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Taiyo Middle School, located in the Kanagawa Prefecture city of Hiratsuka, is celebrating the 71st anniversary of its founding this year. To mark the occasion, the school is introducing new uniforms for students enrolling in April, when the 2018 school year begins.
But while uniforms are usually designed to implement sameness, Taiyo’s girls will actually be able to show more variety in their mode of dress, as the new uniforms officially allow girls to freely choose between wearing a skirt or slacks.
This won’t be the absolute first time for girls at Taiyo to wear long pants on campus. During the winter months, for example, some girls opt to wear slacks because they’re warmer than a skirt. However, with the new uniforms principal Yugo Kuriki is stressing that slacks are not an “alternate” or “modified” girls’ uniform, but have full standing equal to the skirt version. “I want to express that the skirt is not the ‘main’ uniform for girls,” Kuriki said. “I think it’s OK for us to free the students from such preconceived notions.”
While not specifically mentioned in the school’s announcement of the new uniforms, the option of slacks for girls is being seen as an acknowledgement that transgender and other sexual minority students may feel uncomfortable being forced to wear a skirt, which could in turn negatively impact their mental health, class attendance, and ability to learn. “I intend this as a way to eliminate gender differentiation in uniforms,” Kuruki has stated. No comment has been made about allowing boys to wear skirts.
Parents of local elementary school PTAs have also been told of Taiyo’s new uniform policy, and no complaints have been made. Taiyo has also said that going forward, all three versions of the uniform (boys’, girls’ with skirt, and girls’ with slacks) will be displayed together when depicting examples of the school’s uniform.
Source: Yahoo! Japan News/Kanaroku via Jin
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© SoraNews24
23 Comments
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taj
And if you look at any old paintings of ancient times you'll see people had their legs covered up.
Aly Rustom
Good question. I wonder...
starpunk
The whole policy of 'sameness' / uniforms is an OBSCENITY. Kids need to be kids, not worker ants in an ant hill. There is a sick fetish for this look for the perverts in America - for girls AND boys. The whole concept is unbecoming in a democratic nation, this is what they do in dictatorships - communist, fascist, anything totalitarian. It's INHUMAN. Destructive to the spirit.
Luddite
Not necessarily. They may choose to wear a skirt due to the heat, for comfort or because of cultural reasons.
Ah_so
That I doubt. Slacks for women has been a fairly standard dress for women for many years, including in Japan as well as overseas. It is not just lesbian and transgendered individuals.
By contrast a man choosing to wear a skirt would almost certainly be in the trans category. So the school has reflected standard dress but not that which requires acknowledging the existence of transgender individuals.
Tina - you misread that post. It was saying that slacks are good because it's cold in winter, but it did not claim that is why the change was made. The reason is as you say, down to global pressures and the general evolution of social attitudes (that itself has been going on since the enlightenment).
TrevorPeace
If they really wanted to free up the kids' creativity and individuality, they'd trash the uniforms completely and thus start a nationwide revolution of personal freedom.
smithinjapan
Good! Let's hope this becomes mandatory (the choice, I mean, and status as full uniforms). And while we're at it, give little kids some pants, too. Seeing them run around in short shorts in winter because parents think it makes them look "genki" is stupid.
Bill Lewis
Wish I wete allowed to wear shorts, or even a skirt, during those hot summer months.
taj
Aly RustomToday 07:46 am JST
I worry about those (currently 6) people who down-voted you. They are in favour the fetishization of school girls? Ick.
Would be very nice if uniforms came in two options: winter and summer, rather than girls and boys. Long trousers vs shorts.
tinawatanabe
It has been cold since ancient times in the winters. The only reason is leftist and globalist pressure.
TorafusuTorasan
@lostrune2, the girls retain the same coat design, which if you scan you eyes back and forth, is clearly shorter especially at the sleeves and the waist below the pockets. So the slacks are the similar part--coats are still as different as before.
lostrune2
So the only difference between boy's uniform vs. girl's with slacks is which coat side have the buttons?
Speed
I think the main reason slacks should be a standard dress-code option for girls is that it's freaking cold in the winters here!
Luddite
Whoop de do. Welcome to the 21st century.
Increasing numbers of UK schools have gender neutral uniforms and boys have been known to wear uniform skirts in hot weather.
maybeperhapsyes
Woohoo to Hiratsuka...my "home" in Japan.
Tom
Boys with nice legs should be permitted to wear skirts as well. Especially transgender boys that need to use a woman's toilet when squatting in an old style toilet.
borscht
Wow, really cutting edge in fashion equality. My high school, which allowed women to wear slacks in 1967, could definitely learn something from Taiyo.
Aly Rustom
good idea. I hope it helps prevent the fetishization of school girls.
katsu78
This is hardly news, plenty of Japanese schools have trousers as a uniform for girls. Sounds like Taiyo is just catching up to the norm.
Good question. Probably the answer has something to do with patriarchy - it's okay if girls want to imitate boys (i.e. the social norm) because imitation is the greatest form of flattery, but for a boy to want to imitate girls (i.e. the social special case), that makes a lot of people uncomfortable still.