Tag: exeter

Skirts and gender norms: a look back and a look ahead

Given the recent heat wave in Houston, I decided to look back and see if I could find a fitting post from the past to do a retrospective one. And I think I found it, this little gem from 2017: Skirting the issue: Boys wear skirts to school to protest dubious dress code.

I re-read this post and I recognize the genius of these boys over in Exeter (on the southern tip of England in the UK, around 170 miles/280 km or roughly a 3½ hour drive from London). It’s a similar situation for the Chiltern Edge Secondary School in Oxfordshire (about 65 miles/105 km northwest of London or a 1½ hour drive). Per a story on Yahoo News (among other places):

As a consequence to the ‘more formal’ uniform policy, [a parent of a student] asked staff if his son could wear tailored shorts instead.

However, the school argued that shorts are not part of the uniform. He was then informed that if his son wishes to wear more weather-appropriate attire then he could don a skirt if he wished.

This story broke about a year after the original post, and I unfortunately missed it the first time around. Not everyone is a fan of this school’s dress code, though; this piece by Kenny Webster of KPRC-AM radio here in Houston was highly critical and derisive of the school’s move, stating in part:

So the Chiltern Edge Secondary School is clearly culturally appropriating a style of dress that belongs to foreign cultures. Don’t people on the Left hate cultural appropriation? British Leftists should be rioting in the streets over this news, if they believe their own rules. Look out, Chiltern Edge Secondary School, British Antifa is coming with the fashion police to tell you how to dress your students!

I would disagree, of course; I would not call this cultural appropriation and say that to cross that line it would have to be significantly more substantial than just one article of clothing which doesn’t belong specifically to any one culture any more than certain types of food. I lean left, but despite where Kenny got his ideas on left-wing ideology, I keep a more realistic view of cultural appropriation and usually leave that call to the cultures in question if they want to object in certain instances.

A couple of years after that, both male and female students at a school in Quebec wore skirts to school for a cause:

[A 16-year old female student at the school] said the movement was to protest both the hypersexualization of girls and toxic masculinity.

She said she and her friends, along with other girls in schools around Quebec, were being punished for wearing their skirts too short and told that it was a distraction for boys.

Yet, boys could hike up their shorts as much as they wanted.

After a group of girls decided to wear skirts to school in protest, the boys joined in. The end result was that both boys and girls were allowed to wear skirts to school from that point forward, which is refreshing as there are undoubtedly places where that would not be anywhere close to the end result.

To me this highlights the silliness behind some of the gender-based norms that have formed over the past few decades. I’m really curious now how skirts came to be so closely identified with female dress, though I would need to do some significant research to find out how this came to be.

 

Skirting the issue: Boys wear skirts to school to protest dubious dress code

According to this recent story in The Guardian, some students at a school in Exeter (Devon, England) were fed up with having to wear trousers to school during a recent summer heat wave. From the story:

As the temperature soared past 30°C [86°F] earlier this week, the teenage boys had asked their teachers if they could swap their long trousers for shorts. They were told no – shorts weren’t permitted under the school’s uniform policy.

When they protested that the girls were allowed bare legs, the school – no doubt joking – said the boys were free to wear skirts too if they chose. So on Wednesday, a handful braved the giggles and did so. The scale of the rebellion increased on Thurday, when at least 30 boys opted for the attire.

But it gets even better:

A third, tall boy said he was told his short skirt exposed too much hairy leg. Some of the boys visited a shop on their way to Isca – the name the Romans gave to Exeter – to pick up razors to make sure they did not fall foul of any beauty police.

Down here in Houston, the same temperature is about what we would expect in April or May. By June, we are looking at temperatures in the 95°F range (35°C) most years, and it’s not uncommon to have at least a few days at or above 100°F (38°C). As I remember it, when I was in school we were allowed to change out into shorts for physical education classes, but most of the time we spent indoors in air-conditioned buildings so shorts just weren’t necessary. Apparently things are different up there in Exeter.

And with that, I admire the creativity of this group of boys as well as their willingness to cast aside the somewhat arbitrary gender labels we as a society have placed on a particular item of clothing. To be honest, the only thing more absurd than not allowing boys to wear shorts yet allowing them to wear skirts, is the attachment of such an arbitrary gender label to skirts. The only real difference between shorts and a skirt is the flap down the middle making two separate pant legs. The odd thing is that like many things in fashion, women making the opposite crossover and wearing shorts get little to no ridicule at all.

That said, some progress in this era of fashion inequality is being made. Utilikilts opened up shop in 2000 and is still in business today. Granted, the least expensive offering is US$200 as of this writing, possibly due to (lack of) economy of scale. While what Utilikilts is doing is admirable, it’s going to take more companies and suppliers entering the game to make some real change.