Online fight for girls in trousers

A teenager is using the internet to gather support for her campaign against schools which force female pupils to wear skirts.

Having won the right to wear trousers to school between October and Easter, Sophie Scott from Herfordshire has set up a website to encourage others.

We always have to worry when we bend down to tie our shoelaces or when it's windy

Trousers4girls

The campaign follows the case earlier this year of Jo Hale, 14, who succeeded in a three-year fight to be allowed to wear trousers to her school in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.

Trousers4girls is for "girls who want to wear trousers to school", but are not permitted to do so by their schools.

"We always have to worry when we bend down to tie our shoelaces or when it's windy.

Discrimination

"Also we constantly have to shave our legs if we wear skirts!" the site proclaims.

Or, bolder still: "Teachers say that everybody is equal and should be treated the same. Many uniforms blatantly contradict this statement."

Visitors to the site are invited to e-mail their views and the campaign has attracted support from other youngsters.

"Skirts are cold, impractical and it just gets you the looks from boys which aren't too bad.

Jo Hale, wearing trousers, poses with her mother Claire

"But when you get the come-on from old men and builders, that's not on," one girl replies.

"If we can't wear trousers, then put the guys in skirts," another suggests.

Girls in skirts is down to "old head teachers who want things to be how they were 'when they were children' or stuck up people who won't move with the times", one girl argues.

Even boys seem in favour of banning school skirts!

"I think girls should be allowed to wear trousers to stop perverts checking them out, to keep them warm and it's sexist to stop them," one lad writes.

"I would just like to say that trousers are practical in winter because you wouldn't be cold. If there is a gale it will blow your skirt up," adds another.