of a wholly inappropriate length

I don't really have any opinions on uniform codes, though I did enjoy flaunting them when I was at high school. So I don't have any intention of critiquing the decision of St Aidan's Church of England High School in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, to ban the wearing of skirts by female students under year eleven.

What I do want to critique is this (via the BBC):

[C]hildren were "clearly wholly unaware of the signals they are giving out" by wearing short skirts.

This is elaborated on further:

"[We have been] seriously concerned now, for a number of years, that girls as young as 12/13 years of age are placing themselves at risk by wearing skirts of a wholly inappropriate length[.]"

This is a lovely piece of victim blaming right here. It's their fault for giving out signals they aren't aware of. Wearing short skirts because they want to (or, alternatively, because of the hypersexualisation of tweens through the media, but that is for another time and not the point of this post) totally indicates their sexual availability! Just like wearing a mini skirt automatically means a woman is saying yes to you!

THIS IS WRONG. IT IS NOT TRUE.

That's the extent of my critique.


I was going to link to some awesome discussions re: victim blaming, but apparently I read a lot but never save any of them.