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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Headteacher bans skirts as if too short they 'put girls at risk'

329 replies

Northernlurker · 14/06/2010 19:51

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?

OP posts:

Report

TheFallenMadonna · 14/06/2010 19:53

I had to teach this in a PSHE class last year. I started a thread about it. It makes me profoundly uncomfortable to teach that girls are giving out "rape me" signals by the way they dress.

PortiaNovmerriment · 14/06/2010 19:54

Ridiculous. Girls have been hiking their skirts up forever. At risk of what, exactly?

StealthPolarBear · 14/06/2010 19:54

just from your title, I was a bit shocked. I can understand a headtecher banning short skirts in general (a decency/smartness thing), but to do it because girls are more likely to be attcked puts the blame for anything like this on the victim. And sends out the message that men are OK with a knee length skirt but any shorter than that and they become animals with no way of controllign themselves.

bigstripeytiger · 14/06/2010 19:54

To be fair though, the article doesnt say what they are felt to be at risk of. Inclement weather could certainly be an issue in a too-short skirt.

littleducks · 14/06/2010 19:55

I think its a good idea to ban the skirts, lots of schoolgirls walk round here with skirts so short the look like nightclub wear

scurryfunge · 14/06/2010 19:56

I worry when fuckwits like this make these decisions....surely the Head Teacher is an educated person?

Ripeberry · 14/06/2010 19:56

But why do the girls feel that they HAVE to hike up their skirts? Just makes them look like sluts or something out of St Trinians.

Habbibu · 14/06/2010 19:56

What signals would they be sending out to the inclement weather, though - are short skirts de rigeur for rain-dancing?

Northernlurker · 14/06/2010 19:57

Well it is Harrogate so it could be a bit chilly. I don't think so though.
I wouldn't mind if they banned them saying they were scruffy. It's the whole bringing of 'risk' in to it that has lit my blue touchpaper. No referernce at all to boys behaving inappropriately you notice - just girls and the skirts that must be banned.

OP posts:

Ripeberry · 14/06/2010 19:57

P.s I hate skirts, never wore them at school and not even now as an adult

ttalloo · 14/06/2010 19:58

I disagree with you.

I think the headteacher is right to ban short skirts; all the schoolgirls I see going to my local secondary schools all wear skirts about the length of the PE skirt I used to wear 25 years ago (God that dates me) and I'm surprised that there isn't a general school policy isn't to put them in something knee-length.

If I had a DD of that age I wouldn't allow her to wear such short skirts to school - a 13-year-old in a school skirt that barely covers her bottom is bound to give off signals to undesirables and it would be far more appropriate for her to wear something longer.

Gigantaur · 14/06/2010 20:00

skirts, even the very short variety, do not put girls at risk.

predatory men do.

Rape is very rarely about a physical attraction. it is about power and control.

It has very little to do with attire

said · 14/06/2010 20:02

There probably is a policy re school skirt length. But girls will just roll and roll the waistband up. When I was at school,the fashion was for long skirts (thank god)

Northernlurker · 14/06/2010 20:03

ttalloo - I do have a daughter of that age and if she attracts attention from 'undesirables' it isn't because of the length of her skirt! We are talking about young women here who should be able to walk the streets or the corridors of their school without being molested if their skirts are round their ears!

OP posts:

littleducks · 14/06/2010 20:03

If you go on the schools website there is a full statement and it appears to be a bigger problem there than elsewhere, if there has been widespread bullying or 'peer presure' to dress like tarts inapropriately then i think a full ban is prob sensible

Heads statement:
Girls? Uniform
My long experience of leading schools tells me that there is little to do with schools that is more contentious than school uniform. In this case, as you would imagine, we have had a mostly positive response. The vast majority has supported the school stance on the following grounds:-

1.There is a growing understanding that this is not a fashion issue and never has been.
2.We have invited parents,who have contacted us to raise their concerns, into school to see the situation for themselves. Very young children, and even more disturbingly, special needs children are clearly wholly unaware of the signals they are giving out. Parents who have come in have been astonished to see the difference between the length their daughter may wear her skirt as she leaves home and what has happened by the time she is walking the corridors of the school.
3.It does not need much imagination to understand where and in what situation the children are placing themselves ?at risk?. The first duty of care on any school is to keep the children safe.
4.We are no longer, as some parents seem to think, talking about a minority. It is now the majority of girls, who thanks to peer pressure, are simply copying each other.
5.We could, no doubt, on a weekly basis run detentions, exclude persistent offenders and thereby destroy the general ?bonhomie? within the school.
6.The world has moved on. It is bizarre in 2010 to see wearing trousers as ?some form of punishment?. It is merely a change of uniform.
7.We are not naïve. We will no doubt have problems with trousers. Our perception is that they will be of a different kind ? they will not be about safety.

ttalloo · 14/06/2010 20:04

BTW, I'm not saying that girls or women are inviting trouble in general by dressing provocatively, but there is a time and a place for all types of clothing, and I just don't think it's appropriate for girls to wear gymslips to school.

In adult life what's fine for a party is not fine for the office, yet I see women in their early twenties turning up to work in the City wearing clothes more appropriate to a night with their friends than a professional environment.

TBH if schools are going to let girls wear such short skirts I don't know why they bother having a uniform policy in the first place. They might as well give up the pretence and let them where what they like.

scurryfunge · 14/06/2010 20:08

ttalloo, if your daughter was sexually assaulted whilst wearing a short skirt, would you continue to blame her then?

ttalloo · 14/06/2010 20:09

lurker, I agree that girls should not attract undesirable attention just on the basis of how they are dressed - if they dress like that in their free time I see nothing wrong with it. It's fashion, for heaven's sake! I just don't think it's right for them to dress like that at school.

littleducks - we campaigned at school back in the eighties to be allowed to wear trousers, and when it finally happened I was ecstatic. Warm and much more stylish than the dull A-line skirts we had to wear (which some girls did hoick up when they could get away with it, but I never did .

JackBauerDeservedAHappyEnding · 14/06/2010 20:09

'Give off signals to undesirables'

Think about what that says though ttalloo.
This is teaching young girls that a short skirt means that they are at risk of being attacked.
So if they get attacked/raped then everyone can say 'well, it's your own fault, you had a short skirt on, well you may as well have been walking around nude with 'rape me' written on your bakc?' I mean, how could any 'undesirable' be vblamed for rapign someone with a short skirt on?

NOT that if they get attacked that it is the rapists fault and he shoudl be charged and sent to prison.

It's a horrible, horrible hidden message and it deeply worries me.

I used ot hike my skirt up because it was cool, and if you didn';t you got bullied.

OrmRenewed · 14/06/2010 20:09

I think that short skirts should be banned cos they look awful and are not appropriate in school.

PortiaNovmerriment · 14/06/2010 20:10

How are they going to enforce appropriate trousers though, if they can't manage skirt lengths? Are they going to go on thong-watch?

I don't understand why other schools manage to get girls to adhere to the uniform policy but this one won't.

PortiaNovmerriment · 14/06/2010 20:11

How are they going to enforce appropriate trousers though, if they can't manage skirt lengths? Are they going to go on thong-watch?

I don't understand why other schools manage to get girls to adhere to the uniform policy but this one won't.

And if the girls are leaving home with normal-length skirts, but the headteacher feels they are at risk at school, then who are the potential rapists roaming the school corridors and why aren't the school doing something about them?

PortiaNovmerriment · 14/06/2010 20:12

Oops, sorry.

HerBeatitude · 14/06/2010 20:12

This is fucking disgraceful.

I have no problem whatsoever with the school wanting to ban skirts, trousers are generally far more practical; but to imply that they are banning them to protect girls from being raped or sexually harrassed (by whom? The boys? The male teachers? the local community males?) is sending a very clear message to a new generation of boys and girls, that women and girls are responsible for rape, when everybody sensible knows that men are.

FFS there is so much anti-racist work going on in schools and yet when it comes to sexism, they seem to be stuck in the nineteen fifities.

pithyslicker · 14/06/2010 20:12

I would have thought the school uniform could be the same for girls and boys. Wouldn't that be more equal?

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