Inequalities surrounding school uniforms

Compared to places of employment, schools have a far more equal dress code. Due to the government's overall encouragement, many secondary schools in the United Kingdom have chosen a 'blazer and tie' uniform. These items of clothing are typically allocated to both boys and girls when in a co-educational school environment, to ensure each gender is treated fairly by the school uniform requirements. This is because when some schools initially only required boys to wear ties under the dress code, many found it unjust. Therefore, the accepted blazer and tie uniform that is generally mandatory for both sexes is leading to a more gender-neutral and more equitable school uniform. Simultaneously, this enhances the school's sense of community by making the students appear more alike whilst creating greater equality between male and female students, thus this feature of the common school uniform can be viewed as feminist.

On the other hand, it could be argued that female students receive a higher number of options in their dress code in comparison to their male classmates. Specifically, girls are permitted to wear skirts and in many public schools in the UK, they also have the choice of wearing trousers (as seen by the vast availability of girls' school trousers in stores). Meanwhile, the majority of schools demand boys to wear full-length trousers without providing them with some form of alternative. This can be problematic for the schoolboys during hot weather as they cannot down-dress their layers in the same way girls can when wearing a skirt. For some, this leads to unjust feelings and is a cause of these different rules between the sexes which does not fulfill the feminist goal of gender equality.

To combat this disparity some schools have taken a stricter approach of banning skirts altogether for girls and boys hence resulting in an identical dress code for each gender. This does cater to transgender students as they will be able to wear clothing that makes them feel comfortable and accepted which is a positive impact of the change. However, this can cause issues with female pupils who preferred wearing skirts as their form of self-expression. This is because instead of providing more choices to students to achieve uniform equality between the sexes and standardize each sex wearing the uniform style that they feel represents them best, it is cutting down on options that have previously been normalized in society and this may cause feelings of injustice. Other establishments of education have approached the topic more leniently by allowing both sexes to wear skirts and trousers which similarly results in an equal dress code. A survey conducted by YouGov found that 40% of adults and 41% of children supported the idea of both sexes being given the choice of wearing trousers and skirts which for both age groups was the most highly chosen option. These statistics indicate that the public's preferred way of dealing with gender inequality in school uniforms is the more accepting approach. However, even with the people's support and enthusiasm from some headteachers, many schools choose to maintain tradition and are yet to approach this topic of unfair dress codes which compromise the male student's uniform options. As a consequence of this difference between female and male student dress codes in numerous schools, one can conclude that even though there are exceptions, school uniform as a whole is not entirely feminist.