How relevant are deportment classes and finishing schools to young people in today’s world? – ABC News

Deportment classes and finishing schools have been teaching mostly young women posture, poise and presence for centuries.

They're a master class in how to be ladylike, covering everything from nail care to the correct way to eat a banana (hint: it's apparently with a knife and fork).

In their heyday of the 18th century, young women from wealthy or aristocratic families were sent off to finishing schools where they were taught all the social graces needed to secure a husband.

Think curtseying, books on heads and lessons in how to eat soup delicately.

Given today's world of self-expression and self-empowerment, where individualism is celebrated and communication is increasingly informal, finishing schools have undergone a major re-brand in the hopes of staying in step with today's values.

So could this practice be a dying art? How relevant is deportment to young people in today's world? And what social currency does it hold?

Deportment expert Jodie Bache-McLean is at the helm of June Dally-Watkins a school that's taught modelling and deportment to mostly young women for more than 70 years.

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After surviving the 1960s when deportment schools "lost their flavour", the managing director said deportment was in the midst of a revival.

"I'd say it's making a comeback," she said.

"Especially now. We're at home, we're in this insular world and our interaction in some instances is purely with people on a screen."

She said the past 18 months of lockdown had sparked renewed interest among parents who were "shocked" to witness their children's eating habits at the dinner table.

Others contacted Ms Bache-McLean in the hope of resolving their children's anxiety and self-esteem issues a creeping pandemic of its own among young people.

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Not only does Ms Bache-McLean believe learning deportment has become more important now than ever, she's hoping the government will recognise it as "an important life skill" and introduce it to the national school curriculum.

"There's a saying that's been around for centuries: don't judge a book by its cover. And I totally respect that, but we do regardless," she said.

"We make conscious decisions, it's part of our flight-or-fight response. We're judging situations constantly."

While maintaining an emphasis on physical appearance, Ms Bache-McLean said deportment had "evolved" over the decades to be less about how to attract a man and more about cultivating self-confidence.

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"It was very much about that decades ago," Ms Bache-McLean conceded.

"It's less about being a gentleman or being ladylike and more about being a human.

"[The classes have undergone] slight changes but the messaging remains the same, the terminology may differ.

"There's a wonderful saying what do people say about you when you've left the room? the best we can hope for in that experience with that person is that they were impressed."

June Dally-Watkins' lessons have stayed with you for decades. These are some of the more memorable, from the harsh to the helpful.

Deportment expert Renee Chambellant has witnessed countless transformations in students over her 40-year career teaching deportment, personal development and grooming to models, corporate workers and juniors.

"It's basically the same, obviously we've moved with the times and we've updated," she said.

"We teach how to go in and out doors, up and down stairs how to sit in your seat, how to get into a theatre and move between the chairs."

Ms Bache-McLean said: "It's about feeling comfortable and having self-confidence being the best version of you."

But by whose measure?

It's a question Helen Dalley-Fisher the senior manager with national women's advocacy group Equality Rights Alliance has taken issue with.

"A lot of deportment classes use the language of empowerment how they're empowering women to get ahead, to participate in high-powered situations," she said.

"But it's not empowering to worry all the time about whether you're looking right and about whether you're conforming properly."

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Ms Dalley-Fisher said she was bothered by how manydeportment classes place anemphasison "external appearance and obeying the rules".

"It's a problem when a woman's primary value is reduced to how she appears," she said.

"To suggest to a young girl, particularly when you're in that vulnerable stage in your teens and your 20s, that the way you appear is firstly not acceptable and needs to be changed and secondly it needs to conform to a set of rules [is problematic]."

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Ms Dalley-Fisher said a truly empowering deportment class would help students assess their own inherent value beyond their appearance.

"Perhaps what deportment classes are really offering is reassurance and a sense of security," she said.

"But when the sense of security is about how you look rather than what you do, and when it's about whether you're conforming, rather than what you're doing is of objective value that's not going to serve you well in the long term."

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Emily Searle, chair of a University of Queensland's Women's Collective a student body made up of young women echoed the sentiment, describing deportment as "exclusive" and "regressive".

She said most deportment schools reinforced gender roles society was working hard to undo.

"[They're] really only for people who can afford to spend that much money to teach skills that aren't that necessary today," she said.

"Young people less and less fit into these gender roles. More and more we're shifting away from 'men do this, women do that' and more towards this is what's expected of people.

"They [deportment classes] kind of look in the opposite direction."

Ms Searle said etiquette should reflect the multitude of multicultural communities that exist in Australia, rather than just the British way.

"There's no right way to set a table with Australia being such a multicultural community. There's so many different ways to perform etiquette and there's no one size fits all," she said.

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While some of Australia's leading deportment schools teach mostly in private schools, Ms Bache-McLean said her organisation also worked with state schools and was accessible to an array of demographics.

"I have students who are on the spectrum, who are vision impaired, who are in wheelchairs it's not about walking, it's about your presence," she said.

"I have gender fluid students, I have students undergoing a transition and they would like to work with us to make their gestures more feminine than masculine, so we have evolved in that way."

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How relevant are deportment classes and finishing schools to young people in today's world? - ABC News