Gender neutrality starts with school uniforms

There’s a happy energy pulsating through the corridors of Valayachirangara Government Lower Primary School in Ernakulam district of Kerala. The girls are running around, playing or just sitting on the steps, enjoying the sense of freedom that comes with wearing shorts.
“Earlier when we used to play, the skirts would restrict our physical movement. The new shorts are more comfortable and, like boys, we have pockets too,” says Farsan Shinaj, a class IV student.
In a bid to dismantle the gender binary, the school recently decided that all primary students would wear shirts and trousers while pre-primary classes would don tees and shots.
Boys in the school are discovering a new competitiveness in their classmates. “Girls were never able to win in our hide and seek games. But now they run faster than us as they don’t have to hold their skirts while running,” says Abhinav NJ, a Class IV student.
For years, schoolgirls have dearly clutched on to their skirts when gusty winds blew or shied away from climbing monkey bars and bending down to pick up a book in case someone took a peek at their knickers. They’ve also been taught to sit in a “ladylike” manner instead of sprawling like boys do. But now an increasing number of schools are adopting gender-neutral uniforms or simply giving girls a choice.
At Valayachirangara primary school, parents initiated idea to pick shorts over skirts
At The Shri Ram School (TSRS) in Delhi, students in junior classes attend school in T-shirts and shorts and when they graduate to senior classes, girls have the option of wearing trousers or skirts with shirts. Boys wear trousers and shirts. “We’ve had this uniform since we set up our first campus in Vasant Vihar in 1988. We have kept the choice with children…our students stand as equals,” says Manika Sharma, director, TSRS.
Last year, students at Children’s Academy schools in Mumbai voted for trousers over skirts when the school polled them for ideas for new uniforms as part of their golden jubilee celebrations. Around 1,100 girls from classes six to ten participated in the poll and 58% of them voted for trousers over skirts.
At Valayachirangara GLPS, the idea to pick shorts over skirts was initiated by some parents. “The idea came from some parents who saw their kids being overly conscious about sitting, climbing stairs, playing with boys and even using toilets. We also observed how many of these girls were anyway wearing knee-length shorts beneath their skirts. So, we thought why don’t we get rid of the skirts,” says Raji C, the school headmistress.
In Shri Ram School, Delhi, girls attend school wearing same uniform as boys
Across the world, many schools are bucking the clothing stereotypes. From September 1, all schools in Wales in the UK will adopt gender-neutral uniforms. All state-run schools in Mexico City adopted a similar move in June. In UK’s state schools, boys can even pick skirts though of course not many choose to do so.
Sanjeeta Datta’s seven-year-old daughter, Aiyana, studies at the Shiv Nadar School in Gurugram and is being trained to pursue activities that she likes, and in clothes that allow her to pursue them in comfort. Her uniform consists of shorts and T-shirt in summer months and trousers and full-sleeved shirts in the dreaded dengue season, that is on right now. “The gender inclusiveness in this school goes beyond uniform. There are girls who are learning to play cricket and boys training to be Bharatanatyam dancers,” says Datta, who recalls playing basketball and running relays in short skirts while studying at a convent in Darjeeling.
While most stakeholders including parents and teachers welcome the concept of gender-neutral uniforms, some like author and feminist Meghna Pant have a different take. “We should let boys be boys and girls be girls, and find a way to bring inclusivity within their diversity instead of trying to homogenise the genders. Measures such as sex education will prove more impactful in creating equality/inclusivity rather than changing uniforms,” says Pant, author of ‘Feminist Rani’.