When I was 14, I’d walk home from the bus stop in my school uniform and be leered at or wolf-whistled by men going past in their cars.
On one occasion someone (bizarrely) threw a muffin at me – probably because I dared to face forward and not give them attention when they catcalled me.
Fast forward two decades and sadly, not much has changed.
Girls are still being sexualised when wearing their school uniforms, despite the fact any person with a brain knows that the presence of this uniform means they are children.
Fed up of witnessing what they say is the “sexualisation of children through the inappropriate use of school uniform”, a group of teen girls are now petitioning to get school uniforms banned completely from porn.
The students in years 9 to 11, from The Cooper School in Bicester, have penned an open letter to the prime minister Andy Burnham asking him to support their cause.
One 15-year-old pupil, Rose, spoke of how her behaviour has changed due to the sexualisation of uniform and she no longer wears school skirts. Meanwhile Aylin, who is also 15, pointed out that a school uniform is “deeply symbolic of what it means to be a child”.
“If you’re sexualising school uniform, you’re sexualising a child,” she added.
Their teacher, Kristan O’Flynn, deputy head of Sixth Form at the school, told me: “So many young people report feeling uncomfortable out of school in their uniform because of how other people make them feel.”
She noted how dozens of women in the comments of their petition, which had garnered almost 30,000 signatures at the time of writing, disclosed they had “never been catcalled or harassed as much as they were when they were wearing their school uniform”.
O’Flynn said they hope such a ban would “reduce the normalisation of sexualised depictions of children” and ultimately help make children “feel safer in the uniform that is designed to unify and protect them”.
Peter Dazeley via Getty Images
“So many responses to this campaign have reflected how long this has been going on – so many women sharing their stories of harassment and how it was much more prevalent when they were dressed in school uniform,” she said.
One comment from a signatory of the petition reads: “I felt like I had to drop out of school because of people harassing me about the clothes I wore. Everyday for three years. Eventually I left school because the catcalling and harassment made me so uncomfortable that I didn’t want to finish my education.”
Another commenter said their daughters had experienced unwanted sexual advances from men aged 40 and over when wearing their school uniforms. “On one occasion two of my daughters were followed home on a 30 minute walk and the driver switched vehicles en route making them feel this was a more dangerous situation than they’d experienced before,” they added.
Another signatory responded: “I am sick of young girls being and feeling sexualised. As a mum, more and more men are brazen in the streets catcalling minors because there is no punishment.
“But when they are watching p*rn and the influence making young girls the object of desire, that is not going to help this pandemic of sexualisation of minors who have no choice but to wear a uniform to attend school.”
O’Flynn hopes their petition will go some way in stopping this sexualisation and harassment.
“Even by opening this topic up for debate we believe we have changed some people’s perceptions about the insidiousness of these attitudes, and our ultimate aim is that girls and young women can feel safer as they walk to and from school,” she said.
The teacher added she is “exceptionally proud” of the students, who form part of the school’s Little Feminist Bookclub, for tackling the issue.
“Not only did they decide to tackle this significant and challenging topic, they have done so with incredible maturity and dedication,” she said.
“The hours they have put in at lunchtime and after school and at home to work on this campaign is so impressive. That they speak more eloquently than many adult campaigners is not only testament to their oracy skills, it illustrates just how important this campaign is to us all.
“The possibility that real and actual change might come about because of what they have done is inspiring.”
In their open letter, the group of teenagers highlighted that “significant progress” has been made in terms of regulation regarding pornography and portrayals of under-16s, however “there is more we can currently achieve”.
They refer to changes to the Crime and Policing Act 2026, which makes it a criminal offence to possess or share pornographic content featuring adults pretending to be under 16.
But that wouldn’t stop actors from pretending to be a 17-year-old in school uniform, for example.
Clare McGlynn, professor of law at Durham University and author of Exposed: The Problem Of Extreme Porn, told the BBC that ‘teen pornography’ is one of the largest categories of mainstream pornography – and it’s “closely associated with more violent and aggressive material”.
The students’ campaign also has the support of MPs Kirsty Blackman and Callum Miller.
Responding to the petition, Alex Davies-Jones, Minister for Victims, Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls and International Justice, told HuffPost UK: “Young women and girls should not have to grow up seeing their school uniforms sexualised, and I commend these pupils for speaking out about something they feel so strongly about.
“Pornography must never normalise or glorify the sexual abuse of children. That’s why we are changing the law so possessing or sharing pornography which depicts an adult pretending to be a child under 16 will be an imprisonable offence.
“This is part of our wider crackdown on harmful pornography and tackling the attitudes that contribute to violence and abuse against women and girls.”
