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In my day, back at the Abbey
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
September 8, 2009
Dorothy Cummings McLean
This week I didn’t want to write about anything controversial. I wanted to write about something fun.
“Why don’t you write your article about school uniform kilts?” asked my husband. “You were putting it off until September.”
“I decided kilts were too controversial,” I said.
“Why don’t you write your article about school uniform kilts?” asked my husband. “You were putting it off until September.”
“I decided kilts were too controversial,” I said.
“How are kilts controversial?”
“Because some girls wear them too short,” I said. “But if I write that, a lot of Catholic schoolgirls will get mad at me, OK? And I was one, so I know what I’m talking about. They could dig out my worst yearbook photo and photocopy it and blow it up and write ‘This lady dissed our kilts’ on it and line the streets of Toronto with it.”
“They won’t do that,” said my husband. “They have Facebook and Twitter.”
“The horror,” I said. “They probably have handheld scanners in their pencil cases. In my day, back at the Abbey, we used to say, Non fate guerra con il maggio.”
“That was in A Room With a View,” said my husband. “And you’re not making war with May. You’re just writing a funny article. Preface it with ‘in my day, back at the Abbey,’ and then the girls won’t complain.”
In my day, back at the Abbey, we girls bought our uniforms at Richardson Tartan Shop on Yonge Street. The day I got mine was the proudest day of my young life. The saleslady measured my kilt hem to fall precisely to the centre of my knees. And on the first day of school, all of us excited, nervous Grade Nines (aka Niners) appeared in our knee- length kilts. But no older girl in the school wore her uniform kilt that long. The Grade Thirteens, tall and proud, had kilts that soared to middle-thigh.
Knee-length kilts were the mark of a Niner, and so we were desperate to shorten ours. But kilts take days to hem, so we rolled our waistbands down and hiked the skirts up. This created an unsightly bunch at our waistlines, which we covered by untucking our shirts. There wasn’t much we could do about the awful back view. But the point was never to look attractive to men, whom we thought old, or even to boys. The point was to look like the older girls and not like Niners.
The teachers demanded that we tuck in our shirts, but I cannot remember them telling us to unroll our kilts. Some girls managed to dispense with the roll by growing. Sadly, I went into the Abbey at five-feet and I came out of the Abbey 5-foot-1, so I had to make do with rolling.
By Grade 12 all the rolling had wreaked serious damage to my kilt, and so my mother sent me back to Richardson’s to get a new one. Other girls had convinced Richardson’s to make them short kilts; I hoped to do the same. Sadly, I was foiled by the saleswoman.
“Two inches above the knee, please,” I said.
“I don’t know,” said the saleswoman. She was old. “The nuns won’t like it.”
“There are hardly any nuns left, and lots of girls wear their kilts short.”
“Hmm,” said the saleswoman. “Mr. Richardson! Mr. Richardson!”
To my surprise, there really was a Mr. Richardson. He appeared from around several bolts of tartan. He didn’t look very old. My hopes soared.
“Mr. Richardson, this girl wants her kilt two inches over the knee!”
Mr. Richardson gave us a look of profound boredom.
“Whatever,” he said.
But the saleswoman stuck her finger just above my knee, and that was that.
Some girls burn their kilts after graduation. Mine went to my sister as a spare. She grew tall, but she rolled. My youngest sister rolled, too. But her kilt couldn’t have been that short, for when I went to her graduation Mass, I was shocked by the shortness of the kilts of the ushers. Appalled.
But on the way home, I realized that the kilts hadn’t changed. I had changed. I was no longer used to seeing vast expanses of teenaged leg. And, being older, I knew something that I hadn’t realized as a teenager and would have thought disgusting if I had: men look at teenaged girls’ legs.
In my teenaged eyes, adult men barely existed. I wasn’t interested in any male older than 19, and so it was a horrid thought that older men might be interested in me. But, sadly, men do look at teenage girls, and when teenage girls wear tiny kilts, the men can hardly help looking. And most men do not understand that girls wear their kilts short, not to be attractive, but to not look like Niners.
Therefore, my auntish advice, advice that may be rejected by hundreds of Catholic schoolgirls even if their parents circle it in red ink, is that they all should wear trousers on their way to and from school, rolling on their kilts when they’re safely inside, rolling them off just before they go home.
Not only would this discourage the male gaze, it would be warmer, too.
“Because some girls wear them too short,” I said. “But if I write that, a lot of Catholic schoolgirls will get mad at me, OK? And I was one, so I know what I’m talking about. They could dig out my worst yearbook photo and photocopy it and blow it up and write ‘This lady dissed our kilts’ on it and line the streets of Toronto with it.”
“They won’t do that,” said my husband. “They have Facebook and Twitter.”
“The horror,” I said. “They probably have handheld scanners in their pencil cases. In my day, back at the Abbey, we used to say, Non fate guerra con il maggio.”
“That was in A Room With a View,” said my husband. “And you’re not making war with May. You’re just writing a funny article. Preface it with ‘in my day, back at the Abbey,’ and then the girls won’t complain.”
In my day, back at the Abbey, we girls bought our uniforms at Richardson Tartan Shop on Yonge Street. The day I got mine was the proudest day of my young life. The saleslady measured my kilt hem to fall precisely to the centre of my knees. And on the first day of school, all of us excited, nervous Grade Nines (aka Niners) appeared in our knee- length kilts. But no older girl in the school wore her uniform kilt that long. The Grade Thirteens, tall and proud, had kilts that soared to middle-thigh.
Knee-length kilts were the mark of a Niner, and so we were desperate to shorten ours. But kilts take days to hem, so we rolled our waistbands down and hiked the skirts up. This created an unsightly bunch at our waistlines, which we covered by untucking our shirts. There wasn’t much we could do about the awful back view. But the point was never to look attractive to men, whom we thought old, or even to boys. The point was to look like the older girls and not like Niners.
The teachers demanded that we tuck in our shirts, but I cannot remember them telling us to unroll our kilts. Some girls managed to dispense with the roll by growing. Sadly, I went into the Abbey at five-feet and I came out of the Abbey 5-foot-1, so I had to make do with rolling.
By Grade 12 all the rolling had wreaked serious damage to my kilt, and so my mother sent me back to Richardson’s to get a new one. Other girls had convinced Richardson’s to make them short kilts; I hoped to do the same. Sadly, I was foiled by the saleswoman.
“Two inches above the knee, please,” I said.
“I don’t know,” said the saleswoman. She was old. “The nuns won’t like it.”
“There are hardly any nuns left, and lots of girls wear their kilts short.”
“Hmm,” said the saleswoman. “Mr. Richardson! Mr. Richardson!”
To my surprise, there really was a Mr. Richardson. He appeared from around several bolts of tartan. He didn’t look very old. My hopes soared.
“Mr. Richardson, this girl wants her kilt two inches over the knee!”
Mr. Richardson gave us a look of profound boredom.
“Whatever,” he said.
But the saleswoman stuck her finger just above my knee, and that was that.
Some girls burn their kilts after graduation. Mine went to my sister as a spare. She grew tall, but she rolled. My youngest sister rolled, too. But her kilt couldn’t have been that short, for when I went to her graduation Mass, I was shocked by the shortness of the kilts of the ushers. Appalled.
But on the way home, I realized that the kilts hadn’t changed. I had changed. I was no longer used to seeing vast expanses of teenaged leg. And, being older, I knew something that I hadn’t realized as a teenager and would have thought disgusting if I had: men look at teenaged girls’ legs.
In my teenaged eyes, adult men barely existed. I wasn’t interested in any male older than 19, and so it was a horrid thought that older men might be interested in me. But, sadly, men do look at teenage girls, and when teenage girls wear tiny kilts, the men can hardly help looking. And most men do not understand that girls wear their kilts short, not to be attractive, but to not look like Niners.
Therefore, my auntish advice, advice that may be rejected by hundreds of Catholic schoolgirls even if their parents circle it in red ink, is that they all should wear trousers on their way to and from school, rolling on their kilts when they’re safely inside, rolling them off just before they go home.
Not only would this discourage the male gaze, it would be warmer, too.
Dorothy Cummings McLean