Too many Victorian schoolgirls forced into dresses, skirts, group says
Many private girls’ schools in Victoria are still forcing students to wear skirts and dresses, with a lobby group warning they face breaching discrimination laws if they don’t offer the option of shorts and pants.
Education
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More than 30 private girls’ schools in Victoria have been given a fail mark by a group campaigning for pants and shorts to be part of official uniforms.
Girls’ Uniform Agenda said all government girls’ schools were top of the class, while 31 private, independent and Catholic schools needed to do more work.
Girls’ Uniform Agenda — a national group arguing that girls are being short changed because of traditional and often rigid uniform policies which prevent them from wearing pants and shorts — has been involved in a number of success stories.
But the group said much more needed to be done with an analysis of school uniform policies showing that many schools had put the issue in the too hard basket.
Agenda Victorian representative Ms Simone Cariss said that the group had received legal advice that in Victoria, failure to provide pants and shorts options contravened discrimination laws.
She said they had accessed uniform policies for most schools but some schools were not as transparent.
The group has called on the Alliance of Girls Schools of Australasia, which represents government and private girls’ schools in Australia and New Zealand, to encourage schools into accepting pants and shorts.
Ms Cariss said there was wide-ranging research supporting the option.
At school, girls in dresses and skirts exercised less than those wearing pants and shorts.
The agenda said the wearing of dresses and skirts reinforced gender stereotypes and was counter to the marketing messages of many of the girls’ schools which encouraged girls to take on leadership roles and tackle jobs in male dominated areas.
The agenda argues that women working as nurses, police officers, paramedics, teachers and in other roles have been able to choose to wear pants and have done so for decades.
Among girls only schools who have included a pants and shorts option are Fintona, Strathcona, Lowther Hall, Siena and MLC.
Lowther Hall, in Essendon, introduced a new academic wardrobe last year which includes pants and shorts.
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A number of schools have introduced trousers but not shorts which does not go far enough, according to the campaigners.
There also were issues with pants and shorts being allowed but schools carefully managing when they could be worn.
Other schools have introduced unisex items which have given the girls options to wear boys’ shorts, Ms Cariss said.
Introducing the new uniform last year, Lowther Hall principal Ms Elisabeth Rhodes said the role of women, particularly in the workforce, had changed over time and the school’s uniform needed to reflect that.
“We want our girls to be confident about entering the world after school, and now they have options that reflect choices that we, as women, have in society,” Ms Rhodes said.
The Alliance of Girls Schools of Australasia said member schools formed their own policies on uniforms.
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