expressly state it is for schools to decide if girls can wear trousers or religious dress can be worn. I wear skirts and (thick) tights all through winter and feel perfectly warm and modest.

Northern Ireland advice to schools

Equality and Human rights Commission seem to think it's a bit dodgy to insist on skirts

I watched a documentary about North Korea yesterday.

They have just changed the law (entire programme not just about this, this took seconds) to allow women to wear trousers.

Maybe telling them that even totalitarian dictators have realised how stupid this rule is might be worth a side note.

Why they cant just say, the uniform is trousers but ALL pupils have the option to wear the skirt. Job done

Yes - surely it would be easy enough to stipulate a uniform list without mentioning gender at all? e.g.:

Top - White shirt, school tie. Jumper with logo and/or blazer
Bottom: Either black (or whatever) school uniform trousers or A-line school skirt, no shorter than Xcm above knee [note no lower length], with black or grey tights or knee length socks.

Black low-heeled shoes.

Does it really need to be much more complicated than that?

Why not just say no skirts for everyone ? No too short skirts, everyone the same. Tailored shorts/cullottes in the summer if necessary. I have suggested this to our secondary who are having a crack down and have issued school skirts and trousers with the badge on. They are shit and expensive, and miss the point about equality(they were selling them as everyone wearing the same so no rich/poor etc, which I get, but it isn't the only inequality).
Skirts are limiting, if I wear one I change how I act, sit and move. All you fecking hear in the primary school playground is 'dd stop doing that I can see your knickers' ffs.
I hate school skirts and dd never wears them. She gets to run, climb and sit however she wants, just like the boys.
Sorry, bit of a rant but a pet peeve of mine I wish you luck, you seem to have a good argument in place already.

I'm surprised that there are rules like this still in place. I left school in 1998 and the girls at my school could wear (can't think of a better word) normal skirts, trousers or long skirts

Why not just say no skirts for everyone
some girls find trousers more problematic when they've got their period - esp early on when they may not be comfortable with tampons but get heavy flow so need quite a bit of protection. Trousers are less forgiving of a leak. If your kids are still primary age this probably wouldn't occur to you, but for some girls, some of the time, trousers are less practical than skirts.

DDs school is all girls, they have the choice and most of them prefer skirts.

Interesting Errol. At DD's secondary school the girls have the option of wearing skirts or trousers. It's rare to see a skirt (though there were a few around when the weather was warmer.) When we first visited the school we assumed the uniform was trousers for all.

Is that mixed or single sex, slug? I'm a bit surprised how few trousers I've seen at DDs TBH. Of course when I see them in mufti they're mostly in jeans or tights/leggings and shorts ...who can fathom a teenager's mind?

Ah right, thanks Errol, it didn't occur to me as our secondary uniform is black and you're right I hadn't thought of that yet. I would have worn trousers, but that's me. I suppose they might be worried about pads showing more with trousers too.

Mixed Errol

Op am curious, why is girls uniform tartan but boys grey? Are they saying they cannot tell the difference between the two.....? I would challenge the material not just the concept as well. Seems daft.

Couldn't see this above but apologies if I missed it.