We asked our readers: Are skirts a practical garment for schoolgirls?
This was the prizewinning response from Jamna Agnihotri, Delhi:
I’m a mother of two daughters, age 15 and 13. Both study in co-eds; the elder one goes to a school where girls have to wear a buttoned blouse and pleated skirt. The younger one goes to a school where the uniform is tees and pants for both girls and boys.
As a mother, especially one who has daughters in both types of school clothing, I am completely against schools making skirts mandatory for girls.
The rules in my older daughter’s school say the skirt length should be exactly 4 inches above the knee. When the girl is younger, the problem is that she keeps outgrowing the skirt. One ends up altering the skirt length several times a year.
Short skirts also expose girls to mosquitoes and insects. In cooler weather, the girls have to shiver without adequate covering — only in peak winter are they allowed to wear stockings, which are also useless as they keep ripping and tearing.
When the girl is older, peer pressure dictates she must keep the skirt as short as possible for fashion’s sake — anything longer than 4 inches above the knee earns taunts for being ‘uncool’.
Peer pressure also dictates that she must wax her legs every two or three weeks even if she’s just 11 or 12 years old, keep her legs ‘well moisturised’, and make sure her knees aren’t ‘dry and dark’. Your little girl suddenly grows up and gets the message that she is a sexual being and her body has to be ‘maintained’ a certain way so as not to offend others.
And all this while, she is also told to make sure her ‘modesty is covered’. Girls have to be extra careful while playing sports or simply climbing up stairways so that their panties aren’t visible. Why put schoolgirls in short skirts and then restrict their movements? No wonder my daughter has major body-image issues though she is a perfectly healthy girl.
Mind you, schoolboys never have to face any of these issues and restrictions!
My other daughter, who wears pants to school, has it much better. She isn’t bothered about waxing or behaving ‘ladylike’. She is into athletics and considers herself as tough as the boys in all ways. She is free to focus on more important things rather than her appearance.
I myself wore a salwar-kameez to school, and while that garment too had its cons, the liberty to move about and be unselfconscious was worth it.
I believe skirts are an invention of a patriarchal mind — one that wanted to restrict girls’ movements and give pleasure to the male gaze. It has only cons in all aspects: to a girl’s mental and physical health and to our society as a whole that ends up fetishizing schoolgirls. I really don’t know who had this ridiculous idea in the first place!
Jamna wins a copy of ‘Homesick For Another World’ by Ottessa Moshfegh. Congratulations!
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No we like our skirts, and it needs to be above the knee, I would only consider wearing a skirt below the knee in the winter but a skirt is very much a feminine/girly thing to wear and the reason girls/women wear skirts is becaue of our bodies, the skirt suits it perfectly.
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I hate this rule I was walking outside and it was windy and it makes your skirt lift up I can’t even be peaceful girls are supposed to be feminine because of dumb old old old words but boys can dress however it’s not right to say someone can’t dress how they want freely last time I check I have the right to wear pants to this rule needs to be stopped girls should have an option just like boys.
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Most girls prefer to wear skirts themselves you’ll find, even when there has been attempts to ban skirts, girls usually always protest it, a skirt blowing in the wind is no big deal, as long as you wear ideal panties and knee length socks which is the appropriate female wear, we dress based on our body structure. And trousers are better for boys/men because most men rode on horse back and trousers were more ideal for that, trousers is a word that comes from a Scottish/North British language. But skirts are better for girls/women, because we have bigger buttocks with wider hips and this looks far better on us than male style garments do.
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Yes Girls and Ladies wear skirts
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No, for the sake of modesty,young girls should wear trousers,
And it has its points, especially in winter, I’m an old man now but I wouldn’t relish a skirt or kilt in freezing temperatures.. Trousers should be mandatory.
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In our school the games sir say the skirt should be at least 7 inches above knee
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Great article. I can remember the day when the convent school I attended decided to switch from skirts to shalwar kameez, despite our parents arguing that they preferred the skirts. The nuns didn’t like shorts either, so we had to wear divided skirts. Interestingly, in Australia, we have also had arguments about letting girls wear trousers if they wished, at least in winter when bare legs make you feel quite cold.
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Thats why we wear knee length white parelene socks with our skirts, as long as you have warm enough cotton panties under your skirt and the right knee length thermal socks, it’s actually more comfortable for girls to dress this way.
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