Length of school skirts

[KingTut]

I and my teen daughters are new to feminism and I wondered if I could talk through something?

My daughter refuses to wear a skirt as she can't stand all the length monitoring by staff at school. Dd said she would rather sweat in trousers. Then dd made the interesting comment, it's like they are blaming the girls for the boys not being able to cope if a skirt is above a knee.

It then brought us to the attitude of the Duggar family. The school are not much different really. So why do parents, staff and students say nothing about this skirt length issue? Is there something we are missing?

Many of the girls at the local school walk home wearing skirts that barely cover their bum cheeks. Sometimes the only underwear is a thong.
They are 14 or 15 and think they look cool. I see them when I am driving home from work and I can tell you that there is very little left to the imagination.

To be honest, I think someone needs to tell them how inappropriate this is until they are a bit older and wiser.

Personally I think school uniform should be trousers for all.

Yes - men/boys shouldn't look and lech, but unfortunately the reality is different.

"I'd have thought all they need to do is specify that shoulders, midriffs, chests and thighs should be covered with non-transparent clothing, no underwear should be visible, and then probably throw in a few health-and-safety things like no flip-flops or open sandals or high heels or whatever. Job done. "

Sounds good.

Best scientist in my year, beta? Scruffy hair down to his waist.

No, I just don't accept that one aspect of a broad liberal education is to teach you to wear a uniform. Learn to think, yes. Acquire analytical skills, certainly. Uniform, not so much. Uniforms are convenient but they are not of themselves desirable. Or, indeed, attractive.

And if you say well you don't have the financial freedom to home educate - the same applies to work. You don't really choose to work - you have to to pay the bills, and have to suck up the dress code accordingly.

3littlefrogs - exactly..

Mother part of an education is to be able to cope in varying situations. One if these is to do with appropriate language, dress and behaviour. This should be learnt at school and supported by parents.

And unfortunately part of school is to learn that you are just one little cog in the machine, and that a lot if the time you need to play by the rules. As you don't get special rules just for you in life. If the battlefield wasn't uniform it would be somewhere else and at least clothing is a fairly harmless and reversible thing to rebel over.

Does anyone else feel you are being spoken at by some losters as if you are a child and as if you have a low IQ?

Guess what everyone, the sky is blue.

Posters

Are you referring. To me? If so that certainly wasn't my intention,

No king tut -
Just people with opposing views

it's not victim blaming. It is simply that schoolgirls since time immemorial have hitched up their skirts to belt length if not told to do otherwise.

not indecent - although not a pretty sight when bending over. See it every time I coincide with our local school run, where they all seem to be wearing frilly minis. I wonder if that is really the uniform?

as I said. not indecent, not an incitement to assault, just that most people don't want to see 'next week's washing'. So either learn to bend knees, or wear a skirt that means you can bend over, or wear trousers.

I'd go for the latter two options, who wants clothes to get in the way of free movement?

Ah well, I am clearly a derelict parent who does not understand the point of education and is insufficiently supportive of her poor children. I'll cope. I suspect my kids will too. 'Scruffiness', short skirts and all.

Mother inferior if you're referring to my post above where I mentioned that parental investment was the biggest factor in how well pupils do, that true. And proven. And often those most invested parents are also invested in their children looking smart. Also true. But the fact that these two things overlap does not mean they are dependent on each other, and I never said so.

HSMMaCM You asked "Could a male teacher be accused of looking at her bottom when following her up the stairs?".

Are you comfortable with your DD seemingly not caring that people can see her knickers when she goes up the stairs?

No mother is replying to me I think. And completely missing the point. Do you home educate mother? Or does your school not have rules?

Nope, not just you. But honestly I'm not really bothered. I am perfectly aware that supporting my kids' education is about a damn sight more than the length of their skirts.

Eh? I send my kids to school. Wouldn't dream of home educating. Their school has rules. Including uniform. They wear uniform. If they play around with it, that's up to them. That's all I'm saying. Like the OP, I don't need to be lectured about 'this should be supported by parents'. I do actually know what schools are for. I've had a fairly extensive experience of educational institutions in my life.

One thing that is a problem though is when parents collude with their children to break school rules like uniform. It sends the pupil the message that the rules don't apply to them. You then end up spending a disproportionate amount of time on these pupils.
Yes they will still do well, but at the detriment if their class mates. But if course the parents don't see that.

Of. Why autocorrect to if constantly FFs!

What a nasty turn this thread has taken. Some really bizarre posts about young schoolgirls - breasts "flapping around" and that it is not uncommon for them to go knickerless and then sit there masturbating in class

And all this stuff oh girls their arses are out it's so inappropriate they wear too much makeup you can tell they'll never amount to anything and blah just a sort of litany of horrible attitudes.

You very rarely hear boys being judged like this.

And the bind for girls is the same as the bind for women - pressure to conform, pressure to "look good" and meet the current fashions, whatever they might be in your peer group - and then you get all this utter shit heaped on you about your motivations and your intelligence and well in the real world you know how boys and men are and grrrrrrrrr it's just such a load of old shite.

We have a school where girls on this thread are being made to lift their tops so a teacher can look at their arses and judge whether they look inappropriate or not. My guess is that some girls arses are going to be deemed inappropriate no matter what they wrap them in, same as some breasts are deemed "too much" because you know what some women and girls are just very curvy and christ the idea that they need to wear a bag because their body shape is considered to be adults only..... Going off on a tangent here but some women spend their lives trying to cover and change their figures and here it starts. Because often the adults aren't judging the clothes are they, they're judging the shape of the person wearing them. One of the girls stopped from her prom was wearing a dress no shorter than her friends but she had a very curvy figure and the analysis of her friends was that it was this that was the problem, not the dress. Because of her hourglass shape she was going to be considered "too sexy" for the party (distracting the adult male parents) unless she met a more demure standard than her not so curvy peers.

Chrissake. This whole conversation, some of the posts on here, are just vile.

If boys are showing their boxers it is as much an issue as girls showing their knickers. I think girls are under more peer pressure to adapt their uniform however - partly because girls ARE more social in that way than boys.

Whirlpool you are only picking out the bits that you want. Nobody said it was common to go knicker less
Or to masturbate but it does happen. This is why skirt lengths should be appropriate.
It is inappropriate for young girls to wear too much make up - have you seen an 11 year old in full face with red lips, scouse brow, dressed in the shortest tightest skirt sat with legs akimbo under the desk with her knickers on display? It's not appropriate. I do not want to see it in my classroom, just as I would not like my kids to be dressed that way.
If anything a strict uniform takes away the pressure to have to look good - everyone looks the same. It's not about conforming or being anti feminist. It's not about allowing young girls freedom of expression - they can do that out of school.

And if you read the thread then you would know boys are under scrutiny too but their uniform adaptations are less obvious than those of the girls

What has leg spreading to go do with skirt length?