by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Wealthy Montreal parents attempting to socialize their children into the upper crust by sending their daughters to private schools are inadvertently subjecting the young women to unwanted sexual attention, according to a Montreal academic.

The anguish of girls forced to wear uniforms in public was an unexpected find by Concordia grad student Gillian Shadley, who had been researching other issues when she serendipitously noticed that girls were unhappy with the reactions evoked by the flesh-baring kilt-and-kneesocks look they are forced to wear.

Shadley, a native of NDG, unveiled her paper "School Uniforms, Eros and Mixed Messages," at the recent Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Halifax, which concentrated on the social effects of dress patterns.

Shadley concludes in her work that the "uniforms did more harm than good," adding that her subjects were emphatic in their denunciation of their mandatory attire. "The first and most unanimous grievance is that they feel sexually objectified in their uniforms," the study says. "They find that they are continuously judged and scorned by peers and adults when they wear their uniform."

Shadley based her findings on interviews she conducted with girls from an undisclosed Montreal private girls’ school. Her study refers to their "serious feelings of uneasiness when wearing their uniforms, since they had all had experiences of unwanted attention from men."

Not a new phenomenon

Shadley, who was reached by e-mail while travelling through Italy, e-mails the Mirror that the problem of fantasy-fuelled adult males leering at schoolgirls isn’t likely new. But the awareness of it is, partially thanks to the intensification of the phenomenon as exemplified in lurid popular music videos featuring young women in schoolgirl uniforms.

"Is the problem worse? No, not likely, but it’s just finally being talked about," she writes. "Some men have always loved that schoolgirl image. Just check out porn sites and videos - but I guess Britney and t.A.T.u. have added fuel to their fire by reminding them in the mass media about that image."

The reactions to her study have varied, according to Shadley. "Most people have been very interested, saying that it makes sense when you think about how some men love that ‘schoolgirl’ look. Others have reacted strangely, saying that, ‘Girls get the attention because they want it’ and therefore wear their kilts so short."

A survey of local private girls’ schools indicates that school authorities don’t consider the attention heaped upon the kilt-wearing youth to be excessive or problematic, a fact that doesn’t surprise Shadley. "They probably don’t want to hear that young girls feel sexually objectified in their school kilts," she writes.

One principal felt the kilt-look is a non-factor in attracting unwanted stares from drooling males. "I imagine they’d get the same harassment and attention if they were going to come to school in the way they normally dress on weekends," says Susan Borer, headmistress of Miss Edgars’ and Miss Cramps’ School (ECS).

"So the alternative is no less appealing. If you look at fashion today, all the girls are walking around with jeans well below the belly button and there’s nothing left to the imagination," she says.

But she says that the opportunities for warped men with unacceptably dirty and possibly obscene thoughts inspired by the young women is limited because the girls don’t dilly-dally about in public in their uniforms. "To be honest, if you go by any public school you’ll notice the kids are all brought to school by their parents, so they’re not out on public transit," she says. "And the same thing at the end of the day, their parents pick them up."

Sexy temptation

Borer says that female temptation to dress sexily is widespread, and manifests itself every day from "accountants’ offices" to her younger female students. "The sexualization of girls gets younger and younger," she says. "You see it in the way they dress as young as Grade 5 on their free-dress days. And on other days, the girls often stretch their skirts down and their shirts up. You can teach your daughter the most appropriate values but it’s amazing what the mass media does to the kids."

Shadley, however, says that a simple solution exists but hasn’t been embraced by the schools. "I think allowing girls and boys to wear street clothes to and from school will alleviate most of the problems," she says. "If they had the choice to change into regular clothes before and after school, then those who want to be leered and gawked at can and those who don’t can wear something else."

A survey of private schools indicates that most don’t permit their students to show up in civvies. Selwyn House, the Study, Lower Canada College, ECS and Trafalgar all require students to arrive in uniform.

One school that doesn’t make such requirements is Villa Maria, where most students appreciate and exercise their right to blend in with city clothing while in public, according to the school’s development officer Caroline Gelinas.

"The vast majority of our students change here in the locker room because sometimes they’re targets of others who see them as little rich girls going to private schools," she says. Gelinas adds that she’s only aware of one problematic incident at a metro involving Villa Maria students, it being an unwanted sexual advance on the uniform-clad girls.

Uniforms and tradition

Parents have not raised any issues about a uniform crisis, says Geoff Dowd, principal of Trafalgar School, who cites time-honoured justifications for the wearing of school uniforms.

"The parents and teachers feel that it’s positive for the students from a point of view that none of them have an advantage over others," he says. "It’s cost-saving and edits out the competitiveness that can sometimes emerge, with all the ‘right label, wrong label’ issues and the fallout that ensues from that. Uniforms level the playing field in a sartorial way." (He confesses, however, to never having seen sex-drenched t.A.T.u. or Britney schoolgirl videos. "Sorry, I’m not much on pop icons.")

Shadley, meanwhile, promises to do a larger study on the same subject and counsels parents to consult their children on their feelings. "I believe it’s our responsibility to take care of our youth, especially when they open up and tell us what makes them uncomfortable," she writes.