In the Little Feminist Book Club, we don’t read a lot of books. The group, set up by former students at our school, is more about reading poems and articles, analysing song lyrics, discussing the issues that matter to us and, most importantly, campaigning.
Our current campaign – the one you might have heard of – is to ban school uniform from pornographic content. Simply put, we want to end the depiction of school uniform in pornography to ensure that minors are not viewed as anything other than what they are: children. We were shocked when we realised that this content is currently legal – most of the adults we’ve spoken to agree that it is wrong. But apparently it falls to us – students aged 14 and 15 – to take action.
A new law, due to come into force on 6 November, will ban pornography that shows sexual activity involving anyone pretending to be under 16. But it won’t outlaw the depiction of adults dressed as older schoolchildren. We want to remove this grey area in order to stop normalising the sexualisation of school uniforms. We believe children and children’s clothing should not be associated with sexual acts. Therefore, we believe that school uniform should not be shown as something “sexy”, regardless of the actual age of the person wearing it.
Previous members of the Little Feminist Book Club, working with Tools for Change, successfully campaigned for better access to period products in our school. We then heard about another school feminist group who had campaigned to get school uniforms banned from sex shops. We were appalled that they were being sold in that context, yet somehow not surprised. From an early age, some of us had noticed that school uniforms are depicted in ways that sexualise women wearing them. Mae recalls: “For me it started when I was 12, watching TV with my mother. A female character put on a school uniform to turn on a man and I thought, ‘I’m going to have to wear a uniform like that tomorrow.’”
No 12-year-old should feel uncomfortable about going to school in a uniform that is designed to promote unity and community and safety. Yet we did. It made us question how we would be perceived when we left the house in our uniforms. These were women dressing up in school uniform specifically to turn on a man. The only people who should be wearing school uniform are children.
This issue has affected us personally. Members of our group feel too uncomfortable to wear their uniform out of school. One no longer wears skirts at all. When we were asked to speak at a Tools for Change event in parliament in July we unanimously agreed not to wear our uniform. In a world of AI, we were well aware of the dangers of being photographed in uniform while being associated with this campaign. Before we sent our first letters to MPs and charities, we discussed what it might mean if anyone actually paid attention to what we were saying. Would we be prepared to take this on, given all that it might mean? We were, and so we did.
Since starting this campaign, we have been flooded with support. Sadly, this has included other women and girls sharing their experiences of the same issue – dating back generations. Surveys show that one in three girls has been sexually harassed while wearing school uniform, and we have seen comments from many of them. Older women said that they have never been catcalled more than when they wore school uniform as children; others have shared with us their feelings of disgust and horror. One recalled being assaulted by a group of men in the 2000s “explicitly because of my school uniform”. A teenager said that the number of older men who sexually harass her almost every day is “uncountable”.
Getting to hear people’s own personal experiences fuels our passion and drives us forward. The overwhelmingly positive response truly gives us hope that we can make a difference. We want to protect children now and in the future.
As the campaign continues to gain attention, we have received support from important figures including our local MP and an MSP. One has agreed to directly pass our handwritten letter to the prime minister, Andy Burnham, and to table an early day motion. We now also have a meeting scheduled with Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims, and another with Jess Asato MP and the peer Gabby Bertin, who was instrumental in the amendments to the crime and policing bill. Our MP is helping us turn our campaign into a law. He suggested that, instead of creating an entirely new law banning school uniform in pornography, it would be quicker and easier to amend existing legislation – meaning that it would take less time for children to be taken out of this harmful and dangerous position that perverted people have placed us in. But these are not decisions we can make. Everyone has a responsibility to end this cycle of sexualisation and objectification of children. We can’t do that as a few kids in the middle of our GCSEs.
skip past newsletter promotion
Sign up to Matters of Opinion
Guardian columnists and writers on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading, and more
after newsletter promotion
We have made a start by launching this petition. Now, we need the adults who vowed to protect us to get behind it. We need the politicians who pledged to halve violence against women and girls to change the law. It’s all well and good to read this article by a group of kids explaining how we’re trying to keep ourselves safe and think this is a fantastic campaign. But that’s not enough. Things will only change when adults take responsibility for ending the disgusting practice of sexualising clothes made for children. Then perhaps one day young people can go to school knowing the only thing our uniforms signify is that it’s time to learn.
Rose, Mae, Aylin and Willow are students aged 14 and 15
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
