Hot Topic: Short Skirts At School

I wore a school uniform for 11 years, and never once have I ever followed the rule of 'have your skirt below the mid-knee'. Since I was in junior school, I thought that long skirts were ugly and shorter skirts made me beautiful. But the teachers didn't care about my prepubescent knees. It wasn't until I reached the seventh grade, when suddenly my patellas were deemed too sexual for school, and I was often sent to the principal's office or to the school bookstore to buy another skirt.

Let's get to it:

I have been in arguments with teachers and principals regarding my skirt length. I have wasted my energy into trying to convince them that the length my skirt has nothing to do with my education nor will it be detrimental to other students. The teachers, however, were adamant that the presumed horny teenage boys will masturbate furiously in class once I show a glimpse of my hairy kneecap. As one does. 

I was known as the girl with the short skirt. Teachers looked at my legs as if they were the Taliban and I was wearing a bikini. I received lunch detention so many times for this that it didn't even anger me anymore. I was a tall student, and whilst my shorter friends could fly under the radar with their short skirts, I couldn't. It was also because of my height that I refused to wear my skirt at the standard length. I had a very short torso and disproportionately long legs, so if I was to wear my skirt at the appropriate length, I would look like the spawn of two martians. I wasn't comfortable with wearing my skirt at knee-length simply because it was unflattering on my body.

I was and still am an advocate for lax uniform laws. I do not think that long skirts are necessary to keep the piece amongst the students, because no guy has ever failed a test because he saw legs. Underwear, perhaps, but legs? Not really. We shouldn't have to cover ourselves in order to not distract the boys because it gives the illusion that boys are these rabid animals that foam at the mouth at the sight of female skin. It also has the girls feeling like they're objects that should be hidden away from the predators. It gives us no power or control whatsoever.

From an early age, girls were taught to treat their bodies the 'correct' way as to please the boys. We were never taught how to wear short skirts with pride, nor were we told to stand up for ourselves if boys were to ever ogle at our body parts. Instead of facing the problem, we were taught how to avoid it. Why teach the residents to hide when you should be stopping the robbers from breaking in?

Telling the girls that they should dress a certain way because of boys just instils the idea that we should always do that. Most of us will. Boys can wear shirts any way they'd like and wear short pants, but the moment girls wear anything slightly revealing, they are called in and berated for disturbing the peace. Which is such an exaggeration because I went to school with short shorts quite often during trips and carnivals and the boys still graduated with flying colors. We have guys who ended up at USC, Berkley and Boston University, so it seems like my shorts did nothing to them. Hm, would you look at that? 

I understand that there should be a limit on how short the skirts should be, but it really shouldn't be a big deal. Women will be told not to wear certain apparels both in the workplace and outside for the rest of their lives, but that kind of talk shouldn't start at such a young age. Skirts could be half the thigh length or even down the calf, but the reason for wearing our skirts at a certain length should not be because of 'the boys'. If the boys are distracted by the sight of bare skin in class (because, you know, this is the 1800s), then perhaps it is the teacher's fault for not capturing the attention of the students and for not teaching the boys how to respect women.

When you send a girl home from school because her shorts or too short, or her clothing is immodest, you are telling her that hiding her body is more important than her education. You are telling her that making sure the boys have a distraction-free learning environment is more important than her education. In a way, you’re telling her that the boys are more entitled to an education than she is, and that isn’t acceptable.