Woman overturns school's sexist dress code thanks to smallest of loopholes

While schools often introduce dress codes to encourage uniformity, these rules aren’t always practical—or fair. Dress codes can sometimes ignore basic needs for comfort and weather protection, especially for female students. When one school required girls to wear skirts even in freezing winter months, the girls came up with a clever plan to stay warm. A Reddit user, u/bkwormtricia, shared the inspiring story of how they took matters into their own hands.

"Back in the dark ages, my town public schools required females to always wear a dress or a skirt and blouse, even in the snowy New England winters. I froze my t***, walking 1/3 mile to the bus stop and standing there waiting! Boys were supposed to wear dress pants and collared shirts," the woman wrote. "In high school, student lockers were in the school corridor and the rules said we needed to remove coats, boots and other outdoors/weather gear there before entering the other rooms. So I and some other female students hatched a plan," she added, before revealing a simple idea that saved many girls from discomfort.

"When it got cold, we wore pants to school under our skirts - and removed them while standing or sitting in the public corridor," the woman revealed. "Teachers and principal got upset, but warm pants (corduroy, lined, wool, etc., were specifically listed in the manual - they were, of course, thinking of the boys!) qualified as weather gear. When they said to go to a bathroom to change, I pointed to the student rulebook saying weather gear had to be removed before entering the other rooms." She added, "More and more girls copied us and they hated girls maybe accidentally flashing underwear while changing (it could even accidentally happen pulling down pants worn over skirts, and pants crushed the required neat appearance of the skirts), so we won the battle - pants instead of skirts were allowed all day in winter."

"Which we then stretched to rainy days in spring (half the days, in MA) and finally, they gave up. We could choose to wear pants any day. Which soon devolved to jeans and such for everyone," the woman wrote, concluding her post. People appreciated the woman's plan and shared their experiences in the comments. u/123cong123 wrote, "Similar story. Girls were required to wear dresses. The school bus slid into the ditch a half mile from our home on a cold North Dakota winter day, so the remaining students walked to our house. Many girls, including my sisters, were near tears from the cold when they got there. My mother, an original classic 'strong, intelligent woman,' had a 'visit' at the school the next day. And that was the end of that policy."

u/Qnofputrescene123 commented, "I went to Catholic school for 12 years. The first eight involved uniforms back in the day when we wore skirts and jumpers. Recess, we always pulled on navy sweatpants under our skirts. No way we were going to make it outside for 30 minutes in a Wisconsin winter. Of course, as soon as I graduated eighth grade, they switched to navy pants for boys and girls and polos." u/165averagebowler remarked, "My mom's school did the reverse. In hot weather, girls could wear skirts but boys still had to wear pants, because shorts were not allowed. So some of the boys wore skirts to be allowed to wear shorts."