In some ways, society has come on leaps and bounds from the medieval ages, particularly where women’s rights are concerned. Now in most economically developed countries, woman can vote, you see women as CEOs and sitting on boards in the corporate world, women are able to play sport professionally and the equity gap has shrunk. It has not, however disappeared. The story that made headlines on the British news recently highlights where we are going wrong in our approach to women's rights and men's attitudes toward them, along with attitudes toward body size/shape and many other sensitive areas.
In a school located in Milton Keynes, UK, one headteacher (who is a woman) sent at least 20 girls home for 'inappropriate uniform.’ In an detailed email home to parents, the headteacher explained that too tight uniforms would emphasis the heftiness of some pupils causing it to look unflattering. She went on to remark that "ironically, for those girls who are not very slim, the tight clothing emphasizes their heftiness and is unflattering. Thus this makes them prone to bullying. If everyone is covered up in slightly loose clothing, there is less bullying over shape and size. Skinny fit trousers and short skirts are not flattering to the larger girl and make her prone to mean comments from peers.” (I know it’s shocking and slightly hard to believe… but it doesn’t stop there!)
If that wasn’t enough of a mistake, the black hole for this headteacher continued to widen as she went on to say "They [the female students] should look demure and modest and not appear over-sexualised in figure hugging trousers or very short skirts. We have a tower block with six flights of stairs. The last thing we want is boys peering up girls' skirts while they are climbing the stairs.” I am just going to leave that there for a minute, just to ponder on what has just been said and for you to try and take it in.
When I first read this story I was in shock, then came the anger and now I approach it with sadness. It is shocking that a woman in her position thinks it is OK to say these comments, both about the body size and shape of teenage female students and with regards remaining dignified so boys cannot look up skirts. I believe it to be quite widely accepted now that speaking about body shape and weight to a teenager in general can be a sensitive subject, but speaking about this to a teenage girl needs to be approached with extreme caution and sensitivity. Eating disorder statistics continue to rise, pressure is increasing for girls to appear smaller and slimmer than ever before and then along with all of that you have a female head teacher, who is likely to be somewhat of a role model to many girls, making comments that somewhat excuse bullies behavior.
This really is not a debate about uniform, if you cannot see the skirt under the coat then I am sure many would agree that it is slightly short and may be worth adjusting, however (and this is the big however!) it should be adjusted for that individual and not for anyone else. This situation is about mindset and tackling problems as a society in a reactive way. The comments above that state if heftier girls wear looser clothes then they would be less prone to bullying really begs the question of who is in the wrong -- the ‘heftier’ girl for wearing clothes or the bully for making nasty comments about somebody's weight or body shape/size? To me, and I hope to you too, the answer is clear.
However suggesting girls should wear looser clothing to avoid bully is ridiculous! One parent compared it to saying "please can you tell your child to be slightly less gay at school because it makes them prone to homophobic attacks? It's just crazy!" Girls should not have to adjust their clothing choice accordingly to prevent bullies commenting -- rather the school, teachers, peers, parents and others should be educating their students and informing them that making spiteful comments about people which lead to bullying will not be tolerated under any circumstance. I am sure that many will agree that if a bully wants to pick on you then they will, even if you aren’t ‘hefty’ they will find something else. So do you suggest that all girls become perfect so no bully has anything nasty to say about them, because I am sure we can all see where it will end up if we continue to or place more pressure on girls to be perfect! That is the real issue in this situation and the comments above only excuse the disgusting behavior that is bullying.
I wish I could stop there -- we could all finish reading this, disagree with the comments made, realize how absolutely ridiculous they are and move on. But that is only the start. The next comment I think makes me more angry than that of the first; "We have a tower block with six flights of stairs...The last thing we want is boys peering up girls.” Oops silly me, sorry that Jeff peered up my skirt, totally my fault I should have waited until no boys were in sight before I climbed the stairs as I don’t want them feeling uncontrollably tempted where they have no choice but to look. I will do better next time…
Are these people serious! It now becomes the girl’s fault that a young boy has looked up their skirt! Instead of educating young men to treat women with respect and dignity (which seems a pretty sensible idea) we will instead tell girls to make their skirts longer (an obvious quick fix). This approach will achieve nothing but a less equal and respected society for woman, something that so many fabulous, determined women are striving for. Again comments like these excuse behavior, making it okay for the guy to peer up a girls skirt because it was so short "she was practically asking for it” -- sure we have all heard that one before. Really the problem here lies in teaching young boys the right and acceptable behavior expected towards girls within school, work and society. If we tried this approach more, rather than just excusing this behavior, we may see less cases of domestic abuse and disrespectful behavior towards women as a whole.
As I said above, I now see this story as slightly sad. It is sad that we still have a long way to go for an equal society, it is incredible sad that a well educated powerful woman is of a mindset that it remains the fault of the girl when really you would hope that woman such as the headteacher of this school would be leading the way in changing the mindset and attitude of the next generation who are the most liberal in society. I just hope that we do not stall in our efforts of equality because on the surface it appears a far more equal society, but rather continue to demand a respected and equal attitude and approach to all areas from all ages.
