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?

Wukter - given that girls' first experiences of sexual awakenings and sexual attraction is also going to be to someone in a school uniform (a boy) why do you think that women are more successful in leaving that particular fetish behind, and why doesn't Ann Summers sell school uniforms for men?

I agree with (whoever might have said) that the school uniform fetish is an excuse for men who fancy schoolgirls.

It is pandering to a mainstream pornographic standby - ie "sexy schoolgirl". Plenty of men fancy girls who are underage, or only just overage. The school uniform fetish is a reflection of that.

The point is that schoolgirls should not be assumed to be sexually mature, or predatory, or to "know exactly what they're doing", just because they are unwittingly attiring themselves in the same manner as "sexy schoolgirl" porn.

It is not the school uniform itself that is of interest really to these men - it's the girl in it. The school uniform is a mechanism to represent fantasies about underage girls.

The answer is not to stop girls dressing in a certain way on the basis that it has been fetishised. As someone said earlier, whatever the girls wear it will end up fetishised, as it is the girls that the men are interested in, not the uniform.

Bottom line is that grown men should not be approaching underage girls with a a view to obtaining sex, and boys should not engage in sexist/harrassment/abusive behaviour towards girls.

You know what really pisses me off about this debate?

It's the oft repeated assertion that "well we all know that's how it should be, but that's just utopian, so meanwhile let's all wear burkhas/ warm crimplene dresses/ respectable slacks (ignoring the fact that women in burkha's/ warm crimplene dresses/ respectable slacks get raped too) and repeat ad nauseum all the stupid, discredited rape myths about women and girls being culpable for men raping them."

Nobody (well, OK nobody sensible) says about racism: "well we all know that racism is wrong and that people who promote it are stupid, but it's utopian to imagine we won't get rid of it, so let's just not bother to fight it, let's not bother to challenge it, let's just let racists say whatever they want without contradicting them and let's tell black people that if they demand a bit of respect or decency from white people, they're extreme and uppity". But that is in effect, what women who want equality and respect, are told all the bloody time. It is so annoying...

I agree that I should be able to walk around in a g-string with a placard declaring "free love" doing pole dances on every other lamp post without fear of being attacked by anyone.

I still think school uniforms should be as sexually unattractive as humanly possible so that everyone can concentrate on trigonometry.

Saying that wearing trousers would make the girls safer was unwise and untrue. It will make them look more respectable though.

The Yorkshire ripper killed a schoolgirl because she was wearing a split skirt so he assumed she was a prostitute and killed her.

So there is a risk.

Not women's fault, but I would not let my daughter go to schoool with a short skirt.

Riven, the problem with the clothing you mentioned (pointy bra on a young child with no breasts etc) is that it sexualises the child's mind. This is what is meant when people say that they do not want their children to be sexualised. The issue is not whether or not the child's appearance is viewed as sexualised to the adult's eye, as it is the responsibility of the adult to respond appropriately to vulnerable children and young people.

You also seem to conflate sexualisation with showing flesh. A child or teenager showing flesh is not being sexualised. A lot of families are relaxed about nudity and the human body, and have not brought their children up to believe that a girl's leg is a sexual object.

"The little girls should wear what they want - pointy bras and heels and makeup- and its the fault of men who find this sexual?"

Yes it's the fault of the men who find this sexual. OF course it is. Normal men don't go around being sexually attracted to children, do they...
But girls have the right not to be dressed up as though they have a sexuality, as though the role of the female sex is to be regarded as sexual from birth. This is grooming little girls to believe that what they look like is more important than who they are. Girls need to wear a variety of colours, for example, not just bloody pink. They shouldn't wear heels. Their clothes should be suitable for climbing trees and rolling down hills and what have you.
Those kind of clothes represent the idea that "shopping" and "looking nice" is all girls should aspire to.
Playing "dress up" OTOH is a completely different kettle of fish, (that's more like copying, a kind of kiddie role-play)

Why do they roll their skirts up then? It's not good enough to say 'oh, it's the fashion'. I'd say they do need protecting if they can't or won't consider the messages they are sending out. I'm sick of walking DD to Primary through a pack of swearing, smoking, over-made-up slags and their hangers-on. I'd hand them all a hairbrush and a flannel at the school gate too....

Re-written from a different perpective:

"A few pps condemned the Head Teachers restrictive movement of the ehnic minoirty children as a result of the conviction that "ethnic minorities are entitled to wear whatever they wish, without the fear of racial harassment, assault etc".

"Unfortunately though, racists don't tend to observe these very basic, rudimentary rights.

"Like other crime ie burglary, fraud etc, we take precautions to prevent or reduce risk through certain measures such as securely locking our properties, (not advocating chastity belts btw) careful disposal of bank statements and so on. In doing so we acknowledge that unprincipled, iniquitous individuals exist in all sections of society.

"So really any attempt to minimize the risk for vulnerable young people (within reason) has to be a laudable, worthwhile cause. Of course its oversimplistic and naive to assume that avoiding certain locations will eradicate the risk of racial assault for example, but it may mean that the young Asian/Black children in question are less likely to be exposed to the erroneous assumption that "they provoked it by coming into our neighbourhood".

"Its not fair but then again we don't live in a heavenly utopia."

Wrong, isn't it? So why is it OK to change the girls' behaviour/attire, without at least making mention of what is being doen to address the erroneous attitudes amongst the males?

No, but then you don't state the reason as being the signals that skirt length gives.

You state that because some idiots think a girl looking a certain way gives them some kind of right to act a certain way the school is going to do X. But you say its the fault of the idiots not the fault of the skirts.

sorry that was @TheShriekingHarpy in response to the utopia point not Prettybird

Remember that thread about "what entrenched views need to change in society?" (here). Well I think the number one view that needs to change is that women are reponsible for men's sexuality. Or to put it another way, that men cannot be expected to control themselves. It's wrong, it's weird and it's damaging in countless ways.

I find men in black tie pretty sexy. When I see a small boy wearing the same outfit, I do not find him sexy - he is a child. It's not a difficult thing. Why is it that men are thought to be so idiotic as to be unable to work out whether someone is a child or an adult? (Even when the person is wearing school uniform). Possibly because certain men with unsavoury tendencies use this as an excuse?

This kind of crap just needs to be cut.

I am not at all convinced that wearing a short skirt means that girls and women are more likely to be abused/harrassed. I am not convinced of that at all.

The men who are approaching these girls are not going to stop doing so if their skirts are slightly longer. They won't stop approaching them if they are wearing trousers, or no makeup, or sacks. They won't stop, because they fancy schoolgirls. Changing the attire of the girls will do nothing to alleviate the problem.

A normal man does not go around thinking that 14yo schoolgirls are "up for it" if they have a short skirt on. In fact they don't go around thinking that 14yo schoolgirls are "up for it" at all. Which is exactly how it should be.

Exactly ISNT. It's not just a case of "oh well trousers are good and what does it matter what reason the man said?". If you put the blame for a problem in the wrong place, it actively prevents you from solving the problem. If you had a leak on the left side of the roof, and you put a tarpaulin over the right side, the rain would still come in wouldn't it? (Sorry my crap analogies are famous) If you say that short skirts are the reason that girls are being targetted, it prevents you from tackling the real reason - the people doing the targetting.