When did uniform skirts get so short??

[ZaidaBoBaida]

I was in Staples today, and a couple of girls from the local Catholic grammar school came in to buy school supplies, and their skirts were mid thigh!

When did that become acceptable? When I was in Catholic school our skirts had to be long enough that, if we kneeled on the floor, the hem had to be under our knees.

I also remember receiving lectures on why modesty is important. What happened? When did this change?

 

[Lady Bug]

I was in Staples today, and a couple of girls from the local Catholic grammar school came in to buy school supplies, and their skirts were mid thigh!

When did that become acceptable? When I was in Catholic school our skirts had to be long enough that, if we kneeled on the floor, the hem had to be under our knees.

I also remember receiving lectures on why modesty is important. What happened? When did this change?

How old are the girls?

 

[Chany]

I was in Staples today, and a couple of girls from the local Catholic grammar school came in to buy school supplies, and their skirts were mid thigh!

When did that become acceptable? When I was in Catholic school our skirts had to be long enough that, if we kneeled on the floor, the hem had to be under our knees.

I also remember receiving lectures on why modesty is important. What happened? When did this change?

Catholic education lost a large part of the Catholic part.

 

[Gwendolyn]

The kilts don't come short. They come at a length resting just below the knee.

Girls get their kilts hemmed and then roll up the waists to make them shorter.

I was guilty. It wasn't about being sexy for me, though. All the other girls did it, so I wanted to do it, too, so I could fit in. How it would affect males didn't even cross my mind, because everyone wore short skirts. I always wore shorts beneath my kilt but some girls definitely didn't. The older girls used to bully me in the halls because I wore shorts underneath and wore tank tops under low-cut tops. It was really overwhelming for a young teen.

My first Catholic school had strict uniform rules, and I got banned from wearing my kilt because I rolled it one day and the principal caught me. Pants only from then on. I was 14.

My second school didn't have uniforms when I began studying there, but they implemented uniforms in my second year. Students hated it, teachers didn't want to enforce uniform rules, so students got away with anything - wearing their own pants, wearing short kilts, their own sweaters over the uniform shirts, etc.

It wasn't until I was on a school trip to the threatre with another Catholic school that I realised the way I wore my kilt was very sexualised and portrayed me the wrong way. I was in the washroom at intermission, washing my hands, and these girls from another school were waiting behind me to use the sink.

"Don't you love it when sl*ts wear their kilts short? How cute, they're just dying for attention."

I told the girls to f off but from then on I stopped rolling my kilt up. I began paying attention to what my clothes were saying about me instead of just going with the flow and dressing like the other girls in my school. I never dressed horribly sexual, but I wore miniskirts/skorts and spaghetti strap tops and halter tops outside of school. I stopped that.

10 years later I only like skirts that fall below the knee and shirts that have no sleeves, but have thick straps (for the summer). No cleavage. I still wear really casual clothes but on the whole I dress better.

 

[Colin]

Believe it or not a local Catholic Convent school banned the wearing of patent leather shoes .

They may have reflected the girls' knickers .

 

[Anhelyna]

It's the herd mentality .

They feel they must wear their clothes like the fashion icons wear theirs

They feel that to conform they have to look like everyone else.

If you want to stop these displays of flesh etc , look around you and see what you can do about it. Don't just say it's someone else's job. Don't say you didn't do this yourself - you did . Kids at school follow fashion trends . Stop them doing something and they'll find a way round the ban

 

[WarriorAngel]

I think the principal should be sending homes letters.

 

[MKJ]

Well, I don't know what age you are looking for, but it has been common for many many years for younger girls to have rather short dresses. Longer skirts was a sign of growing up - a lot like boys' switch from shorts to trousers.

But this past clothing season skirts have been quite short - shorts have as well. So it could be that is just what the manufacturers are producing at the moment.

 

[MikeK]

Styles ebb and flow. The very short running shorts that were popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s for both men and women are not more revealing than the short skirks or yoga pants that the kids are wearing today. When I was in highshool, parents were certain that the bare midriffs that were in fashion for girls were a sign of the coming appocolypse. When my mother was in highschool, form-fitting sweaters were popular. There is nothing new or remarkable to see here.

 

[eastcoast_bsc]

About 5 months ago I was on my way to work the night shift, and I made my usual stop at Dunkin Donuts for my coffee. A mother pulled up in an SUV with a group of young tweens, maybe teens. The Mother appeared to be a chaperone.

These girls already had killer figures and they wore micro-mini skirts. When I say Micro, I mean that if they had to bend over for any reason, there would be a free inappropriate content show. There was literally no materal left to hide their backsides.

I lived through the 60's and 70's. These were more provocative then the mini skirt.
The culture among young kids today is 20 times wose then the 60's.

I worked with a woman who's daughter told her. "Aw Ma, oral sex is like a good night kiss"

The problem is the fault of parents or lackthereof, as well as the public school system.

I challenge anyone over age 40 to tell me that this would have ever happened at a Catholic schools a few decades ago.

It would have never happened!

 

[Luther073082]

The kilts don't come short. They come at a length resting just below the knee.

Girls get their kilts hemmed and then roll up the waists to make them shorter.

I was guilty. It wasn't about being sexy for me, though. All the other girls did it, so I wanted to do it, too, so I could fit in. How it would affect males didn't even cross my mind, because everyone wore short skirts. I always wore shorts beneath my kilt but some girls definitely didn't. The older girls used to bully me in the halls because I wore shorts underneath and wore tank tops under low-cut tops. It was really overwhelming for a young teen.

My first Catholic school had strict uniform rules, and I got banned from wearing my kilt because I rolled it one day and the principal caught me. Pants only from then on. I was 14.

My second school didn't have uniforms when I began studying there, but they implemented uniforms in my second year. Students hated it, teachers didn't want to enforce uniform rules, so students got away with anything - wearing their own pants, wearing short kilts, their own sweaters over the uniform shirts, etc.

It wasn't until I was on a school trip to the threatre with another Catholic school that I realised the way I wore my kilt was very sexualised and portrayed me the wrong way. I was in the washroom at intermission, washing my hands, and these girls from another school were waiting behind me to use the sink.

"Don't you love it when sl*ts wear their kilts short? How cute, they're just dying for attention."

I told the girls to f off but from then on I stopped rolling my kilt up. I began paying attention to what my clothes were saying about me instead of just going with the flow and dressing like the other girls in my school. I never dressed horribly sexual, but I wore miniskirts/skorts and spaghetti strap tops and halter tops outside of school. I stopped that.

10 years later I only like skirts that fall below the knee and shirts that have no sleeves, but have thick straps (for the summer). No cleavage. I still wear really casual clothes but on the whole I dress better.

I understand all the pressure to fit in, but I just have trouble understanding why it never crossed your head. . . "Why are all the other girls wearing short skirts?"

But that may be because I'm a guy and I never fit in when I was in school anyways and stopped trying to when I was in Elementary school.

I think I got disenchanted with the whole thing. Nike Pumps where the thing then and I got made fun of for wearing cheap non Nike shoes. I really wanted a pair but parents couldn't afford it, but later on found a pair on sale and I finally got a pair. I walked into school confident that I was now cool. And the kids just found something else to make fun of.

So I just stopped trying for the most part then because I realized that no matter what I did they where going to be jerks to me, so it wasn't worth it to even try.

In a way I wish I would have tried to fit in a little more. Because to my embarrassment I have to admit that I wore giant geek glasses all the way up through college.

Yeah I didn't date much either.

 

[MKJ]

I understand all the pressure to fit in, but I just have trouble understanding why it never crossed your head. . . "Why are all the other girls wearing short skirts?"

But that may be because I'm a guy and I never fit in when I was in school anyways and stopped trying to when I was in Elementary school.

Not all girls care about clothes, but most feel the pressure to conform to some extent.

It is actually not as easy to differentiate what is just normal fashion from what is sexualized for young teen girls, perhaps because most of them are just not thinking about it from that viewpoint. I think at that age, the internal pressure to conform is a lot greater than the real interest or possibility in being sexually active.

For whatever reason boys don't take it to the same extremes. The social implications of not wearing the coolest brand of t-shirt aren't the same I suspect - young teen girls have a cruel and hierarchical social system.

Also, what length of skirt is "sexy" is kind of arbitrary. 100 years ago a skirt that hit just below the knee was shocking, to us it is very modest. No particular length is innately sexy or modest, it depends on the social signals it is meant to send. To a young teen, they are used to seeing shorter skirts, it seems normal. They are not yet so experienced at seeing that it is often done with sexual connotations attached. Some do, but not all.

Some girls at that age are also interested in seeing what it means to function in society as a sexually mature person, and not necessarily in a bad way. They are trying to figure out how to fit into adult society, where sexuality is part of who we are.

But in a lot of cases, they just aren't very good at it yet - they are kind of clumsy and overshoot the mark. Actual fashion errors can play a part too - lots of teen girls have put on an outfit that reveals way more than they intended, and they may or may not clue in.

 

[MoNiCa4316]

This is something that really makes me sad about modern fashions as well as schools. I really think that young people today need to be educated about modesty and given a good example by their parents - like by mothers.

 

[Anhelyna]

You know threads like this really irritate.

It's fashion folk - pure and simple - fashion.

Think back a few years - more than most of you can remember - I know . Think to the start of the 20th Century - where were hemlines - floor length , then came the flapper era - loose flirty hemlines at the knee -- ooooh the scandal

After WW II came Dior's 'New Look' - hemlines down to mid calf . Then they came back up to the knee till Mary Quant and the start of the Mini skirt

What goes round , comes round.

Do you think the flappers were not accused of being immodest ? Of course they were !

Oh and BTW - ladies how many of you fought against the dress code when you were at School ? you know a button on your shirt left undone ? jewellery that wasn't permitted being 'smuggled' in and put on during class , and then removed before you went home so your parents wouldn't know ?

 

[Luther073082]

You know threads like this really irritate.

It's fashion folk - pure and simple - fashion.

Think back a few years - more than most of you can remember - I know . Think to the start of the 20th Century - where were hemlines - floor length , then came the flapper era - loose flirty hemlines at the knee -- ooooh the scandal

After WW II came Dior's 'New Look' - hemlines down to mid calf . Then they came back up to the knee till Mary Quant and the start of the Mini skirt

What goes round , comes round.

Do you think the flappers were not accused of being immodest ? Of course they were !

Oh and BTW - ladies how many of you fought against the dress code when you were at School ? you know a button on your shirt left undone ? jewellery that wasn't permitted being 'smuggled' in and put on during class , and then removed before you went home so your parents wouldn't know ?

I went to a public school where there was no uniform and only a few people that I know seemed to actively fight against the dress code. Both male and female in that.

It is highly likely that the dress code at a Catholic school is more strict. But I actually didn't know that many people in my public school that tried to fight the dress code.

 

[MKJ]

You know threads like this really irritate.

It's fashion folk - pure and simple - fashion.

Think back a few years - more than most of you can remember - I know . Think to the start of the 20th Century - where were hemlines - floor length , then came the flapper era - loose flirty hemlines at the knee -- ooooh the scandal

After WW II came Dior's 'New Look' - hemlines down to mid calf . Then they came back up to the knee till Mary Quant and the start of the Mini skirt

What goes round , comes round.

Do you think the flappers were not accused of being immodest ? Of course they were !

Oh and BTW - ladies how many of you fought against the dress code when you were at School ? you know a button on your shirt left undone ? jewellery that wasn't permitted being 'smuggled' in and put on during class , and then removed before you went home so your parents wouldn't know ?

Yeah, to a large extent kids at that age just want to push the envelope a little bit. Most not too much, but enough to assert their independance.

And I agree about hemlines - they are pretty arbitrary. The longer kilts have hemlines that would have put them in the hussy-wear department in the period just after WWI.

Very shocking stuff:

 

[MoNiCa4316]

I don't think that hemlines are "arbitrary". That's just how I feel personally. I think there's a reason women always wore longer skirts until last century. Why did it only start last century? For most of history, women would never have worn something so short. People here might disagree, but please look into the history and pray about it. I tried studying the history of fashion changes and it's not so arbitrary. It's not accidental that skirts are so short today, either. I don't think we should go with the "fashions" whatever they are. Our Lady of Fatima said, there would be fashions that would really offend Our Lord. So no fashion is not arbitrary in the way that "anything" can be modest. Look up some things the Popes have said about modesty... I think today, we're just so used to it we don't question it. But many of our customs have been corrupted. I didn't know about this before, but I did some research and there's a lot to think about.

I only wear mid calf skirts or longer. They need to still cover the legs when the person is seated. I find this is much more lady-like anyways. I also think it just looks nicer. And modest.

 

[seashale76]

A good friend of mine went to a local Catholic girls' high school. I still remember when she'd come over to my house right after school sometimes still wearing her uniform. My doorbell would ring, and she would immediately rush through the door and look around to make sure there wasn't anybody to see her in her extremely long, unfashionable, and hideously colored tartan. My littlest cousin went to the same high school (not all that long ago) and the uniform skirts were still just as long and ugly.

While some do roll the skirts, many girls will wear shorts under them, and a co-worker friend told me that a lot of older girls will go through a growth spurt and will take to wearing shorts under their skirts and just not spend the money on buying new uniforms for their last year. However, I do hear dress code violations still get people endless detentions.

Back in the day- when my grandmother went to college- the dorm mothers would come around to the girls' dorms and measure the length of their skirts and dresses. They had to be well below the knee. Unfortunately- my grandmother was short- so her long skirts looked even longer when compared to others. Apparently- she was very good at quickly hemming things after the inspections.

 

[MoNiCa4316]

I personally think that long skirts are very pretty there are girls at my parish who wear long skirts and I always think they look nice. I don't really care what the fashion industry says.

 

[MikeK]

Long skirts can be pretty. Short skirts can be pretty. Some cultures need their women in burkas while others are so advanced that their women can god topless or nude without driving the men to lust. I tend to think that uncovering our forms rather than so-called modesty (which is often the opposite of modest) is the fast track to seeing the human form as God's art rather than a forbidden fruit.