Policing women’s clothes or reasonable expectation?

[SorryAuntLydia]

I dropped my teens at school yesterday and instead of the usual 2 teachers at the gate, there were 10 (possibly more I couldn’t see). They were stopping all the girls and commenting on skirt length. Those whose were deemed too short (almost every year 10 and 11) were told to stand in a particular area of the playground where names were taken before they were allowed to go to class.

And subsequently the parents were sent an email about skirt length needing to be on or below the knee, failure to adhere means detention etc.

I am really uncomfortable about this.
On the one hand it’s the uniform policy so it’s what we signed up to.
On the other hand I couldn’t help but look at the girls being herded into a corner of the playground and feel uncomfortable. And I also think that skirt length should be personal choice for young women - it doesn’t impact their learning so why does it matter?

This is probably an aibu. But I need a feminist view on it, please.

Do you think it’s fair for me to complain? Either at the way in which this was done? Or that the uniform policy should be changed? I’m sure my imagination is being overly dramatic and don’t mean to offend, but it reminded me of the images of Iranian women being berated for being improperly veiled.
Please help me untangle my thoughts on this.

PP stated the school is policing skirts not girls but the reality is that any skirt length rules will disproportionately affect girls so it is an equality issue.

I have no patience with the idea that rules should be written a certain way because it feels uncomfortable to manage them if they are different ie how to measure if a skirt is 4 cm over the knee or 7? I don’t have an answer, but I’m not the person insisting that skirt length is an essential rule. And it’s not the role of students to make teachers feel comfortable.

Knee length or longer <sigh> I’ve just been thinking that (apart from two long dress event outfits), none of my work skirts ever met our school’s skirt length policy.

I’m starting to think that the issue is having any skirt length stipulation. Everyone knows what a skirt is. So just say skirt on the policy. Any additional rules load skirt lengths and designs with cultural (sexist) baggage that belongs to the viewer rather than the wearer.

This show will run and run!

DD is at a school with the same skirt length rule. She, along with most other girls, rolls her skirt up shorter and shorter over the course of a term. Eventually the SLT has had enough. Cue emails and mass detentions. Skirts are rolled back down. Rinse and repeat.

It was exactly the same 20 odd years ago when I was at school except it was a letter rather than an email and the same about 35 years earlier when DM was at school. It will never change as long as girls can wear skirts to school.

I don't think that it's caused by a desire to attract boys or even peer pressure. We wanted to be seen as older and more mature than our age. This meant copying the kids who were a couple of years older than us. They rolled their skirts up so we did too.

Sorry - I don't think this has anything to do with policing what girls wear. It seems the school police that pupils wear compliant uniforms. If any of the boys wish to turn up in skirts, I would expect them to be at the correct length too. Of course, if you don't wish to adhere to the uniform code at the school you applied for your child to attend, you are free to withdraw them and take your child somewhere else.

As for the workplace - plenty of workplaces do have uniforms or dress codes, and if you want to work there then that is what you do. Our workplace does not permit jeans (for either sex) but is generally relatively casual about dress otherwise. Others have little or no interest in what people wear. It would have been handy though if my last place had had a rule about necklines down to the navel, which would have saved me the fraught conversation with someone about appropriate work attire.

It doesnt prove anything. You might think mini skirts are not work wear but others disagree and wear them.

Thank you to everyone who has commented.
I must actually get down to some work now so will bow out for a while and check in later.

And those people look like they are going clubbing after work because the general assumption is that miniskirt = nightclub.

No i said some people looked like they were going clubbing after work, i never said they were wearing a mini skirt.

Your post makes me wonder if there is some sort of unspoken utility in repeating this ritual throughout the generations?

Perhaps annoying adults in the relatively safe space of the school system gets it out of one’s system before graduation?

See also: boys who insist on wearing a hoody instead of the uniform blazer and all the weird stuff teenagers of both sexes do with ties (eg wearing them backwards, so the skinny part shows, wearing them short and tiny with the majority tucked inside the shirt or wearing them long and dangly, unpicking some of the woven stripes to create a new pattern etc).

Why are you talking about random clubbing outfits on a thread about skirt lengths?

There needs to be a policy for girls and boys (and there is). Generally boys clothes don't get policed so much because they just wear trousers and a shirt/jumper blazer. I see girls with skirts so short and tight that they barely cover their knickers. If I saw boys wearing shorts so tight that their bums were hanging out I'd expect them to get told off too!

Fine to have a dress code (within reason) - but corralling girls into a corner? I bet girls are far more likely to be punished for uniform, too, which could be discrimination.

We've been rolling skirts up since the '60s or so. At one point in my secondary school time in the '80s, skirts were long enough, but too tight - pencil skirts you couldn't walk in. Teachers complained about those, too (and our uniform wasn't that strict.)

It doesn't matter how strict they are - for some, it will have been a badge of honour to be put in that group. Maybe they think if energies are going into skirts lengths, they won't be misbehaving in other ways.

I think it would be okay to send a general notice to parents about uniform policies. Then it would be okay to talk to individuals. But not penning them up in a corner like cattle.

Meant to add - teenagers grow. A skirt that was long enough in September might not be later in the school year. Also, if you are tall in school, it can be tricky to get long enough clothes.

I think you should complain. Not sure if you have a DD or DS but how did they feel about it?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-64743377
worth looking at this example and the reaction - the boys supported the girls.

look up Uniform Reform on twitter - they could help you formulate a complaint.

The first question I have would be if girls are able to wear trousers if they choose. As any action over skirts seems unreasonable if that option is not there.

I do think it affects learning in some way if girls with very short skirts sit differently (uncomfortably?) to preserve their modesty.

In some schools I've worked in that's how uniform checks were done in general. On entry to school students who weren't following uniform, for whatever reason are taken to one side, and expected to correct it. Taking names means that it's clear who the students are who repeatedly refuse to follow basic rules.

If a girl had her skirt rolled up, she'd be pulled up and told to sort it. If a boy walked in wearing a hoodie instead of a school jumper, he'd also be taken to one side.

The skirt issue is something no school can win. Without a simple rules, the dominant expectations from students becomes that girls wear skirts so short their bums are out (which is something valued by a patriarchal society that teaches girls they need to conform to what men and boys find attractive) and the pressure is reinforced on girls who don't want that. If you put a rule in place so that girls aren't wearing a male-gaze approved version of the uniform then you open yourself up to criticisms for holding a uniform rule because people will claim it's just chance that girls want to wear a uniform that's male gaze approved, it's empowering for them, who are school to tell them what to wear.

I think that girls can be disproportionately punished in school for not wearing the correct length skirts

when dd was at school she was told off a lot for wearing socks and tights with her skirts. She swapped to very tight trousers which broke the uniform rules and was never told off

a lot of the boys wore similar very tight trousers and were also never told off (they were for wearing white socks…that school had a real thing for socks 😶)

Girls spend their entire lives from the age of about 10 being told that they are either too sexy or not sexy enough, too ugly or too pretty, too fat or too thin etc. All the pressure from outside school is to maximise your attractiveness by keeping your skirt short. The rule inside the school is to minimise it by keeping it long.

Ask yourself: why does the school forbid short skirts? What is the problem? What does it think is going to happen? Either they worry that a bunch of 14 year old girls are too sexually attractive - in which case those teachers should take a good hard look at themselves - or it's a completely arbitrary and pointless rule. Either way, they should find better things to do with their time.

As for people saying that the OP chose the school and should therefore adhere to whichever lunatic rules it imposes, don't be so ridiculous. Sometimes other schools aren't an option - too far away, too crap, too hard to get into. And most of the time they also have a stupid uniform rule, so it doesn't make a difference.

I think it’s completely appropriate to enforce this. No uniform has any direct relevance to learning, but in general schools that have and enforce uniform policy do so because they think it fosters a culture of rigour/makes kids feel part of the institution/gives them something to rebel against/evens out differences between haves and have nots.

If you’re saying you don’t think policy should stipulate skirt length, I disagree. Although it’s not really done to talk about modesty, actually modesty norms are very important in our culture. It is not appropriate for kids to show their upper thighs or bums at school, same as for adults at work. And honestly if there is no rule about skirt length you will see bums. The exact wording of the rule is so that it is enforceable.

From a feminist pov I don’t think anything a girl/woman chooses to do is feminist. And children in particular need to be protected from cultural forces that push them towards sexualising themselves. In my view this is why school rules around modesty should be stricter than workplace rules: because children are less able to understand their ‘choices’ than adults.

Worth looking at the replies to this tweet too
‘Rules about skirt length only serve to teach girls that their bodies are sexualised. Discuss.’
https://twitter.com/positivteacha/status/1537498620769058818?s=46&t=oVo2aZA4PeZ8f_80WXQe7g

At the Secondary attached to DS’ school, girls who wear dresses / skirts must wear opaque black tights both in the summer (40-60 dernier) and winter (100 dernier). So skirt length isn’t monitored. They did this because, as a private school, they’re trying to keep uniform costs down and as such encouraging parents not to buy new uniform every year if it isn’t required.

State Schools don’t have that restriction and parents buying new uniform several times a year is possibly how some make extra funds.

Part of the problem here is the usual lack of thought/product for girls.

We wore skorts - those skirts with shorts built in. They really worked as they were COMFORTABLE!

The trousers on offer more often than not do not fit properly, waist to hip ratio being completely off. They also have really scratchy inseams - this has less impact on the boys because they have more hair!

Mrs Faress an objectionable woman and teacher used to patrol the corridors of my school armed with a tape measure in the 1970s very early 80s to apprehend girls she thought were wearing skirts that were too short.

Anything higher than four inches above the knee was unsatisfactory in her eyes!

Of course some girls spent various parts of the day rolling up and rolling dow their skirts before and after an encounter with her!

Why on earth are girls being made to wear tights in summer? That's still policing their bodies and clothes! 60 denier is thick as well!

Re state schools and restrictions - er, yes they do. Check statutory guidance on cost https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-school-uniforms/cost-of-school-uniforms (the other guidance is non-statutory so it's cost that the DfE have made compulsory)

@SorryAuntLydia you might want to look at the non-statutory guidance - it has to be non-discriminatory for all protected characteristics of the Equality Act so worth checking the school's policy against that... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform/school-uniforms

Any additional rules load skirt lengths and designs with cultural (sexist) baggage that belongs to the viewer rather than the wearer.

Or, it protects girls from being oversexualised too young.

I shudder at the idea of rolling a school skirt up, as when I was at school, girls were routinely sexually harassed and assaulted in the dinner queue by boys trying to stick their hands up the skirt. A longer skirt helped to avoid that, firstly by making it physically more difficult and secondly, by not "implying" that you were "up for it". (NB I am NOT suggesting that girls and women who wear short skirts are "up for" anything! But that was the thinking back when I was a teenager! I find it quite shocking now).

On a seperate but connected note, I work part time at a state comprehensive which has a strict uniform policy. Girls can wear trousers, or a knee length skirt. Boys wear trousers - I've no idea what the school's response would be if a boy wanted to wear a skirt. There's a high proportion of students from a Pakistani background, and these girls usually wear trousers, but not always - some (including some in hijab) wear a skirt + thick tights. But it was the trousers that caused controversy in Summer, when all pupils were warned that if the trousers were too short, and flashing too much ankle/calf, they'd be censured! This affected both sexes pretty much equally, given that many of the older boys as well as the girls had adopted a pedal-pusher style.

I know this doesn't really add to the debate but it is another aspect of the argument.