So, banning school skirts is a dangerous trend, according to Chitra Ramaswamy (3 July). No it isn’t. It’s a very good idea and should have happened years ago. She says, “School uniform should be about individual choice and expression rather than … the policing of girls.” The whole point of a uniform is to be, well, uniform, thereby removing any individual choice and expression. Otherwise, you may as well allow schoolchildren to wear whatever they like, which might actually not be a bad idea.
I don’t buy the argument that the anti-skirt policies are about “policing” girls. It’s about freeing girls from the tyranny of skirts and having to try to look sexy by hitching them up. Many girls might in fact be very happy to wear trousers rather than skirts as a school uniform. Has anyone asked the children what they would prefer?
Suzanne Saxby
Wrexham
• Although I agree it is not the wearing or not wearing of skirts that is the problem, but the ingrained attitudes towards women this represents, I can’t agree that adopting trousers or skirts for everyone is the answer.
Female police, firefighters, armed forces members, NHS workers and a host of others wear clothing that is suitable to the task. As a teacher of 35 years I have witnessed and been forced to police the minutiae of many evolutions of uniform policy, which ultimately seeks to prove to the outside world how “good” a school is by the outward conformity of our students. Blazers, ties, skirts, tailored trousers, stiff collared shirts, boaters, top hats, and the rest are social and class signifiers not appropriate clothing for learning. All school uniform can be gender neutral quite easily. A plain round-necked T-shirt with a tracksuit is all that’s required for most school activities and is by far the most comfortable and suitable option.
Anne Douglas
Kendal, Cumbria
• Chitra Ramaswamy’s article made me smile. For pupils like me (not students, in those days) at a state girls’ school in 1960s London, the possibility of wearing trousers instead of a skirt to school was a far-off dream, matched only by the unlikelihood of coming across a male teacher.
Moira Doherty
Reston, Virginia, USA
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