Pink Floyd could supply the soundtrack on this.
The “education” system of Lewes Priory School, in East Sussex, England, just shut the gates on girls who arrived in their old school skirts. And what good top-down, authoritarian, one-size-fits-all government “education” system wouldn’t? After all, the “policy-makers” told everyone that they could only wear “gender-neutral” uniforms, skirts are verboten! And who would ever want to defy the government authority their parents are forced to fund?
How dare those kids…
As Caroline Allen writes for Yahoo Style:
Pupils and parents at Lewes Priory school in East Sussex have staged a protest after the school strictly enforced a gender neutral dress code. The school told pupils that anybody who arrived at school in a skirt would be sent home to change. They were only told about the new uniform rules days before they were due back at school for the new term.
Video from Priory School in Lewes as the gate is shut on protesting students https://t.co/F6dhcdssB5 pic.twitter.com/iSfVWnZRXX
— Brighton Argus (@brightonargus) September 6, 2019
So, not only the rules change could upset parents and children, the timing of it, and the way that reflects on the poor management of the government-run school, might also raise a few eyebrows.
The school announced that it would be changing its rules for the first time in 2017, after the length of pupil’s skirts caused “concern” and in a bid to accommodate transgender students. However, at the time, only new pupils were required to wear the new uniform. Then, after almost six weeks off school, the high school appeared to backtrack on its earlier decision and demanded that all pupils should wear the “gender neutral” uniform.
Probably not the best way to handle the timing of it, at least. But there’s a textbook-size list of issues riding that first problem’s coattails – all of which have one, virtually unspoken, source.
Famous UK television presenter Piers Morgan, who’s career has been a mixed bag when it comes to freedom-oriented issues, had a particularly strong reaction, because he attended that very school. Morgan Tweeted what seems to be on most frustrated citizens’ minds:
Speaking as a former Priory student, I’d like to state that this is absolutely bloody ridiculous, and the protesting parents & students have my full support. This whole gender neutral craze is out of control. Let girls be girls & boys be boys.
And that attempt to eliminate “gender-stereotype-perpetuating-clothes” at Lewes Priory – even if the girls and boys chose their “uniform” clothes themselves and the girls pick skirts while the boys pick slacks – is leading a descent to the lowest common denominator.
Everyone must wear pants.
Given that logic, why not potato sacks? Boxes? Wouldn’t the school need to eliminate any possible tie between clothes and traditional gender preferences for those clothes? The only way to do that is to force the kids to don items that have never been associated with gender-preferred clothing. Boxes ought to do fine for that. Big boxes. No legs showing.
That way, things like this won’t happen at Lewes Priory:
The school locked its gates on the protest, meaning many students couldn’t get into school, prompting Sussex Police to get involved.
Such a wonderful “learning environment.”
And lest people think this is a manifestation of girls who simply want to wear short skirts, which was implied by school officials, this move for “gender neutrality” is not isolated to Sussex. On July 10, Marie Claire Dorking reported for Yahoo Style that Wales has instituted its own “gender neutral” uniform policy, with a slightly different spin.
Telling parents the kinds of clothing to get kids for the next year, the Welsh authorities did not want to assign the labels “trousers for boys” and “skirts for girls”. They seemed delighted to accompany the announcement with this:
Minister for Education Kirsty Williams said: 'We should not be enforcing outdated ideas of what clothes are suitable for their gender, especially if it makes them wear something they feel uncomfortable wearing… This new guidance makes clear that school uniform policies should not dictate items of clothing based on gender.'
All of which brings us to “normalcy bias” and the elephant many people refuse to see in the room. Many folks expend a great deal of energy in the debate over “school policy versus individuality” or “schools pandering to social justice warriors” or “the need to eliminate sexual distractions in schools versus the need for self-expression”, and those are all valid items for debate.
But so are even larger issues, such as: the literature curricula, the science curricula, the history books, the start and end times, the physical education program, the sex-ed or religious content. Every one of the debatable issues presents a fissure, splitting parents of kids, kids, and taxpayers who don’t have kids. And, typically, the government answers the “debate” with the most watered-down, dystopian, on-size-fits-all policy available.
And contemporary “Westerners” have a normalcy bias that leads many to never question this nearly ritualistic pattern, never look at the root of it, which is government involvement in education.
All of this bickering, all of this dissention and argumentation and smothering of individual choice – be it for girls to be able to wear skirts, or for boys to wear long hair or punk-rock t-shirts and shorts, or be it about evolution versus creation – stems from taxpayers being forced into the same pressure-cooker of government policy.
Collectivists distrust individuals to handle their own lives through voluntary actions. They bang the drums of force to make people hand over their cash – even when they don’t have kids – and winnow down the options until…
Girls can’t even wear skirts to the schools their parents are forced to fund.
That’s collectivist education for us. Even on the most basic, simple issues like skirts, government can’t handle things right.
Why should anyone support it handling the bigger issues?