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?

Riven - that's why sexism needs to be taken as seriously in schools as racism is and needs to be pro-actively challenged in the same way.

So that in their bravado, at least at the back of their minds the less moronic of the boys would know the truth, rather than be confused by the myth.

BTW when I was sexually harrassed as a teenager (always by older men tbh, never by boys my age) it never made any difference what I was wearing - school uniform, trousers, jeans, duffle coat - I was harrassed wearing all those items.

Do those of you who think clothing makes such a difference, think school uniforms should be banned on the basis that pervs get off on it?

Oh god we keep saying how.

Treat sexism the way we treat racism. Tackle it in the schools, force schools to report every sexist incident the way they are forced to report racist ones, make the police record sexual motives as well as racist ones, make it as socially unacceptable to declare yourself a sexist as a racist...

25 years ago, racism and sexism were seen as equally unacceptable by lefties and liberals. Then the establishment took up the cause of official anti-racism and now it is simply unacceptable to be a racist in public. If everyone had wrung their hands, cried "How?" and continued to repeat racist shit 25 years ago, Bernard fucking Manning would still be the on the telly, just like David Baddiel, Richard Skinner, Jonny Vegas etc. are. We have got to change this and we won't do it by repeating rape myths and accepting that any opposition to sexism is utopian.

Hey Riven - Reclaim the Night happens now, and Object are there with plenty of chants about stopping rape and the objectification of women. Bet things haven't changed a bit - it's a fab night.

Someone cleverer than me - how did we go from loads of racism on TV, to someone getting the sack from being racist off-air? What made that happen?

The cliches comparing burgulary and theft to sexual assault perpetuate rape myths. If I keep my valuables out of sight of windows in my house, the robber doesn't know if I own a rolex watch or whatever, and so may choose not to rob me. If I wear trousers rather than a skirt, the rapist still knows I have a vagina. Locking doors makes it more physically difficult for the robber to break in; wearing trousers does not offer any physical protection from rape.

There is no evidence that rapists or people who want to sexually harass women have a preference for women with short skirts. Telling women to change clothes is like telling people to deter robbers by painting their doors a different colour.

People will make up any nonsense to justify harassment. I dressed in an alternative/crusty way as a teenager and after being harassed by middle aged men (I was in trousers), various people said it was because I looked 'alternative' so of course men would think I was interested in free love.

Riven, the NUT guidelines on dealing with sexual harassment in schools do focus on the behaviour of boys and why they behave in that way. They link harassment of girls to harassment of boys who do not fall in line with what is considered 'masculine' and receive harassment based on supposed sexual orientation instead.

It goes into some detail about how masculine identity in schools is reinforced and formed in boys through the sexual harassment of girls.

www.teachers.org.uk/node/10552

ooh, thanks HB - helpful cross-post there. What made it happen do you think?

so the people who need to act first are the teachers? Govt? LEAs? Is there anything we can do to push this?

You're right, swallowedAfly. Why just women though? Men need to back this up as well or it's not going to work. People are so afraid aren't they, that if they speak up someone will pull out a knife or something. Need a campaign, like the anti-harrassment ones in India where they photograph people catcalling etc and post them on the internet.

"I recall comments of that ilk directed at me when I was in my late teens - was wearing a shortish, leather mini on that occasion. Never recall experiencing it, whilst dressed in jeans."

And my friend got a lot of "attention" because she had big breasts
Others because they were pretty
Others because they were short
Others because they were tall...
I am blonde, so naturally that was a green light for random men

Some men fancy teenage girls, and will approach them however they are dressed.

Boys have always made comments about girls, and spoken about them in an unpleasant way, how the girls dress makes no odds. If they wear trousers rather than a skirt then the boys will simply comment on something else.

The reason that adults do not like seeing girls dressed in a certain way, is to do with adult perceptions of what that dress code means. Personally I have turned into my mum with a thought of "oooh those skirts are too short". But that is not the same as assuming that the girls are deliberately trying to convey that "message". I do not believe for a moment that the vast majority of girls are dressing that way to send a "message" about what they are about. And the important thing is, that boys and men don't believe that either. They want to pester/harrass/proposition teenaged girls and they will do that irrespective of what they are wearing. The "short skirt/tight top/did you see the way she looked at me/asking for it" stuff is all excuses.

Basically, men who harass young girls are sexual bullies.

They know they can get away with it because the girls are younger, more vulnerable, less experienced and less able to deal with it.

The fucking creeps.

And YES to swallowedAfly Wed 16-Jun-10 17:33:46 post. These type of men pester you, when you are polite they take it as a green light, when you finally have had enough and ask them to leave it, they get aggressive. Arseholes.

There is a difference here between teenaged boys and grown men. The teenaged boys of course should be trying to get together with the girls, but someone needs to be teaching them to treat women with a little respect to counter the tide of "nuts" and porn. Grown men shouldn't be trying it on with schoolgirls full stop.

The thing is that young women and girls find it harder to say no, go away, than older more experienced women.

The sort of "badgering" attention and harrassment, seems to stop in the main when you get older. It is at its worst (if my memory is working) from about puberty until late teens/early 20s. The sort of street harrassment, strangers approaching, people shouting at you from cars all the time type stuff. (It happens forever in pubs as far as I can tell.)

I assumed it was because men weren't interested in older women. But I actually wonder whether it's because they know that older women (ie anyone over about 21 or so) are more likely to give them a withering look/make a cutting remark/simply tell them to fuck off. While younger women and girls don't know how to handle it, and get terribly flustered and embarassed, which of course is much more fun.

If anyone thinks women in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else where burqas are de rigeur for all women are free from harassment, they need to think again. Changing a uniform to trousers just opens up other chances, for people who are going to do it anyway no matter what the girls are wearing, to make comments about size of rear ends, thighs, whatever. If women keep on retreating, we will eventually live in a world where we can expect acid attacks as a reprisal for having the temerity to think girls should attend school at all, as happens in Afghanistan.

It is sexual bullying, and it's going to happen because under all the clothes, no matter what they are, there's a female -- and under the other clothes there's someone who thinks this is acceptable because other males do not stand up to stop it. This will not stop until men redefine masculinity.

I really like the idea of naming and shaming, though, and posting pics on the internet. But I think men have to stand up and be counted on this issue.

"The Yorkshire ripper killed a schoolgirl because she was wearing a split skirt so he assumed she was a prostitute and killed her."
I believe a rephrasing is in order -- The Yorkshire Ripper had thoughts going on in his own head wrt prostitutes/women/sex so he killed a schoolgirl wearing a split skirt. In other words, because he was a psychopath with severe psycho-sexual problems.

To assert that the split skirt had anything to do with it is to assert that women and girls should try to guess who among the men and boys on the street with them is a psychopath with murderous intent and then require them to guess what clothing or makeup or hair colour or shoe style is going to set their madness off, and then dress to avoid the perpetration of a crime. It is to assert, essentially, that the girl in the split skirt could have prevented him from killing her if she had only worn a different skirt.

Well said math. It takes about 2 secs to actually realise this "ah, a problem with sexual harrassment - different clothes will solve it!" approach is useless and harmful. Like I said earlier if you blame the wrong thing, you look for the wrong solution.

This skirt change will make no difference, that's the real issue for anyone who actually wants to make girls safer at school.

I think the headmaster would find this thread a very interesting read - food for thought!

The head replied to my second e-mail yesterday confirming that the school concerned has a zero tolerance policy towards all forms of harassment. From the correspondance I've had I think that he has never been anything but well intentioned towards his pupils and I think this whole affair has indeed given him food for thought.