Category Archives: Blog

‘You can’t wear that!’: Street Harassment, Victim-Blaming, and Policing Girls’ Uniforms

This collaborative piece was born out of the very first meeting between It’s Not a Compliment (INAC) and Girls’ Uniform Agenda. Connecting the dots between the policing of girls’ school uniforms, and street harassment, we explore how children are taught to accept cultures of victim-blaming and inequality from a young age. In this piece, Amy Blain, the Director and ACT Representative of GUA, works alongside INAC’s Community Liaison Officer and GUA Supporter, Alex Lee, to

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The GUA journey: where we have come from and where we are going

Where we have come from When we started this journey of arguing that all girls in all schools should have shorts and pants as part of their every day uniform, we were often met with dismissal or outrage.  Early 2017 feels far away now, but there were educators, principals and parents ready to tear us apart when we dared to argue that a girl who felt more comfortable wearing shorts or pants to school, rather

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All-girls’ schools – what’s the legal position on girls’ uniforms?

Girls’ schools, despite their overwhelming public marketing message of female empowerment, largely continue to deny girls’ the right to wear shorts and pants to school. While these schools often talk of creating an environment where gender stereotyping is not present, they lay down a tightly controlled rule on what is acceptable female dress. They perpetuate and reinforce the gender stereotype that girls wear skirts and dresses, and tell girls that they must look a certain

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Why Pants & Shorts for Girls are the Key to the Door

Issy is one of Girls’ Uniform Agenda’s Young Uniform Activist, Issy tells her story and explains why this fight is more than just a pair of shorts or pair of pants. My name is Issy and I have attended a coeducational public school since year 7.  I am the pinnacle of a radical intersectional feminist and when thinking about how gender inequality impacted day to day life for young people, school uniforms and their problematic

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Small People, Small School, Big Change: St Dom’s Brings in Shorts for Girls

St Dominic’s Catholic School is a small school in Western Australia, with 65 of the 146 students being girls. Olivia and Josie were two of the young uniform activists that petitioned their school principal and won the right for girls to have the choice of wearing shorts as their everyday uniform.  They started back in 2017, when Josie was just 7 and Olivia, 8, and featured in our GUA Poster for International Day of the

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Court Strikes Down School’s Policy Requiring Girls to Wear Skirts/Skorts

Girls’ Uniform Agenda are thrilled to read today that three young girls in America have successfully sued their public school for forcing them to wear skirts to school. A North Carolina Court in the USA ruled that it is unlawful for a public school to require girls to wear skirts. The three students – aged 5, 10, and 14 – argued that wearing skirts restricted their movement, inhibited them in school situations such as playing

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Freedom, Childhood, and School Dresses

Guest Blog from GUA Supporter, Alex Lee, ANU Student, Jasiri Trailblazer Fellow 2018 A Child’s Mind (and body) For me, primary school is synonymous with a feeling; that sensation of pure unbounded freedom, joy, and limitless possibility evoked by the ringing of the lunchtime bell and the running of six hundred feet in a kind of ritualised race across the oval and towards the Playground. I distinctly remember the sensation of a ball of energy and

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Uniform Shop Conversations: Dresses for Girls

I was buying more shorts for my little one and speaking to another Kindy parent whilst waiting in line at the uniform shop. Our conversation was a reminder of just how strongly ingrained in school cultures it is for girls to wear skirts and dresses.  It went like this: Mum:  I wish Aisha* would wear shorts and a top to school.  All she’ll wear is the skort and top. Me: Yes, I don’t see the

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