A school in the UK has come under fire for pursuing a programme to shift the focus of young girls away from outward beauty to inner beauty.
Part of the programme includes replacing mirrors in the girls’ bathroom with “motivational” posters featuring messages about inner beauty and the dangers of make-up.
Parents are now reacting angrily towards the programme, calling the messages, ”provocative”.
The head teacher of Christopher Whitehead Language College posted messages like, “Beauty is nothing without brains” and “Dear girls, Makeup is a harmful drug. Once you start using it, you’ll feel ugly without it.” on the walls of the rest room.
Other messages include “If all girls started wearing no makeup and comfortable clothes, guys would have no choice but to fall for girls because of natural beauty,”
The posters annoyed parents who argued the signs were sending the wrong message.
“Far from motivating the girls, these messages are patronizing and victim-blaming girls who do want to wear makeup,” one parent told The Daily Mail.
“Saying that makeup is a harmful drug, and that it’s addictive, saying that boys won’t start to like you unless you take makeup off, you’ll feel ugly if you don’t wear it – I think how they’ve gone about it is not right and they should have let parents know what they were doing,” another parent told BBC Hereford and Worcester.
“I think what needs to change is misogyny, is the male gaze, is the objectification of women,” journalist Ateh Jewel argued on Britain’s “This Morning” in response to the school controversy.
“Makeup is not the problem. Makeup is about expressing yourself, being joyful… Those slogans are very medieval about attracting a mate. Makeup and beauty and wellness is about the inside out.”
The school’s head teacher, Neil Morris, said the posters had initially been hung up to address “a period of misuse,” but admitted that the signs would have been more properly placed in the classrooms.
“Mirrors have been removed temporarily after a period of misuse where the toilets became a congregational social area with older students blocking the path to toilets, whilst they socialised, often late to lessons,” he told Birmingham Live.
“All students have been written to. The English department has used this as an opportunity to provide some argumentative discursive letter writing. They put some provocative posters up in one toilet area in their corridor before the lesson.”
“This has produced some ‘frenzied’ powerful writing and debate,” he added. “With hindsight, the posters should have been placed in their classroom area, not in one toilet.”
Morris said a “very productive” meeting had been held with students and two parents following the controversy and that the student council is “being challenged to come up with an action plan.”
