Girls wearing skirts not allowed into school - could only be Brighton

[Kit19]

www.theargus.co.uk/news/17886600.lewes-priory-gender-neutral-uniform-protest/

Apparently “gender neutral” means trousers aka the male default. This is utterly insane. I mean I wouldn’t have minded the choice of trousers or skirts for either sex but only trousers?

Yet again this same poster has derailed and dominated a thread that might just have been interesting, with utter nonsense and whataboutery and stupid hang ups about others intentions.

Decomposing is this whole thread some kind of modern performance art we haven’t heard about yet

Yes, this is one way of calling it. I suppose there are others as well.

Because on this board insinuating a poster is male is the way to dismiss whatever they say.

Yep. Which is why I took pains not to do it, and still haven't done it.

You made my neutral unisex pronoun choice into a gendered one, all by yourself, in your own head, Decomposing. You've been so convinced you're going to be called a man in order to dismiss you, that you're seeing it even when it's not happening. You're actualy gendering unisex things solely in order to be insulted by them. That's kind of messed up, mate. You might want to work on that.

So is there a male or female way of engaging then?

There are lots and lots of tiny cues that affect the perceived likelihood of you being one sex or the other. Don't blame us for this, blame the socialisation process in a sexist world (and maybe open your mind to the possibility that you display its effects?).

You made my neutral unisex pronoun choice into a gendered one, all by yourself, in your own head, Decomposing.

How is s/he neutral? Neutral would be using my name or they.

If I referred to you as s/he I would making some sort of a point.

Don't blame us for this, blame the socialisation process in a sexist world (and maybe open your mind to the possibility that you display its effects?)

How am I displaying the effects of a sexist world by apparently not conforming to the way that a woman speaks? Surely it's you who is displaying those effects by allowing yourself to apply the sexist views of how men and women apparently speak?

It's not my fault that you can't avoid applying sexist stereotypes to interactions that you have. And it is sexist to hold a view about how women speak versus how men speak.

You're actualy gendering unisex things solely in order to be insulted by them.

I'm gendering unisex things? What things? It certainly hasn't been me claiming that shorts and trousers are masculine - quite the opposite in fact. It's me that's been saying they are unisex and challenging the posters who gender them. So what unisex objects have I gendered?

You’re determined to be offended, aren’t you?

There is no one “female way” and “male way” of engaging. We are all individuals. But, there are tendencies in both groups.

I don’t think people have “dismissed” you, we wouldn’t be at 950 posts if they had.

"he or she" - implying a single individual, sex unstated or unknown. Contracts to "s/he" amongst many other things.

The fact that your brain, Decomposing, has reimagined this pronoun as an insult isn't actually my fault or responsibility, because 100% of it happened in your head.

Credit where it's due, though, we ought to be acknowledging the role of the activists pushing the "preferred pronouns or gulag" line in priming Decomposing's brain to be on high alert for perceived stealth-attack-via-pronoun.

The unisex option you've gendered, as I patiently explained just a few minutes ago and you apparently didn't bother to read, is a third person pronoun denoting "single individual; sex unspecified."

I'm not calling you "they," English grammar doesn't work like that. I'm sufficiently sure of your sex (ie that you're not lying when you say you're female) that I can't actually call you "they" without experiencing quite a bit of internal distress.

Can we stop indulging? Only this in now pages of not talking about the OP, which I’m interested in discussing, and is just about a single poster.

Tyro they do that on every thread they’re on, high alert to any suggestion they’re a man.

Only this in now pages of not talking about the OP, which I’m interested in discussing, and is just about a single poster

Im up for it

We have 40 pages left of potentially insightful discussion

You go first

Not pages...posts

Now its 39

he or she" - implying a single individual, sex unstated or unknown. Contracts to "s/he" amongst many other things.

The fact that your brain, Decomposing, has reimagined this pronoun as an insult isn't actually my fault or responsibility, because 100% of it happened in your head.

If you had applied the s/he pronoun to every poster on this board then yes, you could claim that it was meant without intent. But you didn't. You applied it to only me and so therefore you intended it to convey a certain message. You aren't referring to every poster as s/he out of respect because you don't know their sex.so stop trying to claim that it was some kind of pc move on your part.

The unisex option you've gendered, as I patiently explained just a few minutes ago and you apparently didn't bother to read, is a third person pronoun denoting "single individual; sex unspecified."

What is this unisex pronoun? Do you mean s/he? Only I don't consider that to be unisex. That's a way of saying you are one or the other - I'm just not sure which applies to you and you've used it with the intent to cause offence.

I'm sufficiently sure of your sex (ie that you're not lying when you say you're female) that I can't actually call you "they" without experiencing quite a bit of internal distress.

Well you calling me s/he has caused me distress. If you are so sure that I am a woman why not refer to me as she? Because you wanted to cause offence and dismiss my opinions, in exactly the same way as "sweetie" was used

You aren't referring to every poster as s/he

I think you are the only poster referred to in the third person

Sorry jessica

Thread's nearly over. I suspect Decomposing will manage to push it to the full 1000 with that unerring ability to gyre and gimble in the wabe.

Must be quite a challenge to converse with in real life, this kind of pointless nitpickery, done with such determination to angrily and deliberately misunderstand and misrepresent. My sympathies to RL acquaintances. There must be judicious use of large newspapers and sudden pretend important phonecalls...

I think a bit more "dismissing" of things this poster says wouldn't go amiss, frankly.

Anyway,

I ws speaking to a teacher about short skirts and he said ‘well what can we do about the shortness’

The main way local some schools deal with it is by only being able to buy certain skirts, though the local private school has longer length skirts but that probably because the parents are paying money and dont want their child kicked out

I ws speaking to a teacher about short skirts and he said ‘well what can we do about the shortness’

And I think this is what leads to schools deciding on trousers only - it's the lack of options available to schools to try and make pupils follow a uniform policy. If this was a report about a school excluding students for persistently wearing a too short skirt people would be criticising that too.

How can schools enforce a ruling on skirt length? It isn't right that girls are in school with skirts that short. If they want to wear them outside of school then that's a different matter but you wouldn't be allowed to wear a skirt so short that your underwear was visible in a professional environment would you so it's fair enough that that's a rule in school.

Just like some boys/men have that ridiculous way of wearing their trousers low slung so that their pants are on full display - that's not appropriate in school either. Wear them properly in school.

Back to the OP as requested.

Whatever's been happening in that school, banning skirts is a sexist response. It's limiting female clothing choices on the grounds that allowing the choice results in an untenable school environment - the clear and obvious subtext is that girls must be forced into the current male default in order to avoid issues of sexualisation or skirt length or whatever - it's basically "we wouldn't be having all these problems if you girls weren't being so persistently female all over the place." Horrible attitude to have.

If skirts are strongly correlated with a loss of productivity resulting from attempts to police them, then the answer (to me, for girls) is to give girls non-skirt options and ensure the sociocultural context isn't conditioning girls away from choosing them. Obviously there are plenty of interventions available relevant to boys, teachers, parents and other groups who together constitute the social context in which girls develop uniform preferences - laying this responsibility all on the girls isn't on.

in order to avoid issues of sexualisation or skirt length or whatever

I'm not sure it is about sexualisation though. Isn't it just good manners or consideration to others that your knickers aren't on full display? Just like, as I said, I don't want to see men walking down the street with their arses hanging out (and that goes for builders bums too). It's not pleasant for those around you.

I don’t have a problem with it, trousers may be considered male but I suspect because men hVe always put their own comfort before appearance. Girls should always have been dressed in trousers for school imo and not made to wear stupid skirts.

Its not so much the length of the skirt, they tend to be mid/upper thigh

They just seen to forget about the split at the back

My childrens school obviously

The boys trousers are very very tight in the case of the older boys...it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot was clearly visible

But its usually framed as the girls distracting the boys, not the other way around...even though some of those boys are probably very distracting

I ws speaking to a teacher about short skirts and he said ‘well what can we do about the shortness’

I find the discussion around this interesting, as it wasn’t an issue at primary level for my DD and her secondary is non-uniform. There’s nothing banned except high heels. One teacher did try to ban spaghetti straps because it showed bra straps but I had a long conversation about why that was sexist to girls who had better things to do, and it was in fact others who sexualised a piece of fabric. It never got raised again. What I find interesting is with no real rules around their clothing, I have never ever seen any girl in any year with anything super short revealing underwear. We have never had a note or email about clothing. Nothing.
I had a uniform at secondary myself, and we did take our skirts up but not beyond the rules. We were sent home. There were other measures, they never banned them. That to me is a school that has forgotten how to manage children without resorting to banning things.

I don’t like seeing young men with their arses out of their pants either but they’re everywhere!

Both my boys have obeyed every uniform rule

It was dd who was a bit of a rebel...or pain in the arse depending on your view

I was invigilating and 1 lad virtually had his entire bottom out when he was sat down

I felt like avoiding that entire aisle...which might have been his cunning plan