Ties
Being as this week’s heatwave is seeing schools across the country loosening restrictive uniform policy for both staff and students, and I’m finally leaving my current school, I figured it was time to come clean with this article I wrote for The Guardian’s Secret Teacher column in 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2016/may/28/secret-teacher-naughty-pupil-wearing-tie-workwear
My war against ties continues to this day, however, what began as just a personal choice and distaste for them (a valid argument in its own right) has now elevated to something more significant the more work I have done championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in schools. The requirement for male staff, and students, (and male staff and students only) to wear ties is so obviously built on rigid and outdated gender norms and it is important for those of us who can to resist those dated norms and show students that “maleness” does not necessitate wearing a tie anymore than “femaleness” requires the lack of one. The expectation that a man, formally dressed, wears a tie, reinforced by staff dress codes, serves only to make those male or non-binary students and staff who don’t feel comfortable in such clothing feel excluded and alienated and female students and staff who wish to present as more masculine unable to in places where gender-based uniform policies restrict ties only to men. Trans students and staff, meanwhile, who may not wish to performatively “pass” as either male or female should not be forced to wear, or not wear, clothing considered specific to a gender to which they no longer identify either if they don’t want to.
This is true of any gender-specific clothing requirements imposed on people from above, but the tie - of all of them - is the most vexing because it is an utterly pointless piece of clothing and one so deeply entrenched in symbolism of traditional masculinity.
I am not saying they should be abolished, I am simply saying that the choice to wear, or not wear, a tie should be up to the individual. All individuals, regardless of gender.
Nowadays, a more enlightened Head and a recognition of the difficulties of legally enforcing gender-specific uniform policies that could be seen as discriminatory, wearing a tie has become my choice, rather than something I am forced to do. Sometimes I choose to wear one, more frequently I don’t. As it should be. Man, woman or non-binary. Wear what makes you feel comfortable, feel like yourself, and express who you are.