JOIN USBe uniform, see them as children first
“When I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants.” This could very well be a line from any schoolgirl in any town in India. But it isn’t. It is a line from one of my favourite books To Kill a Mocking Bird published in 1960 and set in 1936 in America! It is by six-year-old Scout, referring to her aunt. This line stood out for me during my most recent re-read of this novel.
Before this, I was reading a lot of news items and articles around changes happening in a few government schools in Kerala. Over the past few years, before the pandemic, parent-teacher associations of some of these schools convened, discussed, debated, and concluded on an important decision. This was to have gender-neutral school uniforms. Some schools introduced it at the primary school level and some even at the so-called controversial secondary school level. This was not just another news item. It was welcomed by women from all sections of society, right from popular film actors to Olympian athletes. They shared the horrendous experiences they had during their school-age dealing with skirts of various lengths and how these restricted their mobility, not to talk about challenges in sports and other activities. And in the interviews with the young girls from these schools, they talked about how they feel free — free to play, to run around, to do all things that children typically do.
As we see schools opening after the pandemic, we see this beautiful sight of children going to school. But, what kind of uniforms are they wearing? The gender-neutral uniform seems to be a distant dream. Our children are wearing uniforms that are not meant for our weather, accessories like ties that constrict them and colours not meant for the kind of activities they are supposed to do. And then, we go on to judge a child in terms of how prim and proper she looks even after a whole day in school. Isn’t the child expected to play, run around, fall at school? The height of this is to see adolescent girls wearing a white shirt and white skirt. No woman would opt to wear pure white clothes when she has her periods, despite the ads for sanitary pads showing otherwise. Then, why do we force this on our adolescent girls? Don’t we want our children to engage in all activities at school and to feel free? Are we using our agency to examine how we are restricting our children now? Are we aware that we can come together and create this small world, where our children can taste what it means to be free? Are we ready to see them as children first?
(The author is the host of a podcast that examines challenges faced by today’s Indian women & proposes actionable strategies set in the Indian context.)