How would you feel if someone violated your privacy and space by following you, leering at you and then looking up the skirt of your school uniform while you were going to school? Then how would you feel if the response of local police was to tell you and your classmates to stop wearing your school uniform during your commute, indirectly blaming YOU for the victimization?
That’s exactly what happened to two female students at Greenwood College, a private high school in Toronto. After a man harassed them and looked up their skirts while they were taking the subway to school, the Toronto police advised the school principal to tell the female population to put on their school uniform at school instead of at home in the morning. The principal apparently supported the sentiments and shared the message with the whole school.
“This bit of guidance was given to Allan Hardy, the school’s principal, by an investigating officer from 53 Division on Thursday after two of Greenwood’s female students — both decked out in the school’s uniform of skirt, shirt and blazer — were allegedly followed around and ogled by a man while on the subway earlier that morning.
The girls, who were on their way to school at the time, were travelling northbound, Hardy confirmed, adding that the suspect had been looking up the girls’ skirts.
Hardy relayed the officer’s advice in an e-mail to parents and teachers informing them of the incident. The Toronto Sun obtained the e-mail from a confidential source.
“This person was looking up the girls’ skirts,” said Hardy, who would not divulge the ages of the two students. “So the advice is given … if they had, for example, jeans or sweatpants on, it wouldn’t be an issue.”
This is not okay.
While sadly schoolgirl outfits are inappropriately sexualized and fetishized (e.g. see Britney Spears’ “Hit Me One More Time” music video, Halloween costumes, and video games) and that sexualization and fetishization does nothing to prevent the harassment of REAL schoolgirls, telling girls to not wear their uniform on the subway is not the solution.
Street harassment—including harassment on public transit systems—happens to many high school students regardless of what they wear. It happens even when they wear jeans and sweatpants! It happens to women who wear business suits, exercise clothes, and burqas! Since it doesn’t matter what we wear so dictating clothing choices as a prevention method is NOT okay or effective. And even if it was effective, the focus should still be on the HARASSER not the person facing harassment!
When someone sent me this story this morning, I was exasperated and shocked. Of all places for a police officer to say such an inappropriate comment, it happened in Toronto?!
In January a representative of the Toronto Police stated, “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” This remarked sparked SlutWalk Toronto and scores more SlutWalks around the world.
But apparently that message wasn’t clear enough. What more do we have to do so demand that police officers in Toronto and people around the world stop telling girls and women how to dress and inspire them to focus instead on solely stopping harassers and assaulters and ending the culture that fosters such harassment and assault?
Here’s an important op-ed by Monica Bugajski in response to the police’s reaction.
[Thanks Katie B. for the news tip]
