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?

teenage girls do shorten theri skirts ( and it's been this way for a long time) becuase they do like to
a) fit in with peers
b) an act of exploring their growing sexuality.

We shouldn't put a negative context to the latter. We shouldn't apportion blame to girls or infer it in any way.

What a head teachers duty should be, is to ensure that school is not a place to disregard uniform policy and openly explore sexualised behaviour. School is primarily for learning

So whilst i agree with the descision. i think this should have been done without the apportionment of blame and 'rape' aspect

I agree with the concern about the sexualisation - and both goldenticket anf noblegiraffe articulate that well.

Dh and I have both commented - negatively - about Girls Aloud videos/concerts at the degree of sexualisation that is being paraded (and I use that word deliberately) in front of a target audience of young girls. Some of acts/song routines are bordering on the pornographic - graphic at the very least. And we are not prudes by any means.

My concern is that there doesn't seem to be any balance in the headmaster's comments: he has put the entire onus on the girls and the messages that they (supposedly) are sending out and none on the boys/men for reacting to these supposed meesages.

I agree with noblegiraffe about the practical reasons against short skirts (inadverently showing knickers) - but those aren't the reasons that he gave.

I don't really see what the big deal is. It isn't appropriate for young girls to be wearing very short skirts in school.

The head teacher is obviously sick to the back teeth of dealing with the problem and has decided this is the solution.

Girls are exploring their sexuality at that age, but it's perfectly fine to ask them to stick to boring clothing during school hours.
NID SHOE FASIWN YW'R YSGOL! my homeroom teacher used to screech at us.. err, which means "School is not a fashion parade!".

All the headmaster had to do was say something similar. WHy did he have to go on about schoolgirls putting themselves 'at risk' of perverts by what clothes they wear? If you're worried about that completely separate issue, then as dittany says, create a zero tolerance rule for leering and touching, etc

oh my god this is exhausting.

no one is arguing with the premise that girls should stick to the uniform rule.

we are arguing that telling everyone that the REASON for making girls cover up is to PROTECT them and help ameliorate the 'subliminal messages' they may be sending is outrageously sexist, and damaging and just plain fucking wrong.

I'm interested as to what age the MN campaign would cease to be applicable?

FWIW, I watched the first of a series called "The Sex Education Show" (iirc) on Channel 4 a while back. It certainly seemed that teenage boys are by far the biggest problem facing teenage girls - the attitudes of the girls on the show made me utterly despair. Whereas our generation may well have shaved off our pubes and rolled up our skirts for ourselves, today's teenage girls appear to do it all for the boys "because that's what's expected" and the boys know it. We have to address this urgently and teeny skirts are just a part of it.

goldenticket, did you really shave off your pubes and roll up your skirt for yourself??

agree frik

I certainly rolled up my skirt for myself (all girls school) but only to just above the knee .

Have never shaved my pubes though but YKWIM.

I'm just interested in others' opinions as to at what age our attitudes change over from "this is wrong, you're only a child and we must protect you - bad retailers for selling boob tubes to children" to "wear what you like, when you like, even if it's a skirt like a belt"? 11? 12?

I say 14

Dittany, my classroom is not a hotbed of sexual harassment. What goes on outside it is, of course, harder to police as it requires students to report what is going on.

"Girls wear short skirts IME ... possibly in the hope that Jake in 12A will think they look fit."

Exactly. A short skirt attracts sexual attention. While this is different to 'invites sexual harassment' it still means that it has no place in a school environment.

14 was when I started my period, awoke sexually and began taking an interest in boys. The age may vary for different girls, but the difference between that and the mumsnet campaign is that my mother wasn't dressing me ways that were sexually appealing to boys, I was dressing myself that way.
The mumsnet campaign is not about stunting girls' sexuality; it's about not dressing little girls up as though they have a sexuality, when they haven't even got one.

noblegiraffe, we all know that. we agree with you on that. we disagree with the headmaster's sexist reasoning.

And I completely agree fwiw with those that say we should tackle the attitudes of the men and boys who see girls in short skirts as being "up for it", but I wonder whether in turn, our own attitudes to this have meant that today's teenage girls feel that they have to be seen to be permanently "up for it" as to be anything else makes them frigid and prudish (just going by the girls' attitudes on the programme as mentioned earlier)? I don't know and I suspect I'm rambling as I don't express myself very well abouth things like this.

Sakura, there was a comment earlier "The way to make girls safe [from unwanted sexual attention], is to make sure that boys and male teachers aren't allowed to harrass them."

which suggested to me that girls should be free to wear the short skirts and the boys (and male teachers ) reaction to the short skirts should be dealt with instead.

Like I said, short skirts attract sexual attention. It is hard to argue that this is not a motive for at least some of the girls to wear them like that....wanting Jake in 12A to find them hot. How do you tackle the attitudes of boys who see a short skirt as an invitation to sexual attention when it is an invitation to sexual attention, just not from them?

frik - short skirts as the norm in a school do send a subliminal message. The message is: "I want men to find me pleasing". This undermines the purpose of going to school - to gain knowledge, independence and self-respect.

Children do need protecting from adult concerns cutting short their education and development.

As the mother of a boy who will be a teenager one day can I just point out that this thread is very heavy on demonising all heterosexual teenage boys.

And this is what I do not understand:

Posters who get incensed and outraged at women in the public eye wearing tight or revealing clothes in the course of their jobs, but yet hypocritcally defending the right of teenage girls to wear incredibly short skirts. Short skirts are revealing. They reveal the legs and thighs. I do not for one minute think teenage girls wearing short skirts are not out to attract attention. If they didn't want attention they would wear the skirts at the correct length.

It's not about demonising.

I have children of both genders, and I am equally concerned about premature sexualisation of my boys.

I think music videos, for example, push a very mercenary and cold sexuality onto young men - which bears no resembelance to the insecure and vulnerable young boys I remember hanging around by the hi-fi at teenage parties.

Like custy said, whatever natural exploration takes place at this age, schools should maintain boundaries to protect their pupils and allow them to mature at their own pace, without overshadowing their education.

Your GCSE grades will stay with you longer than Jake from 12A.

but we arent arguing that the girls arent shortening their skirts to attract attention BBH, clearly they are.

we are arguing that the headteacher has equated girls wearing short skirts with potential sexual violence being perptrated against them, with the understanding that if they just lengthened their skirts, then they would be 'safe'.

its bullshit.

and its a super slippery slope you are on where you say girls are asking for the attention.

because lets face it, asking for attention is only a short step from just plain 'asking for it' isnt it.

Soooo....

A group of boys or a male teacher likes to sexually harrass teenaged girls in teh school.

The school insist that all skirt lengths are lowered by 2 inches.

All sexual harrassment ceases immediately!

Really?

sorry that was to noblegiraffe's post, thread has moved on

As I haven't seen the letter from the Head I can't be certain that "with the understanding that if they just lengthened their skirts, then they would be 'safe'." was implied in his letter at all.

Girls, boys, women and men all over the world dress to attract attention.

I agree with the MN campaign about sexualisation. Young girls should not be sold clothes with sexual messages on or clothes that make their bodies seem more mature than they are, such as push up bras on an 8 year old.

But that is an entirely different thing to a short skirt. There is nothing inherently sexual about a woman showing her legs. Women wear short skirts for many reasons. A woman wearing a short skirt is not declaring that she is more up for it than anyone else. My female cousins go out drinking in their industrial town in short skirts, as do all of their friends. It is just part of the culture. They are not more promiscuous or looking for more attention that a bunch of undergraduate girls in jeans in a student bar. In Cuba, women of all ages wear tiny skirts and yet the number of rapes is tiny (presumably connected to all the feminist laws like it being a crime for a man not to do housework).

Almost all teenagers and preteens from about 9 have an emerging sexual identity. Teenagers may be interested in having relationships with others. Whether girls wear short skirts or trousers, boys have to understand that a girl may have no interest in them, but may have an interest in another boy or girl or nobody at all. How a boy finds out whether the girl is interested in him or not does not need to involve harassment. Adult men need to understand that if a girl is sexual and may display that, this does not make her part of the adult world.

I see boys around all the time wearing their trousers so low that I can see all of their underwear. I have never seen adult women ogling them. I don't think boys should show their underwear at school. I don't think girls should show theirs at school. But that is about having a tidy and formal appearance at school. It is not about protecting anyone.