School Uniforms and Gender Discrimination.

I remember a lot of debates or discussions pertaining to the use of uniforms in school, back in high school and college. "Anti-uniforms" do not feel like wearing it for some reasons like "ang baduy" or "ang init."

I agree. I remember back in high school (I studied in an exclusive school) where female students had to wear long sleeve, white blouses underneath royal blue, full-length jumpers. Sobrang init talaga. This is even though the school services and the classrooms were all fully airconditioned.

"Pro-uniforms" think otherwise. They say it is the "equalizer" among the students, helping to thrash out possible bias in education due to class differences among students.

Oo nga naman, may point sila. Nakikita kasi sa kasuotan kung ang isang estudyante ay mahirap o mayaman. Maaari itong pagmulan ng low-self esteem ng mga mahihirap estudyante. Maari rin itong maging sanhi ng diskriminasiyon laban sa kanila.

However, amid these arguments, people fail to consider that though it might thrash out discrimination based on class differences, it might also highlight discrimination against gender.

Women usually wear skirts as uniforms, while men wear pants. And skirts limit movement, unlike pants that allow men to move more freely than women. And reason behind this ideology--Women should be "mahinhin" and men should be "makisig," which are both entirely not true, since women, just like men, have unlimited capabilities. It would be difficult to introduce these ideas, as ideologies have been embedded in the subconscious of the people.

But not to worry, I will be writing a series of articles about Gender Discrimination. In addition to that, I will also explore what people usually call "common sense" using Feminist perspective and Post-colonial perspective. So watch out for it. I hope these will be able to help people get new perspectives.