School Skirts

I happen to have seen two interesting pieces relating to school skirts on the BBC lately, so thought I'd pass comment.

Firstly, a boy from Cambridge who found that, though his school doesn't allow shorts, it does allow boys to wear skirts. I've always thought that, while a uniform policy requiring boys to wear trousers and girls to wear skirts might pass as 'separate but equal, a uniform policy giving girls but not boys the choice is unequal. In this case, though, it seems he was only wearing a skirt as part of a peaceful protest, in an attempt presumably to be allowed shorts.

Secondly, it seems that schools it South Korea are making adjustments to desks to help girls with short skirts sit 'more comfortably.' This one strikes me as strange. I'd have thought that if the girls weren't comfortable sitting in short skirts then they wouldn't wear them. Obviously there are some concerns about peer pressure and collective action here, but nonetheless no one's really forced to wear a shorter skirt than they want to. Perhaps the real justification is to make teachers more comfortable...