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?

I think that these girls are wearing reasonable length skirts, but then rolling them up.

They could be banned on the basis that they look bad and are not conducive to learning.

IT's a shocking disgrace that they've been banned on the basis that if they're raped, it'd be because they were wearing a short skirt, not because some sadistic fucker happened to be passing by.

I'm very intrigued at the use of passive voice here. From the website and from MaamRuby, who has bent over backwards, linguistically, to avoid saying the words 'rapist', 'paedophile' and 'rape'. It's all 'attire seems to be used as justification' skirts 'Give off signals to undesirables', it's 'daft to assume that short sexy skirts do not give a message

I think I'm going to amble around rewriting people's posts in the active voice for a while and see what happens.

" IF there is someone who is of a predatory nature, you are more likely to be on their 'radar' than someone who is not."

Rapes and molestations are usually carried out by people the girl knows personally, often a father, other male family member, spouse or boyfriend. Attacks by random strangers are very rare by comparison, and even then there is no evidence to show that wearing a skirt makes any difference.
Rape is not about sex, it's about violence.

So true Sakura. Although rapes by strangers are more commonly reported, often in sensational fashion, most are committed by someone known to the victim. This is especially true in the case of rape of minors.

The attempt by the Headmaster here to disguise the dynamic happening in the school (agree with Swallowedafly here) with fear of some unknown bogeymen in the bushes deserves nothing but contempt.

I really didn't see this as a feminist issue in any way until I read this thread, I only have one daughter and she is a girl who prefers to dress modestly probably because that is the role model she has been given. I also never allowed things like crop tops or short skirts when she was younger ie in primary school. She chose to wear trousers at secondary school but her dresses/skirts at primary were always knee length.

She is almost 18 now, but I was glad when the school she used to attend had a crack down on these very short skirts,although they were not banned. Many young girls were walking along a canal tow path to get home, and whilst I would never regard anyone's clothing as being an excuse for someone assualting them, as a mum and someone who has always been aware of my own personal safety it didn't seem wise to be walking alone in an isolated area in that kind of clothing. The boys have been reminded about visible underwear, which I also find inappropriate in school.

There seems to be a bit of a disconnect here - on the one hand we don't want high-street shops selling our young daughters push-up bras, lacy knickers and t-shirts with slogans full of sexual innuendo, and yet there is a strong feeling on this thread that it's OK for girls to go to school wearing tiny skirts because it's their right to dress how they like and men and boys need to learn to deal with the effect it has on them.

Yet isn't that sexualising them almost as much as if they were walking down the street in jeans and a t-shirt with an obscene slogan?

Those of you whose daughters go to school in short skirts (whether that's the length they come in, or because they've been hoicked up), would, surely draw the line at them unbuttoning their shirts to expose some cleavage, so what's the difference between that and a tiny skirt that exposes their legs for all to see?

Obviously after 40 years of miniskirts, exposed legs don't present the same sexual thrill as they used to, but the fact remains that a miniskirt is sexier than a knee-length skirt, and putting one on a girl going to school is inappropriate because it draws unnecessary attention to her and sexualises her in a way that a longer skirt doesn't.

yes riven, but surely the issue is that none of what you said is what the headmaster said.

if he had written an email to the parents saying that 'we all know men and boys are responsible for rape, and until we can develop some ways to stop them doing it, we are trying to protect the girls from them.'(stil not ok, but you get my drift, yes?) then it would be very different.

I do think schools should ban short skirts because they aren't appropriate....however, I don't like that the school in question is insinuating that wearing a short skirt means some how it is the girl's fault if she is raped! DH was telling me the other day how uncomfortable some of his colleagues made him when they drove past a school on the way to a meeting, they were leering at school girls and DH told them it was disgusting and how would they feel if someone was leering at their daughter? Its the men that have a problem, not the girls.

Girls have always turned over the waistband of their skirts - my mother tells me that she used to in the 50s, so this is nothing new.

ttallo, interesting point, I dont have time to respond properly. I dont think I agree with you but it made me think..

?Why is it that people have to jump on the sexism bandwagon whenever someone makes a decision that affects girls? ?

Um, because the decisions that are made are sexist?

I think you?ll find that the ?women are responsible for rape? bandwagon is an awful lot more popular than the sexism one.

? and yet there is a strong feeling on this thread that it's OK for girls to go to school wearing tiny skirts because it's their right to dress how they like and men and boys need to learn to deal with the effect it has on them.?

No there isn?t ttalloo, I think you?ve misunderstood the thread. I specifically stated in my first post, that I have no objection to the schools insisting on trousers as being a more practical option for school. My objections to the reasons for the trousers, are because the headteacher?s statement re-inforces rape myths and I find it utterly outrageous that people who believe shit like this are allowed to even work in schools and influence the next generation of rapists and rape victims.

If a HT declared that if only Asian girls would stop wearing headscarves, they'd get less islamaphobic abuse, he'd be sacked. But because he's promoting sexism rather than racism, it's allowed. And it's outrageous.

I'm getting increasingly angry about the level of sexist shit that seems to be taught in our schools actually.

I had no idea that this sort of shit was still being spouted in schools actually. There are so many missives which come home about racism, taht I kind of assumed that schools would also be aware of issues around sexism but apparantly I'm wrong.

I think that this is shocking and quite upsetting. These are CHILDREN! They may wear short skirts because it's fashion, or more practical, but it is outrageous to suggest that by doing so they are setting themselves up as sex objects. I have always worn skirts (not short, sturdy legs!); my dd wears skirts (short) and I see nothing wrong with that. I would ban religious schools before skirts as uniform.

Completely agree with ttalloo.

This is one of the best comprehensives in the country and is massively over subscribed. So he must be doing something right.

I can remember as a youngster - looking older than my age - garnering the attention not of rapists or paedophiles on the way home, but of boys from the local high school. I really did not know how to respond to them (being younger than I looked) but I was flattered. Could I have been pressured / flattered into going further than I really wanted to or understood? Probably. I would never have admitted my real age though.

I have no problem with this measure.

so pithyslicker if this is a good school and massively oversuscribed isnt it even more worrying that this is considered best practice?

and just becasue he does SOME things right, doesnt negate that this SEXIST thing is very very fekking wrong!

IME, the school's head has been cack-handed about wanting to ban very short skirts, nothing more.

Instead of just banning them, he has misguidedly tried to make it a child protection issue so as to spread the "blame" about a bit rather than take all the flack himself.