School Asks Girls to Wear Longer Skirts to ‘Protect Their Integrity’
Another school is making headlines after advising girls to wear their skirts below the knee, stop wearing makeup, and stop taking sexy selfies. The reason? To “protect their integrity.”
Kambrya College in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, has drawn criticism for calling an assembly for their female students to discuss how they should dress in school and how they should behave on social media. The assembly came right after the school found out it was listed on a photo-sharing porn-ring website, which has now since been removed by police.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, “the emergence of the site coincided with a spate of recent incidents involving students at other Victorian schools sharing pornographic photos of girls online.” The school, which also held an assembly for boys, understandably wanted to protect its girls by informing them to be more mindful so they may not be victims of such deviant behavior. Sadly, it seems they went about it in a fashion that rubbed many students and parents the wrong way.
“As a parent, I am MORTIFIED that my daughter was subjected to such appalling messaging at the hands of those entrusted to care for her,” Catherine Manning, a parent of a Kambrya College student, wrote in a Facebook post. “They feel judged and victimized by school staff, like all eyes are on them, and they don’t feel comfortable around their male peers. They feel their school has sexualized and demonized them, and compounded the problem by sending a strong message that it is them, the girls, who are responsible for the boys’ behavior, and that the boys are the victims here.”
The school’s assistant principal, Jo Wastle, admits that “as far as we know none of our students were affected” by the porn website, but “[the students] had heard about it and we wanted to set their minds at rest.”
Looks like they did the exact opposite. The school’s concern for its students is valid and understandable, but to place the blame on the length of girls’ skirts or how much makeup they wear is problematic at best. Predators are going to go after young girls regardless of what they’re wearing, and a longer skirt isn’t going to “protect their integrity,” because a person’s integrity isn’t tied to what they wear, but how they act.
Young girls should never be to blame for the predatory tendencies of others, and by now it should be clear that sexual predators are the ones solely responsible for their actions. A simple “be mindful of your surroundings” or maybe “be careful what images you send to your peers” could have been sufficient to help these young girls be aware of predators. To place the burden of not being violated on the girls themselves is counterproductive and does nothing to actually protect them.
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