Today, amid the heatwave my year group received an email (from our head of sixth form) informing us to wear longer skirts and to cover our shoulders, as members of the public had called my school ‘complaining that some students are wearing inappropriate clothing and the length of skirt/dresses [being too short]’. I am unsure why this objectification of its students is being heralded by the school as something we the children must adhere to. The members of the public obviously knew that the girl’s whose legs, bums and shoulders they were staring at so intently that it forced them to complain were minors, on top of this, who are they to judge the impropriety of young women’s clothing. The email also let us know that our clothing makes people uncomfortable – this made me wonder if these anonymous people feel as uncomfortable as the students in my school now feel knowing that people are staring them down on the street, sexually objectifying them and complaining about them to their school? It is bad enough that with catcalling young girls are expected to put up with being sexually harassed in the street let alone have their school condoning and validating further objectification.
