The Sexualisation Of Young Girls – Now In School Uniform Policies?

It’s a known fact that as a woman, one of the many things which you have to endure is being sexualised way before you’re actually ready to enter that world for yourself. You get catapulted into a realm that you barely know, way before it’s even appropriate for you to learn about. It’s an unjust hardship that we seem to forget remains as prevalent as it does in a modern world. But, it’s as big of an issue today as it ever was, even though we seem to forget this as progress has taken us so far, but still not far enough. The way in which women are sexualised when they are still girls is not comparable to the sexualisation of men. Girls are sexualised to a much greater extent, and we have accepted this as fact and not as the injustice which it is.

Why is it that in the woke, modern world, we still allow this to be as normalised as it is? It’s not only allowing this paedophilic lens to be adopted in popular music (particularly at the moment), films, books (why are we still romanticising Lolita??), marketing, and media of all forms. But it’s a mindset that we’ve seemed to unintentionally adopt. This mindset makes us believe that it’s okay to see young girls in a sexualised manner in all walks of life, and we make this their problem. That shouldn’t be okay, not now, or ever, yet it is.

Stylish School Uniforms Turned Sexualised

After reading recent news regarding school uniforms, I’ve been forced to confront how current this issue is, and I shouldn’t be the only one. A school in Manchester has recently announced that (from September) they will be implementing a new uniform rule where girls won’t be allowed to wear skirts anymore, instead enforcing a trousers-only policy for all.

Following the announcement, the head teacher released a statement addressing parents, where they justified the change as being caused by students modifying their skirts due to fashion preferences, which has become a distraction from their education. Not only this, but the skirt styling has been described as working against the sense of unity which a school uniform is intended to promote.

And though the school hasn’t mentioned anything to do with the girls modifying their skirts to make them “inappropriate”, this is how it was immediately received. It created a discourse among parents about the length of skirts, and how young girls are opting for inappropriate styles, and the girls are to blame. Through the guise of worried parents, a need for unity, and a desire to prepare school children for a working environment, we have forbidden young girls from wearing something that has traditionally been a part of their uniform. The skirt issue has only really become a problem because of one thing – the sexualisation of school uniforms, and with that, young girls.

Though it’s not what the school was saying, it’s where everyone’s minds went, and why is that? Why is it inappropriate for a girl who is legally under the age of consent to wear a short skirt when the law has clearly deemed her as not mature enough for sex? It’s not the girls who see a short skirt as inappropriate; if they did, they wouldn’t wear it. As girls, we have it beaten into us that we must be careful with what we wear because someone else might see it as an opportunity to make an innocent thing sexual. We are taught this long before we even get to the age where we’re wearing the school uniforms that parents stress about.

For people to assume the reason for the school’s change in uniform policy was because the girls are dressing inappropriately is crazy. The skirts are only seen as inappropriate because our society can see a short skirt on a young girl as an excuse to sexualise them, which should never be okay! It’s openly admitting that our society is capable of this, and then blaming the girls who were modifying the skirts, when they probably just wanted them to better suit their style. It’s despicable! We should be ashamed of our society for having the capacity to do this, not the girls who are victims of the public eye. Why are they the ones being punished for the mindsets of others?

The Wider Picture

There is a continued theme in the media of young girls being sexualised, and it has been prevalent since all of us can remember. It dips in and out of our awareness, with the themes sometimes (admittedly) flying over our heads. But it’s seemingly creeped back into the mainstream, and we’re either ignoring it, or allowing it – neither of which are acceptable.

It's never the choice of a girl to be sexualised, yet we allow this to happen time and time again. We let it seep into everything, down to our Halloween costumes (why on earth is ‘sexy school girl’ a costume?), and we accept it as the way the world is, and not a problem to be solved. It was never okay, and we can’t become complacent, because we’re doing better in regards to women’s rights than we were. We can’t blame the girls for the way that they are made objects of affection; we can’t punish them for the thoughts of others.