Parents have criticised the decision of a school in Worcester to replace mirrors with posters describing makeup as a “harmful drug”, saying it is misguided, “controlling behaviour”.
The posters included slogans suggesting that if girls wore comfortable clothes and no makeup, “guys would have no choice but to fall for girls because of natural beauty”, and that “makeup is a harmful drug that once you start using you’ll feel ugly without”.
After criticism on social media, Christopher Whitehead language college said the mirrors had been removed temporarily after a “period of misuse” in which older students used them as a social area, blocking the path to toilets.
The school said its English department “used this as an opportunity to provide some argumentative discursive letter writing” that was intended to be “provocative”.
The headteacher, Neil Morris, said: “This has produced some ‘frenzied’, powerful writing and debate. With hindsight, the posters should have been placed in their classroom area, not in one toilet.”
