It has been a year now since the headteacher of Uppingham School in Rutland hit the news by saying that his male pupils could wear skirts if they liked. He wasn’t making a special case for boys, he was simply saying that his pupils – whether male or female – could wear what they liked.
In my opinion he is right. We are entering an age of genderless clothing in which schoolchildren should have the right to decide on their outfits, regardless of how old they are. It’s silly to prevent boys from wearing skirts, because restrictions such as this simply help to feed gender inequality. Girls can wear trousers, they are not a “boy’s thing”, so why should skirts be a “girl’s thing”?
It’s more important to steer kids away from gender identity so that they value equal rights and avoid perpetuating a male-dominated society. I’m completely against the whole idea of a baby boy being born into a blue world, and a baby girl into a pink one. Just let kids be kids.
Making a boy wear trousers won’t make him more of a boy, and similarly him wearing a skirt does not make him less of a man. A boy wearing a skirt does no harm to you, does it? Why would it even bother you so much? It’s only a piece of fabric!
My mum had strong ideas about what men and women should wear, and how they should behave. She would always tell my brother to “man up” so once as a joke he put on some lipstick and so my mum banned lipstick. Even I wasn’t allowed to wear it!
I made it my point to teach her that kids should be allowed to decide for themselves. You can’t restrict your kids like that, and anyway the more you say “no”, the more the child wants to rebel. If my brother wants to walk around in a skirt, he’s more than welcome to. At the end of the day, we are all going to die one day, so, dress the way you want to whilst you are still breathing.
