'It's now inherently sexual' Pupils campaign to ban school uniforms from porn to stop 'sexy schoolgirl' trope
A group of pupils who launched a campaign to get school uniforms banned from pornography told LBC they want to "stop the normalisation" of the 'sexy schoolgirl' trope to feel safer in public.
A group of pupils who launched a campaign to get school uniforms banned from pornography told LBC they want to "stop the normalisation" of the 'sexy schoolgirl' trope to feel safer in public.
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The petition, started by the Little Feminist Bookclub of the Cooper School in Bicester, Oxfordshire, has already reached nearly 5,000 signatures - with the girls hoping it will eventually reach Parliament.
The girls argue the uniform has now become "inherently sexual" and "warped" what it symbolises.
Speaking to LBC's Shelagh Fogarty on Friday, one of the pupils, 14-year-old Willow, said the book club found success campaigning for better access to period care.
After that, they heard of another campaign to ban school uniforms from sex shops.
Willow said: "We were appalled that this was even allowed. Then we discussed the possibility of campaigning to ban school uniform in pornography."
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Rose added: "We just want to stop the normalisation so we feel safer in public."
However, she admitted: "We do know that we can't stop people from dressing up as school uniform. So the way that we see it is that we need to change the advertising of school uniform. So it's not the 'sexy schoolgirl' or 'sexy Catholic schoolgirl', it's just uniform."
Mae, 15, added: "I think if we do that, it will really hone in that it's just a uniform and it shouldn't be sexualized because we are just children.
"No child should have to feel like something that unites them is something that they can be objectified in."
She went on: "If we latch on to the Crime & Policing Act by adding a second bit of legislation, we can get it to be not shown on those platforms themselves.
"Whereas you [Rose] were saying about how we can't stop people buying the uniforms, whereas we can change the marketing and hopefully we can stop it from being shown within that content itself so that people can't perceive it."
She added: "I think it's important that everybody works together to regulate this because it's just so much deeper than just a uniform.
"I think school uniform, it's in the name. As a child, school is such an important thing in my life, and I would argue a school uniform simulates what it is to be a child.
"I think we're trying to get the message across that it's not just a uniform, it's symbolic of what it is to be a child."
She concluded: "I think that currently, as you've mentioned, it's so normalised that it's now inherently sexual.
"That's warped what the school uniform is. It's inherently a child."
Aylin added that she feels "less safe" and she no longer wears a skirt in her school uniform because there is "so much potential as to what people will perceive" when she is wearing it.
She explained: "When I used to walk up the stairs, and they would have to hold my skirt down from behind because there was the chance that people may look up it, or when I would have to worry about the colour bra that I was wearing under my shirt in case it would see through, and then people would have an idea from it, when really you're not supposed to have any idea.
"I'm just wearing my uniform, and I'm just going about my day, and I'm being bothered by a person with a warped view.