School insists skirt is too short

[yesterdaystotalsteps123]

Dd doesn't like wearing trousers and has been told her skirt from Y6 that still fits her is too short. Fair enough I ordered a sensible one from Amazon, it is just above her knees and school are still saying it's too short! Wtf?? How can I address this?

I'm sorry you went through that MitziK and I'm glad you're fine now. It happened to a friend of mine, she was on a motorbike wearing shorts. She survived but has massive scars. To me and I think many others, bicycling seems less dangerous but maybe it isn't.

Always interests me how many women can’t or won’t wear trousers, even as a uniform.

Every single woman I work with wears them as required uniform - doctors and nurses - I find it bizarre that so many women simply could not do my job or a nurse’s job because they couldn’t manage the uniform. Plenty of us have ‘womanly hips’ or whatever nonsense terms people like to use.

@TheChampagneGalop

I'm sorry you went through that MitziK and I'm glad you're fine now. It happened to a friend of mine, she was on a motorbike wearing shorts. She survived but has massive scars. To me and I think many others, bicycling seems less dangerous but maybe it isn't.

God, no it isn't. From my point of view, at least I had the power with which to get out of a lot of situations - like HGVs who obviously hadn't noticed I was there or car drivers pulling out of junctions as I was already crossing with right of way (quick blip and you're past/out of the way, rather than watching them in slow motion as they head towards you).

The only times I was hurt, I wasn't going any faster than a pushbike and, as I mentioned, was absolutely stationary at one point. What saved me was the protective gear. The type that is perhaps associated unfairly with being masculine. If not being permanently maimed is a masculine trait.

I now (occasionally) use a slightly different mode of transport. It's got four legs and can become hysterical at the slightest sign of change (OH MY GOD THERE'S A LEAF ON THAT TREE! RUN! FLEE!), but I don't do that in a skirt, either.

In terms of transport on two wheels, though, fuck wearing skirts and little shoes. The fundamental laws of physics don't give a shit about gender conformation and sudden decelerations, rotational speed and friction are far more important considerations than liking the feeling of the breeze up one's thighs or having a lovely picture in your head of how pretty it looks. I am not trying to be a dick for the sake of it, I think it's that important for people to get a grip and look at what they are actually putting themselves at risk of through an aesthetic choice of clothing.

@trixiebelden77

When I worked a place uniform was expected i had the option if skirts or trousers so I wore skirts. To begin with I was the only one in my department doing so 3 years in all of the ladies had at leat 1 skirt and most changed between after what they felt like that day.

If I was to work somewhere trousers were an requirement I would wear then as jt was in lone with the policy doesn't mean I would like it. However I would follow the policy.

A bit like ops daughter should imo. Op if she has a skirt that us just above her knee and also roll it once or twice we are talking very above her knee

I am not trying to be a dick for the sake of it
I don't think you are, I think you are making a very important point about safety.

I can wear trousers, and often do. I just find that dresses are more comfortable and allow greater freedom of movement, so if there is a free choice, I'll go for the dress, in much the same way that I'd choose not to wear a tie, or high heels, or safety goggles, or jewelry on my hands.

I suspect that many of the women in trouser-wearing jobs are either uncomfortable, in loose-fitting elastic-waisted trousers with some degree of adjustability, pay lots of money for trouser alterations or are competent at sewing.

@trixiebelden77

Always interests me how many women can’t or won’t wear trousers, even as a uniform.

Every single woman I work with wears them as required uniform - doctors and nurses - I find it bizarre that so many women simply could not do my job or a nurse’s job because they couldn’t manage the uniform. Plenty of us have ‘womanly hips’ or whatever nonsense terms people like to use.

I certainly don't object to trousers on principle, I wear them a lot in my own time. But the one time that I worked somewhere that had a skirt or trousers option because there was only one style of trousers available and they were ridiculously uncomfortable. They were so high waisted that the waistband came up past my ribs because I'm short in the body. Other women who weren't short waisted like me found them ok. So they wore them.

I actually do know quite a lot of women who are forbidden from wearing trousers for religious reasons. So they genuinely feel that they can't take jobs where trousers are required because even if they wanted to, their fathers or husbands wouldn't allow it. Some or them used to be nurses and midwives when the uniform was a tunic but they won't wear the scrubs that are required these days. I think scrubs are far more practical and I feel really sorry for them that they are forced out of jobs they enjoyed because of religious pressure.

Strange, I’ve never met any woman/girl who had a complete aversion to wearing trousers?

I'm another who has never liked them. They don't suit me, and I don't find them comfortable.

But @MitziK even male cyclists go bare-legged in flimsy shoes when they want to go particularly fast. It's the standard for sports cycling. I don't think I've ever seen anyone on a bicycle, male or female, in leathers or similar protective gear because it would be be uncomfortable, difficult and also really antisocial - I've done sports which involve aerobic activity in proctective padding, and the smell is not something you'd want wafting around the office/classroom/supermarket/waiting room/train carriage/cinema etc.

Thing with knee length is - people have different length legs, people come in different shape and sizes. So as the OP said, can be difficult to get a skirt that comes exactly to a girl's knee (especially as can't try on at the moment) without potentially being too wide at the waist. For all the people saying 'well that's what their uniform says', come on, 'at the knee' or just a bit above essentially amount to the same thing, it's smart and appropriate looking. I find it somewhat sinister (not to mention Victorian) if schools are that obsessed with the sight of girls legs. This really should not be something to get overly concerned about unless you happen to see girls and young women in a sexualised way. Not to mention it's terribly expensive and wasteful to have to buy a new skirt every time your DD grows a little bit, as children tend to do.

@MoonJelly

We don’t enforce uniform in Scottish state schools (We just have a recommended dress code) and we have none of these problems

Goodness, how sensible. The amount of teaching time some English schools waste on enforcing the minutiae of uniform rules is utterly ridiculous. In some schools they seem to use this as a substitute for anything more challenging like good teaching.

This with bells on. I once stood outside the head of lower school's office in protest (this was a big deal for me, I was a goody two shoes who never had a detention) at another pupil getting detention because in the height of summer he had taken his jumper off without asking permission first and then had not put it on again to move between classes to then ask permission of the next teacher. The head of lower school actually said to me, that if they allowed pupils to take their jumpers off willy nilly according to their own temperature and comfort that "it was the thin end of the wedge" in terms of behaviour. Jeez, get some perspective 11 year old me though....

Voice of reason there Lemony.

@DonEmmanuelsDingleberries

Ours says length must match where your fingers end if you put your arm down at your side. They uphold it as a lot of girls are shuffling in in really tiny skirts.

Off topic, but this rule doesn't make any sense to me if the aim is to avoid 'tiny skirts'. I have a long torso, so a skirt that just reached my fingertips would barely cover my bum!

Same, my fingertips just (by half a centimetre) go below my bum. Half my cheeks would be out!

I don't have a long torso - just short arms

So as the OP said, can be difficult to get a skirt that comes exactly to a girl's knee (especially as can't try on at the moment) without potentially being too wide at the waist.

Surely teenagers (or parents of younger children) are capable of making simple alterations to their clothes; i.e. taking in the waist if necessary, buying a skirt that's too long and taking up the hem?

Same, my fingertips just (by half a centimetre) go below my bum. Half my cheeks would be out

Isn't that normal unless one says 'ook ook'?

I thought people were getting fatter, but not Mumsnet teenage daughters with their long legs and tiny waists.

I'm fat, which us why I prefer dresses. My teenage daughter looks perfectly normal but does seem to have too small a waist/too long legs for most trousers. It might just be that shape is the one that is least catered for in school trousers, hence the griping.

@eddiemairswife

I thought people were getting fatter, but not Mumsnet teenage daughters with their long legs and tiny waists.

I can't comment on MNetters' daughters but we , general we, are getting fatter.

I'm a 14. I can't begin to squeeze into original 1950s size 14 dresses. They are equivalent to today's 8s or at most 10s

I've got clothes from around 20- 30 years ago which are just too beautiful to throw out. For example there is a long Laura Ashley milkmaid dress which is 30 years old and an full, circular Laura Ashley silk skirt about 25 years old. Both are labelled as size 10 and many years ago fitted me. By today's labels they are a 6.