Gender neutral school uniform = Trousers

[ItIsOnlyAnOpinion]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5906031/Girls-banned-wearing-skirts-40-schools-insist-gender-neutral-uniforms.html

No more skirts.

ITA, Lass. Probably won't catch on in schools but a mid-calf full skirt is perfect for picnics, sitting on a beach without fussing with rugs etc. You can put your legs any darned place you want. I've got a couple of cotton jersey dresses of this style which are as easy to wear as a t-shirt.

I saw that M&S had some 'skater' style school skirts, I'd have thought those might be a good option.

I just had a quick look ... tartan school kilts seem to run from £30 up. Not a viable option for many.
Similar price to a blazer then, and like a blazer you would just need one every two years, which could be purchased second hand from the school uniform shop. Blazers are £8 at our school.

Another fascinating thread.

To paraphrase some of it, there seems to be a line of thought that...we only shortened our skirts because that's what everyone else does/that's what looks best / we wanted to rebel, and this had nothing whatsoever to do with us being compliant with boys or societal sexualisation of girls.

To what extent were our choices free and to what extent do we conform to the norm? And to what extent are those norms about/supporting the degradation of women?

It might sound trivial when talking about uniform, but I think it equally applies to encouraging of girls to study physics. They make a free choice not to. We can't say that there are no brain differences between boys and girls if we simultaneously say that on average girls , unlike boys, fundamentally won't want to study physics. How much of that free choice is really conforming to an implicit expectation? If it is, how can we break that expectation? If it's not the are we then saying there are girl and boy brains?

The differences observed in single sex schools sheds some light on the matter, Midge.

you would just need one every two years,

Seriously? do any of you provide your DDs with only school skirt (of a type which doesn't look particularly easy to launder overnight though maybe looks are deceptive) ?

Of course girsl en masse deciding to roll their skirts up is not unrelated to the sexualisation of girls in society and what men like to look at etc.

The point though is that when an individual girl rolls her skirt up, this is not a definite signal that she wants 50 year old men to try and pick her up on the high street.

For the younger girls especially it's just "what you do". Why it's "what you do" is a good feminist question - because females showing their flesh is approved of in a patriarchal socieyt, but at the same time condemned, because if there's one thing girls and women need to do it's be kept walking that tightrope between "not enough" and "too much".

I was someone who wore what I wore without much of a thought about boys or men at all really - I wore things because I liked them, I rolle dmy skirt up because that was what you did, I chose things that I thought looked nice or good when I was in the 80s or the indie phase or whenever - to be part of that crowd with a nod to my own tastes I suppose. I am heteroseuxal so liked boys BUT I didn't think about "using" my body to lure them seuxally, I mean that didn't cross my mind. I don't think most schoolgirls think in those terms, do they? And yet, that is what men put on them, and adult women too a lot of the time. They put the brain of a woman who is like that - who does dress her body to be generally sexually appealing to the male eye - into the head of a 13 year old girl. Or any girl between puberty and whatever age. Some women think like that, do most? I don't know as I don't. I don't imagine they do. But I do know that it's incorrect to put assumed intentions of a fully mature, sexually active, experieneced woman who enjoys dressing to show her body off, onto a young girl. I think men do that because they like to think, no pretend, that it's true. Because then they feel justified in thinking the thoughts they thinking, or taking the actions they take.

I guess iceweasel has children that don't grow very much (either up or out).

Making the skirts/kilts so expensive that families can only afford to buy them every two years is likely to lead to overly short skirts. I got abused going to and from school in my last year of primary partly because my summer dress was a bit short. I'm the youngest and tallest girl in my family and was wearing hand me downs. My mum wasn't prepared to buy me new longer dresses for that last summer (of course she wasn't the one walking the gauntlet of the local secondary school boys twice a day).

"Nice" or "pretty" or "atractive" in our society for women = taking your clothes off.

Who doesn't want to look nice?

The fashions in the shops for girls are mostly skin tight / revealing tummies and things.

There is a whole lot of stuff going on around this.

Girls bodies are in the end just bodies though, I see girls with school uniform and short skirts on the high street and I think oh there's some schoolgirls. The idea that plenty of people seem to think they are sending "signals" to men about their sexual availability is grotesque. Everyone should see that as grotesque. Not buy into it and say, yes that is a real problem, these girls need to cover up. because no covering up will ever be enough, because the "problem" isn't the clothes, it's the bodies underneath.

Really enjoying your posts Sardines. As well as continuing to be glad that my children went to secondary school in a country that doesn't do uniform except for a very few private schools. The one by where we live now does long kilts and hoodies. They look very hot! dd's classmates were mostly wearing shorts and t-shirts.

Single sex schools show some differences in some aspects, but children travel to and from school and mix with people others than in school,so even in single sex schools children are still exposed to external pressures. so there are some interesting differences, indicative but can't fully answer my pondering. B

And one skirt every 2 years... hold onto that thought, year 11 and 12 we managed with just one.

We wore incredibly short skirts at my single sex, private school.

I wasn't doing it for the boys, I was doing it because it was what you did, and the girls who didn't do it were considered to be sad / square.

All of this is great to consider from a feminist POV becasue of course it is bound up in patriarachy, and no free choice etc, just the idea that girl in short skirt = wants men and boys to think she's sexy is just way way too simplistic and in many cases totally off the mark.

I guess iceweasel has children that don't grow very much (either up or out). No, average, in the same size clothes as their age. Most parents I know get two years out of school clothes, they buy a size up.

I m trying to untangle what goes on in our ( my anyway) unconscious brain. And trying to untangle the impact that biology has on behaviour.

I remember me and dh having a laughing fit when we realised how the posture/voices of a group of girls changed when some boys drew near. It was clear the girls were unaware of what they were doing ( we must have talked about it later) but they were nevertheless responding.

And yes, I do strongly believe that just because something is a biological instinct there is no right to act on it, that's what civilisation is all about. And I unfortunatly know sexual perverts do use " it's natural" as an excuse.

I think lots of girls don't realise looking good is basically looking sexy - I didn't - but I think it's right for adults to realise this and ask whether/how we should react to it.

So poor children (the ones who are apparently so favoured by having to wear uniforms) have to wear clothes that don't fit? Not such a big deal for blazers which are just a bit swamping if they are too big (looks a bit dumb but then the uniform = smart rule is another largely fallacious argument) but a too big kilt is at risk of falling off, too small and it's very uncomfortable. Clothes designed to be unalterable also very unhelpful for poorer families or those that do not have standard physiques.

I rolled my skirt up for the same reasons I dyed my hair, wore make up and smoked. I wanted to rebel, I wanted to look cool and dangerous and I wanted to look grown up. It never crossed my mind that I was making myself look 'avalible' to older men, because I was a silly teenage girl. I soon realized that 'look' got the wrong sort of attention. So I shaved of half my hair and went punk.

A gender neutral uniform would be to specify skirt, shorts, trousers, and allow all students to wear any of it. That's all and it's not very complicated. Girls that prefer wearing skirts should not have that option removed in the name of "gender neutrality".

This is exactly what DD yr 5 School has done. Much the best option. They seem very stuck on only black socks with trousers though! Standards y'know.

They seem very stuck on only black socks with trousers though! Standards y'know.

So the rebels can daringly flash a grey ankle?

I think that allowing anyone to wear trousers or skirt isn't gender neutral in practise only theory , because the boys ( in most cases) won't wear skirts. So you are giving the students the opportunity to demonstrate gender specific behaviours. Applying an unwritten rule if you like. Good for a transgender solution but less good if you want to promote gender neutrality as a general concept /manner of behaving within a school

Nothing in your post however justifies taking the choice away from girls.

Nice" or "pretty" or "atractive" in our society for women = taking your clothes off

That's a bit of an exaggeration.

They put the brain of a woman who is like that - who does dress her body to be generally sexually appealing to the male eye - into the head of a 13 year old girl... But I do know that it's incorrect to put assumed intentions of a fully mature, sexually active, experieneced woman who enjoys dressing to show her body off, onto a young girl.

But I think that is a very important link to what's happening. Adults who are in charge of schools see young girls who are performing the actions of grown women who are displaying sexual signals. (Which in itself involves lots of assumptions, but let's accept that most people believe such signals exist.) So it makes adults uncomfortable to see the kids acting out in what seems like a sexual manner, whether the girls see it that way or not. Making the girls wear trousers (dressed the same as the boys, can't be worn in shortened form or peeped up) seems to be a solution. The girls are simultaneously less able to be provocative, and better protected.

And to hell with the girls who find trousers uncomfortable?

I'm in my fifties haven't worn trousers ever my hip/waist/thigh ratio has always made trousers uncomfortable. Currently my thighs require a 12/14 my hips a 10/12 and my waist a 10. my school in the 70s introduced a crimplene trouser suit for girls and banned skirts (nothing is new!). that I had to wear a large size and my mum attached extra belt bits.

Personally I find trousers very uncomfortable and have always preferred skirts. I find jeans a special kind of torture.

I don’t like how trousers show my figure much more than a skirt.

What about Muslim girls?
When I traveled around India, women in trousers and jeans where considered very provocative for exactly this reason. Your shape was clearly shown.

Why do girls lose the choice and have to behave like boys.

In many parts of the world men do wear “skirts “ and dresses. They should be allowed to here.

I first went to a co-ed high school, it was 'free choice' for the girls whether to wear the 'tunic dress' or trousers. I found myself wearing trousers for the most part, way more comfortable.

As for the floody period thing in the teens, yes, I had that too. It would not have mattered whether dress or trousers really (floods being floods, the same anxiety level involved). Although back in that day, our sanitary products were "surfboards" (and about as absorbent). And always worried if the gigantic 'bulge' of surfboard would 'show' with the trousers. These days, they actually invented absorbent sanity products!

At the all-girls school for my final years, polycotton dresses in summer and kilts in winter. Being in the all-girl environment, less anxiety about 'accidents' or 'bulges', but bloody cold in winter with the kilt.

I do like some of the proposals of (so-called) 'gender neutral' being the default of trousers, therefore no 'trans kids' business. But the other side of that, the 'gender neutral' just happens to be the male default. Funny that.

Heads they win, tails you lose.
Life as a female within patriarchy.

The girls are simultaneously less able to be provocative, and better protected.

Hey let's ban skirts for all women, then no one will be raped, right.
(that was sarcasm incase you think I'm being serious)