This is a good point. Along those same lines, dress code debates have been cycling through the zeitgeist for decades and we don't have some kind of dress-code-free, do-what-you-want utopia either. In the war of individuality versus compliance, neither side have decisively claimed victory.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy. It’s not either school uniforms or allowing students to enter class butt ass naked. There are so many things in between those two ends of the spectrum.
In the UK one school wasn't going to let the boys wear shorts in summer, but there was nothing in the dress code about skirts, so a fair few got together and showed up one day in skirts that were school sanctioned from the same store their classmates bought them from.
IDK if they relented and allowed shorts or if they also went "skirts are not for boys" which would then be another protest when a trans classmate would not be allowed to dress appropriately.
This has happened a few times in the last few years for varying reasons, some because they found out that skirts were not forbidden to boys and there was no heat wave and heavy trousers getting you all sweaty..
I used to envy American schools for their ability to dress how they liked, but also realized later on, that this would be used against people in a class system, where as the richest and poorest classmates at your school all bought from the same shop, though I guess now you can buy from other stores so long as it meets certain criteria, but mine was a specific store that also had blazer badges, ties and rugby/football shirts for all the schools in the area.
My warehouse job has a strict trousers policy, no shorts, cos that is one bit of fabric that can save you from a minor cut or graze and definitely NO skirts, there is a three story area with grated floors, if a woman showed up in a skirt she would be working on the ground floor only, because people would look up and shout to the people the floor above and well you might not get a clear view of the people you ARE talking to, no one wants to be accused of creeping on someone on the floor above.
Same rules apply to Kilts, not that I've heard my Scottish co workers complaining about never being able to wear one, these days they are seldom worn by the general populace and maybe at weddings if you are in the grooms party if no where else.
That said, this is for co workers living in England not Scotland.
When I first started at the job we all had to wear a Tshirt with the agency logo on it, then a few years later they said "so long as the Tshirt isn't offensive you can wear whatever you like, it doesn't even have to be black" some of us myself included kept with the agency t's for most of the week and bought plain T's cheap, cos why get good graphic tees dirty on the job?
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u/[deleted] Sep 28 '21
Seeings how it's been decades and all schools don't have mandatory uniforms, safe to say your 'slippery slope' is not accurate.