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?

"How can young men grow up without this warped view. Women are sex objects and their clothing should make them sexually available.
And seeing women as 'just a lay'
I was on the bus behind 4 or 5 young men - 16 to 18 I am guessing. The same age as my sons. It was pretty horrible. Yes, they were showing off for mates but also reinforcing stereotypes. "

Riven I've got four brothers, we're all about 1.5 years apart and we hit puberty one after the other. All four of them had loads of mates who would always be at our house. I've seen quite a lot.
From what I have observed, unless a girl's got huge breasts that are hanging out of her top (and I personally think that's a bit "off"-not in an 'asking for it' way, but in a self-respect way) , it doesn't really matter to boys/men whether a girl is wearing trousers or a skirt or a bin bag. I mean, the attitude towards a girl they like or do not like does not depend on what she is wearing.

Northern lurker, it sounds like that head was misguided, not bad. It's easily done. Look at all the women on here who think it's ok to suggest that wearing a short skirt makes you responsible for the actions of another person, as opposed to that person being responsible for his own actions.

This is interesting. We had a non-uniform day in school once, in the sixth form, so we were about 17. ONe girl had these huge, enormous breasts and OMG she came in wearing a top where they just spilled out over the top of it. Honestly, even the girls didn't know where to look.
The girls and boys just kind of looked embarrassed when she walked in, then finally one boy quietly said everyone "That's out of order, don't you think?" And everyone sort of agreed.
Not all boys/men see women as objects. Some don't want to have it pushed in their face.
There is no connection between a woman showing some flesh and a man/boy deciding to molest or grope her. They are totally separate.

Someone will be along in a minute to say that boys will be boys are people are trying to restrict normal human behaviour.

They're not though.

Boys can talk about girls, they can do their teenaged boy thing. But harrasment/bullying/being sexually threatening etc = not good.

Boys can look at girls without leching.

Boys can communicate with girls without abusing them.

In fact, men can do all these things too, if they want to! Amazing, isn't it!

There is a line between what is normal human sexual/mating/teenage/whatever behaviour, and abusive, nasty, intimidating behaviour. The only men and boys who don't know where that line is, even when they are crossing it, are ones who are mentally ill. The rest of them know exactly what they are doing. Unfortunately it is a part of our culture. As it is in many other cultures around the world (is there one where it isn't?). I started a thread about "eve teasing" in Bangladesh and how the authorities are concerned because of a spate of suicides. This stuff happens everywhere are the consequences are wideranging and entirely negative for girls and women.

"Of course a more conservative school uniform wouldn't significantly eliminate the risk of rape but It does mean that a young female would be less likely to be exposed to presumptuousness, the prospect of harassment and unwanted attention."

But that's not true. As I said eons ago, I was harrassed when wearing jeans and a duffle coat. Men harrass women and girls because they want to, not because of what women and girls are wearing.

BTW, the boy who said it was out of order for the girl to wear the revealing top, didn't directly harrass her, did he? So we know that even when men/ boys are confronted with clothes that are "sexual", even when they disapprove/ notice, they still don't necessarily harrass, do they? So the likelihood of girls being exposed to presumptuousness, the prospect of harassment and unwanted attention, is dependent on the boys or men they are exposed to, not on the clothes they are wearing.

Can we leave this rolex/wad of cash/jewellery analogy behind?

It doesn't work because:

• unlike these things, there is no option to "hide" the obvious fact that you are a woman in a safe place, unless you're proposing that women and girls are confined at home. I don't think that walking down the street or going to school while female is a "reckless" activity, it's a normal life.

• Locking the door does something concrete to make it harder to steal your stuff. Wearing a floor-length tarpaulin covered with chains and bolts doesn't make it any harder for someone to catcall/grope/etc at you. It's just clothes.

• it implies that men who sexually assault and verbally abuse girls put a high value on the girls. I would think that they would value a Rolex far more highly than a girl, they think girls and women are nothing, or they would have a regard to their feelings and wants and not behave like this.

So if you've got

A girl with large breasts
A girl with blonde hair
A girl who is very tall
A girl with a short skirt
A girl who is pretty
A girl who is eating an ice lolly
A girl who is looking in a shop window at some goldfish

Is there a scale as to which are more likely to be harrassed?

No. Whether they get harrassed or not will depend entirely on what boys/men happen to be near them.

hence the "cheer up love" blokes, sAf. If the answer to stopping sexual abuse lay in fabric and fastenings, I like to think women would have puzzled out the answer by now, Shrieking. To think clothes can protect you (cept suit of armour maybe, with visor down) is a susperstition. Carry a St Christopher, or a sprig of heather, or wear a long skirt by all means - they might make you feel better. But relying on these things isn't going to do anything positive to reduce your personal vulnerability or improve the situation for society.

Shriekingh what evidence have you got that girls and women are less likely to be harrassed if they are dressed in a certain way? Have there been any studies on this?

You seem absolutely determined to ignore male behaviour in all this. The biggest factor in whether a girl or a woman gets harrassed or not, is the men with whom she comes into contact. Men can stop harrassment, women can't.

Do you not realise that women in burkhas get harrassed?

Just seen this thread. This is the high school my ds will attend, hopefully. My dh works there.

I drive past this school every day to work and yes, the skirt lengths are very very short. However, saying the girls need to be safe makes me feel uncomfortable. I'd rather them say it is not appropriate for school to wear skirts so short so girls must now wear trousers.

They do wera them actually just skimming their arse.

"I just cannot comprehend why protecting vulnerable children or minors - and thats what many of them are - is considered so disagreeable."

But that's my point - you're setting up an Aunt Sally here - nobody sane is against protecting vulnerable children or minors. I just don't agree that telling girls to wear something different, is an act of protection. On the contrary, it is dangerous to tell women that if they wear x, y or z, they will be safe from rapists. The only way they will be safe from rape, is if the men they come across, choose not to rape them.

How is stopping girls wearing short skirts going to protect them from anything?

The whole premise is flawed, that's teh problem.

The logical conclusion of your argument is that we follow the ideas of teh Taliban, with women kept indoors, and only allowed out covered from head to toe.

"I just cannot comprehend why protecting vulnerable children or minors - and thats what many of them are - is considered so disagreeable. "

Because getting them to wear different clothes will do nothing whatsoever to protect them.

You also keep not responding to how you plan to protect girls who have big breasts, or blonde hair, or are very tall, or are pretty, or have curly hair, or any of the other myriad things that boys/men hone in on when they want to harrass someone female.

I somehow don't think Shriekingharpy is ever goin to address the issue of what women can do to avoid harrassment if they've got big breasts/ blonde hair/ long legs etc. ISNT, because to do so would entail an acknowledgement that men are the only ones who can stop sexual harrassment and for some reason SH seems desperate to deny that.

When I was 19 (and again when I was 20) I wnet inter-railing round Europe with my (still) best friend.

I was blonde and taller, with longish but shapely legs and she was dark and shorter, but with a real hourglass figure.

We both wore the same indecent length cut-off shorts yet she was one that got all the bother most of the time because of her buxom figure - so it's not a simple matter of what you wear. I got the attention in Greece becase of my blonde hair.

The problem was more to do with the "assumption" that we were English (no, we're Scottish) and that we were "easy" - irrespcetive of how we dressed. We got used to disabusing them on both counts

One of the worst occasions though was a police officer in Genoa train station who obviously mentally undressed us both, when we were "decently" dressed in jeans - so harassment doesn't have to be physical.

The school has now updated their website with the statement they've issued to the local press. That statement includes 'We have listened hard to those who were uneasy about
some aspects of our original rationale for the change. Those references have
been removed.' - which ties in with what the head has e-mailed to me 'I have listened hard and removed from our website any allusions to "risk"'
I think the school was quite genuinely dismayed at suggestions they were being sexist in this decision and has striven very hard to establish their position as one of caring and not condemning.
I've found this thread really interesting and the response of the head to my nagging comments has really encouraged me.