Headteacher bans skirts as if too short they 'put girls at risk'

[Northernlurker]

here

I was pretty apalled by this - banning skirts because they give out 'signals' and the girls are putting themselves at risk by wearing them????
Thankfully my daughter doesn't attend that school but I have e-mailed the school address protesting at these comments. What does anybody else think?

You get a grip kitty and read the thread properly.

I am sick of being told I'm outraged by trousers when several times I have made it clear that this is not what the outrage is about.

Can I state yet again, for those either too lazy, too busy, too stupid or too disingenuous to not misrepresent the arguments: the outrage is about the promotion of rape myths by the school, NOT about the bloody trousers.

I didn't say trousers couldn't be "sexy". I said they were sensible. Which they are.

Sensible as in practical IYSWIM

ie able to run in them, for a start

Yes. Well said.

Boys and certain men are going to find teenaged girls attractive no matter what they are wearing. The skirt is a scapegoat here. And is being used as an excuse to turn bad behaviour away from the person doing it and onto the person who is subject to it.

It is classic "short skirt = asking for it" territory. That's what this is all about, really.

So many posters are refusing to admit that though...

People really don't want to acknowledge the promotion of rape myths do they? Or even the rape myths themselves, in many cases.

So many posters are refusing to admit that though...

People really don't want to acknowledge the promotion of rape myths do they? Or even the rape myths themselves, in many cases.

Mind you if a skirt is very short it becomes very easy to move in it.

And if trousers are v tight they may be restrictive.

back to the drawing board with that one.

(my name is not kitty) . I have read the thread and I wasn't getting at you persoanlly.
I have read the thread, I know the town, I know the school,I know the Head, I know many parents and girls at the school and I know that most of the parents actually support this decision.
I think the head just wants to stop the abuse of school uniform. He has picked the wrong justification. Butthe decision is the right one. this decision will have been made with input from teaching straff, school governor and parents - and probably even pupils. It is not one pervy old man,projecting his fantasies, which some of you seem to be implying.
I have a huge problem with these young girls feeling under social pressure to wear teeny tiny skirts. And a LOT of makeup. That is the culture.

There is a massive obession with 'image' at that school and girls do get bullied for not complying with the ''unofficial'' uniform and not wearing make up.
12 year old girls do not need to go to school looking like Mini-Pops (remember that?

go google short skirt school uniform - you won't get many school outfitters with cute little skirts for your daughters to wear....
see how society fetishes school uniform.

It may have been missed but the Head responded to the OP earlier on today.

Ann Smmers sells school uniform outfits. that's quite mainstream, isn't it?

Aaaaargh Danceswithkittens people have in the main said that they support the ht's decision. What we don't support, is his justification and that is what this discussion is about.

I'm baffled that people don't seem to understand this. If all we were doing was discussing the decision, it would be v. boring as most of us are broadly supportive or not particularly non-supportive of it. But that is not what this thread is about

Fuckin' 'ell I've just read the Telegraph blog the comments after it are all rape apologists.

Unbelievable.

LOL, someone linked to it earlier on

"But what should women wear while we are waiting for that utopia when men stop gawping and making sexual comments about women's attire?" Why not wear whatever we feel like wearing? To do otherwise is to give up, imo, and to tacitly admit the right of men and boys to behave badly, and the impossible silliness of expecting anything better from them. This is an insult to the men and boys who do behave well.

FWIW, I went to school in the 70's and 80s when we didn't hoik up our skirts as that wasn't the fashion, and the boys in secondary still found plenty to comment on.

There was a creepy bloke who used to hang sround after school in the place we used to smoke our cigarettes. We wore a variety of skirt lengths.
Re the fetishisation of school uniforms - most boys' first sexual attractions are probably to a girl in a school uniform. First sexual "stirrings", for want of a better word, are quite strong. Some sad old men never quite leave it behind. Hence Scool Uniform Outfits in Ann Summers. some men never leave it behind and have a predatory nature, hence creeps in their 40's offering ciggies to 14 year olds.

MillyR, I wanted to stand up and cheer when I read this: "It is not the responsibility of women or girls to make some choice between appearing to have no sexuality or alternatively being judged as consenting to sexual attention from everyone. That is a non-choice."

That's what I was trying to say earlier, girls do this "to look like their friends, to cheekily subvert the boredom of school uniform, and possibly in the hope that Jake in 12A will think they look fit. They are not doing it...to impress the generality of boys and men with how they're up for it." Apart from the other reasons (the prevalent ones IME) the "sexual" side of it is generally targetted at someone they fancy. The same reason that adult men and women may put a bit more time into doing their hair if they've got their eye on someone at work, say. It is NOT a way of declaring open season for catcalls, groping, rude comments and whatever other shit these girls are getting, from any passing male.

Actually forget school for a minute, why can't we just have a culture where it's assumed that NO-ONE wants to be groped/sexually assaulted/catcalled/verbally abused/openly leered over on the basis of what they're wearing? The men and boys doing this know that it's unwanted - that's one of the reasons they find it fun. Clothes or makeup or the way someone talks - they're all just excuses so when someone (for once) calls them out on it, they've got someone to blame for their behaviour. The victim.

Somehow this society has swallowed this excuse, but it has to stop.

NG - you asked earlier how to explain to boys that the girls do want attention, just not from them. Well, it's one of the most important lessons that kids need to learn, how to respect the feelings and wishes of others, so we'd better get up the guts to teach them.

It's bewildering how some people talk about this. How are these poor boys/men supposed to know that she didn't want groping? She was wearing a short skirt after all. I don't know, how about striking up a conversation? Or how about assuming that a girl you're not on familiar terms with doesn't want assaulting?

I really really wish I hadn't read the comments on the telegraph link. Bloody hell. What a bunch of loons.

Riven you are over-complicating something that's not complicated.

Why do you think little girls want to wear boob tubes and pointy bras?

Because they're available
Because their friends are wearing them
Because their increasingly narrowing choice of role models - girls aloud, the saturdays, atomic kitten - all wear them and they want to copy them

Saying that men's sexual response to women or girls is their responsibility, not that of the women or girls, does not invalidate the objections to clothing which seek to dress girls in an inappropriately adult manner.

I can't imagine why you think it would.