Schools banning skirts.

Just musing on this uniform question.What are the GN thoughts on ties? Girls/ boys, yes no? Are they male attire girls have been forced to wear or simply a smart addition to a uniform?

PS kilts are not as modest as trousers. Once in a compartment train I sat opposite a funny man in a kilt who spread his legs wide and displayed his organs, probably deliberately as I still can recall his aggressive face .

Far North my remarks go for sons too. My sons were normal for their peer group, normally rebellious in trendy ways, and I have photos that illustrate this. If my sons had wanted to wear dresses to school they would have damaged their reputations with their peers, let alone the school authorities.
I agree with you that nobody should be told that they are the wrong gender. I believe that choice of gender is or should be a personal choice. I also believe that invasive surgery or medication should not be expected of gender changers.
Dress codes are for indicating who people are. This goes for skirts for school uniforms. If skirts were sexually modest then all genders should be allowed to wear skirts to school. I simply don't think that skirts are as modest as trousers.

I say this as a Scot who wore a kilt as school uniform at a girls' school. However when I was at school in the 1940s most children and adults were compliant towards authority, and kilts are genuinely unisex garments.

Another one here supporting the comments made in PECS post. Schools could stop having a list of uniform for boys and girls and simply have one list. The really brave thing would be to stop insisting on uniform. Other countries manage perfectly well with children wearing 'clothes' for school.

Hear, hear, PECS.

I often wonder how other countries, that don't have school uniform, don't just go to the dogs.

Makes you wonder how university students ever learn anything, being allowed to wear what the hell they like.

?

n 80s I fought for my DD to be allowed to wear trousers to school as it was not on the girls uniform list. All uniforms are ' dictatorial' so adding/ removing items is not a surprise. If schools could be quite brave they would just have a uniform.list and not separate ones for boys/ girls. Very brave schools would just have a dress code: smart casual: no logos or slogans.

Alexa, why do you especially mention a young daughter being put at a disadvantage by her clothing? It is already acceptable, in general life if not always in schools, for girls to wear either trousers or skirts.
A young son is more likely to be at a disadvantage, if he wants to wear a skirt. If he does want that, however, why shouldn't he do that without being told he is 'in the wrong body' and needs to make drastic physical changes?

pinkjj27, in your story you say that the child in the pink dress said "I am a boy". So he was 'identifying' as a boy in a dress.

We had to wear horrible pleated shorts!

Far North wrote:

Children should be able to dress as they like, without having to 'identify' as anything.

Children need to be socialised. Being socialised means they learn to identify with some form of behaviour, normally behaviour that their parents or teachers promote.

It would be positively unkind to allow your young daughter to wear clothing that was going to be to her disadvantage. Children have to learn the skill of getting on with others. Only a strong adult or adolescent can safely be eccentric in dress.

Good word ‘conflating’

Had to skim back to the school “fate (worse than death)” incident Old Meg and I am more than a little too.
There is some very confused thinking going on in some areas and I do wonder about conflating the “upskirting” and gender neutrality issues. The former is simply unacceptable behaviour and an example of sexual harassment, the latter hinges on tolerance of the individual and cannot be addressed by blanket bans on forms of dress.

I’m sorry but I could pick all sorts of holes in your description of the ‘school fate’ incident pink

Ohh I agree no one should be forced to. I guess though when we (I) were young we wore what are parents gave us to wear etc. Ohh how I hated a horrible red coat(I beleive I was 12) but I did rebel at 14, & got away with mini skirts which I hitched up further once clear of the house?

Brideit my lovely daughter refused to wear trousers of any kind for years ..including shorts.She loved dresses and skirts and was very happy in her school pinafores or summer dress .Why should she and others like her be forced to wear something they dont want to because of bad behaviour or adults overreacting about whats PC.

I am not being facetious, but should shorts become the way fotwards for a school uniform , after all they are all ready gender wearable / usable/ suitable & acceptable.

pinkjj27, it sounds like the teacher was confused too.
Children should be able to dress as they like, without having to 'identify' as anything.

Icanhandthemback totally agree with you, we should not be moving the goalposts to avoid bad behaviour. We should as parents, grandparents and educators teach our young that bad behaviour and intolerance of those who are different is totally unacceptable.

My very wise Gran always said 'treat others as you would like to be treated yourself' and 'if you cannot say anything nice, do not say anything at all'

GrannyGravy13, I agree with you that is a main difference. When you are paying for the education it means that you want value for money and your kids to benefit from the exorbitant fees. Children are also taught to value their education, encouraged to have ambition and obey the rules or use more adult tactics to change them. The teachers are no better than the ones in the State Education System, they just have more time because they are not dealing with the sorts of behaviour a mixed bag gives you. Their hands aren't tied either when the school says enough is enough so you can't stay here.
I'm all for equality, have no problem with LGBT rights but do wonder if we keep moving the goalposts to avoid bad behaviour (ie up skirting) we teach our young people nothing part from avoidance. Surely we need to teach them that rules are there to adhere to, to campaign for change against unfairness and tolerance to those who are different.

Iam64 I am slightly confused, what has money got to do with discipline. Virtually every school in the U.K. has a uniform, the pupils need to wear clothes to school, and as such uniform puts all on a level playing field.

Like I said in my previous post, my children have been to independent and state schools. The main difference I found was that in the independent schools the parents backed the teacher/school in uniform policy. Whereas in the state school the parents backed the pupils against the school.

Education is the best gift a child can receive. School should be a haven of learning, without stressing on wether Johnny or Joan can wear a skirt or trousers, and if they choose to wear a skirt, and some idiot thinks it is appropriate to shove a camera phone up it punish the idiot, not victimise the skirt wearer.

School children are sexualised by over-sexualised cultures.

I agree with Lemongrove that the trousers rule is a good one, even if the kids try to subvert it by wearing tights.

There should either be strictly modest school uniforms or no uniforms at all.

Ideally there should be a universal acceptance of complete nudity in warm ambient temperatures in which case the human body could not be over-sexualised by clothing.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who responded to my posting. It has both helped my thinking but overall its a very confusing debate. I am really glad that we are having (have had if its finished) a reasonable discussion with no unpleasantness. Thank you.

I don't find this an easy one to take a clear view on, I can see both sides of the argument about imposing clothing historically seen as male on girls.

One thing I can be clear about is the level of irritation I've felt when reading posts suggesting that state schools should follow the lead of private schools in enforcing strong uniform policy.
There are so many differences between your average state and your average private school that weather the children are expected to wear a straw hat or a cap at all times are irrelevant. The pupils at private schools have one thing in common - enough money to pay for education along with life's essentials. Pupils at state schools range for children on FSM to children who live very comfortably.

I've also been irritated by references to "political correctness" ruling the world and the LGBT Q community having too much media coverage. There was a comment earlier, suggesting that if a boy did choose to wear a skirt to school, he'd likely be ill treated by his peers. Well, that fits with up skirting in the list of totally unacceptable behaviour. Homophobic, trans bullying should be top of our list to challenge.

I find myself concluding that girls and boys of whatever age should be allowed to choose whether to wear skirts or trousers. Skirts in this hot weather and trousers when its cold and miserable and to express themselves.

At my private school in the 70’s and 80’s school uniform was strictly enforced and everyone knew where they were. My own DD’s went to private preps where there was a lovely but old fashioned uniform with little straw hats for the summer! I did like the uniform but when they hit secondary school they hated uniform and we ended up with the skirt rolled up rows!
I agree that choice is the ideal situation but at the same time unless schools are willing to enforce strict rules there will be teenage girls with “belt” skirts
Lots of posters have pointed out the teenagers in the 1960’s had mini skirts but I don’t suppose the schools encouraged these as part of the uniform?

pinkjj27 as Weber said there has be to some form of common symbols in identity in order for humans make sense of their social world and intertact with it accordingly?
Possibly but these do not need to be gender orientated.
Interestingly enough I have seen quite a few girls recently with hair short shaved at the sides and styled into a quiff on top. They are usually in jeans or trousers and t-shirts with black track suit tops or a jacket. Bit like Jack Monroe. They are usually well made up and look very smart. You have to look carefully to decide if they are boys or girls. I don't think that stops me making sense of the world or prevents anyone from interacting with them.
Interestingly when offered the chance of dressing up my DS often chose a dress. It's good that the young can experiment with roles.

It took a long time for it to be acceptable that women and girls could choose to wear trousers without being accused of being "unfeminine". They didn't want every woman to be forced to always wear them, but to be able to choose between trousers and skirt. In the same way, men (except for kilt-wearers) have fought to wear skirts if they want to

To ban skirts and make trousers compulsory is a move backwards. If it were the other way round - trousers banned and skirts compulsory - it would be obvious how ridiculous it was.