News: 1617190450

' "Students are not permitted to have mullets, rat tails, top knots, mohawks, extra-long fringes, or any other non-conventional style cuts." '

I'm reminded of the scene in the movie Fahrenheit 451 where a young man is stopped in the street by a gang and has his head forcibly shaved. It's happened elsewhere in reality too, but only in severely authoritarian regimes.

It seems a pity that Australia, the ancient seat of the rugged individualist, is now becoming extremely and narrowly conformist. But then so are many other places. Maybe it's a universal point on the cycle of civilisations.

I think that societies tend to become conservative in such matters when they are on the decline. It's a way to try to keep the past alive.

Lighten up, it's one private school, you and your mullet are still welcome down under.

What about shaving your head off? Do they send you to the barber to fix it as well?

They'll probably make you either wear the official school hat, or the official school wig. It is most likely that neither item is very cool, in any sense of the word. :-)

Or the official school head!

I wouldn't put it past some head-teachers to exclude you until it had grown back. (Particularly in the case of fee-paying schools, where the attitude seems to be that your parents have volunteered you into the system so the school can make up whatever shit they like.)

Here in the UK, a 12yo girl was excluded for several weeks before Christmas because her dress didn't show enough leg. Eventually the school began legal action against her parents for not sending her to school. (Then the story reached the national press and [1]the school has now dropped the case .)

Also here in the UK, [2]a website that collects stories from teenagers has collected numerous examples of girls wearing trousers under their (mandatory) school skirts to reduce the amount of sexual harassment.

It's almost like the kids want to have control over their own bodies. Shocking! They are at school to learn and they should learn to do as they are bloody well told by the Responsible Adults. Except that *some* of the responsible adults seem to be living on another planet.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/16/school-drops-legal-action-muslim-girl-told-skirt-too-long

[2] https://www.everyonesinvited.uk/

"It's almost like the kids want to have control over their own bodies."

Without denigrating some of the serious allegations currently in the news, I do sometimes find it a bit puzzling where girls in particular will rail against school uniforms and the imposed "uniformity". And yet, when they go out as groups, it's not uncommon to a group of girls wearing their own self-imposed "uniform", ie all wearing very similar clothing styles. It's all a bit ironic really.

When I was at school the girls tended to push the bounds of what could still be classified as uniform while showing as much as possible of what ought to be concealed by the uniform. Have times changed?

A long time ago in a land far far away (well not so far, it wasScotland). The secondary school I attended tried to get all strict and picky about uniforms. Some of us boys turned up in skirts and blouses much to out heads anoyence. After that, when it was explained that that part of the uniform code was just for the girls (sex discrimination I’d say) we then took to wearing the mandatory ties as bandanas. There were several other inventive interpretation after that. The code seemed to become less and less important and was effectively dropped in a few weeks.

There's a difference between all choosing to wear the same thing and being told what to wear by someone else.

Possibly a taxidermist would be more appropriate at that point.

During my time in the Army one of my mates got fed up with having to go to the barbers every two weeks and the resultant cost. So he had his head shaved. "Down to the wood" as we said.

When the RSM found out, my mate was put on a charge under section 69. He was fined and given company punishment.

What the Army didn't like was that he was putting two fingers up to the rule over hair length and he paid the price.

What happens with bald people?

It appears to be creeping into rugby union as a lockdown haircut. Those who watched Ireland-England recently will have seen replacement lock Jonny Hill's fine effort, and Steff Evans at Scarlets has been proudly showing his off for a while too.

Hopefully the re-opening of barbers will put an end to it (although I heard a rumour that Evans liked his, and was planning to keep it even after Wales' barbers re-opened last week).

Meh it's one school (as far as I know) and one for the upper crust at that. As such, probably not worth getting too excited about.

How does that old bit go about someone not caring when the authorities came for everyone else's stuff, then wept when said authorities came for their stuff & there was nobody left to come to their aid?

A single snowflake may not be much, but it doesn't take much to start an avalanche.

All I can say is Fuck'em!

What right does a school have to dictate one' s hairstyle?

Way back in the early sixties, three of us at my school started growing our hair longer than the 'normal' short back and sides of the day.

Our headmaster gave us an ultimatum, 'get your hair cut, I will cut it or you will have to wear a red ribbon in your hair at school'.

Two of us opted for the ribbon, the other guy went for a trim.

You wouldn't believe the street cred we got from wearing ribbon and the old boy could back down because he had made the threat in school assembly.

Uniformity and conformity in the military has its place, in schools not so much.

Here here.

Unfortunately I think that our always connected, always open for likes and dissing is making the pressure to conform to the perceived norm stronger and stronger. Us grey beards grew up with much less scrutinisation of our every move and thought and so had less pressure to conform. I think it takes more hutzpah now.

Schools are uniformity factories, preparing the young for the 50 year production line they'll be chained to once they turn 18.

As a boy and huge thrash metal fan in the late 1980s, I had long hair while at school. When I was told it was not acceptable I said the girls could grow their hair long why can't my mates and I? After a couple of meetings it was allowed so long as we kept it trimmed and tied it back, especially in workshop classes for obvious safety reasons. Quite progressive now I look back at it.

To this day, now almost 50, I still have long hair although like my beard it's now very grey and white and I'm started to look like Gandalf or a very frightened Bill Bailey!!!

If they want to stop this, all they have to is have a few teachers get their hair cut in the newly cool style. Soon puts the kids off.

To paraphrase: "Australia isn't old enough to have traditions; they merely have habits.

White Australia may be too young to have traditions, the aboriginal Australians have many. One dates back to a 'great flood' - i.e., the end of the last ice-age between 18,000 and 8,000 years ago:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2233644-ancient-people-tried-to-stop-rising-seas-with-spears-or-fiery-boulders/

"...

In Australia, for example, a quarter of the continent was swallowed by the rising ocean between 18,000 and 8000 years ago. At least 26 Aboriginal groups living in coastal areas have preserved stories of their ancestors’ experiences.

In one story told by the Wati Nyiinyii people of southern Australia, their ancestors tried to block the incoming water by stacking bundles of thousands of spears along the coastline. In a story told by the Gunggandji people of north-east Australia, their ancestors heated boulders with fire and rolled them down cliffs into the water."

if its a private school, fair enough, your parents sign up to the rules, end of. Don't like it go elsewhere

Other than that if girls can have their hair long so can boys, just as girls should be able to wear long trousers.

As for teachers, don't see why they should follow the same dress code as long as they meet the school requirements. If you want to go down that path then I suggest the parents do the same so they are equally setting a good example, after all education should start at home, unless you are one of those who thinks school should teach your child everything in life.

The above dictionary defines 'mullet' (the haircut) as: "A hairstyle that is short at the front, long at the back, and ridiculous all round".

I have pictures of my late 1980s mullet as a heavy metal fan, I thought i looked the dog's wotnots. It was enough to attract my wife, still together after 30 years so it must have had some appeal! Old photos of mulleted Dad, my kids loved how skinny old fat Dad used to look but my bright blond mullet causes no end of mirth for them!

Never again, no mullets! It was a bad time in history for hair, let's not repeat that one!

The harsher the school, the more rebel the school boys are.

When I was in school they banned long hair lengths, so I was force to conform to the rules but they banned smoking weed, LSD and beer too - but I never got caught in those areas because they couldn't see them.

A friend of mine got "caught" when he was reached the legal drinking age and his dad took him to the pub on his birthday, the barmaid looked at him and said, "The regular Watneys Red Barrel? What would your friend like?"

Ah those far-distant days of believing you looked old enough to drink. My friends and I were thrown out of our regular when we went in on an 18th Birthday pub-crawl for the elder statesman of the group.

and dropped right off the cool scale when

Chris Waddle got his. The absolute pits. He was given huge amounts of stick by opposing fans.

The longer they stay seriously uncool the better.

I look forward to the rather old concept of Am I hurting you laddie..? I ought to be because I'm standing on your hair making a comeback.

If they object to specific haircuts, I'd imagine plucked eyebrows are very much verboten.

I'm not sure any institution that rails against the "non-conventional" qualifies as a "school" in any sense that I understand the word.

A year head came around the classrooms at lunchtime hunting for "the boy that looks like Jesus", "no idea Sir" was the response, despite the said yoof being a member of our form. My buddy never did adopt short hair until his forties. Much along the lines of the post above, sixth formers were allowed to wear any tie they liked, rather than the house tie. 1970s paisley kipper ties that I and my cohorts wore didn't go down so well. Neither did calling out some teachers as marxist, which they blatantly were. Fuck conformity! Just because I don't agree, doesn't mean I hate you. (Unless you're a marxist, obviously)

Yet another authoritarian declaration by a "land of the Free" country. "You can do what you like, in the name of Freedom, so long as it accords with what we say"

Calm down Braveheart. This is just a story about a fancy school banning mullets.

First they came for the Mullets and I did not speak out because I had no hair

Yes - it's just a Lunatic Fringe

' "land of the Free" country '

I know it's an old cliche, but Oz was not exactly founded on the ideas of freedom to begin with was it?! It was Britain's dumping ground for those we didn't want clogging up our jails or would that have been gaols at the time?

A college friend had attended the Ohio School for Girls, in Columbus, Ohio. I would never known, never heard of the school, but it was across the street from Larry Flint's house (q.v.). The public prints always included "posh" in mentioning the school, and they always mentioned the school if they mentioned his house. This made my friend, who attended OSG on scholarship, roll her eyes.

My own high school (all boys) went in for strict regulation of hair: off the collar in back, not long enough to pull past the bridge of the nose in front. Many years, I happened to see the senior class pictures from the same years at my son's high school (also all boys): the operative principal seemed to be "whatever". My son's was a far better school.

> but, if The Guardian is to be believed

Believe those tax dodgers?

It's a bootnote - IT angle not compulsory (and rather in keeping with the above comments)

Left ear? Right ear? Both ears?