Opinion: Be angry about the make-up ban - but be angrier about your school uniform

Do you really want your child, in the most important years of forming their personality, to be forced to dress like everyone else? Photo / Getty Images

As someone who's never worn make-up (yes, yes, I know "it shows"), I can't say I know exactly what the girls outraged at the

new rules at Rangitoto College

feel.

But as someone who's not a big fan of being told what to wear, I get their point.

What I do think is that it's silly to be angry at the school for banning make-up. Not because you shouldn't be angry about it - you absolutely should - but because you should be angry at the much wider issue of schools dictating what you can and cannot wear and forcing you to dress like everyone else around you like you're in some kind of cult.

Why be offended about a make-up ban when you tolerate being told to dress exactly like everyone else at school, every single day?

How is taking away your lipstick an attack on your personal freedom but telling you exactly what to wear from the neck down is all fine?

Arguments for school uniforms have long been debunked. If they really solved schoolyard bullying, New Zealand wouldn't have such depressing child and youth depression and suicide statistics.

Instead of thinking that children wearing their own clothes to school would subject them to ridicule, how about teaching them about how wearing whatever they want can empower them and give them the self-confidence those ridiculous school clothes don't?

If you think a uniform is the solution to "peer pressure", I suggest you spend an hour listening to teenagers talk to each other and you'll find at least 437 other forms of that peer pressure you're so desperate to avoid.

A uniform does not promote equality. And, if it did, would you really want your children to grow up sheltered by the diversity of the world, in this fake paradise where everyone has the same amount of money and we all look the same? If that's what you're teaching your children, they're in for a shock in a few years when they get out of school.

A poll on the

NZ Herald

Facebook page shows people are divided when it comes to the make-up ban in colleges.

Rangitoto College students are upset at a school rule banning makeup. What do you think?

Posted by nzherald.co.nz on Thursday, 2 November 2017

Those in favour seem to take a very broad approach to "schools with rules", forgetting that not all rules are good rules and there is such a thing as personal freedom. Maybe school isn't the time to stifle someone's creativity? I mean, give them until their first job before they figure out no one's even remotely interested in their self-expression.

There are pros and cons to student uniforms. On one hand, sure they make mornings easier for parents and they make it easier for the school to spot "intruders" - but are those things really worth sacrificing personal freedom of expression for?

The argument that young people without uniforms will dress in an unruly way (whatever that is anyway) is void. My entire education was done in a country where no one wears uniforms (unless you're one of those posh private school people, which I very much wasn't). Never in all those years of school did I hear of anyone having to be told off or sent off because of what they were wearing. Because our clothing was not even up for discussion, no one even thought of it as a way to pull any strings or disrupt things in any way. Never. Not once. I've just done a quick Google search to see if they've been having any trouble in the last decade since I moved out (secretly hoping they'd be lost without me) and, again, no, not a hint of trouble. No one cares about what young people wear and, as a result, young people don't even think about pushing those boundaries.

So next time someone tries to argue that it saves school time having to deal with all these problems teenagers get into with their weird clothes, assure them that there are plenty of examples all over the world of how that's not the case. And what's weird clothing anyway? An oversized jumper? A longer-than-normal necklace? Back in my day (good grief, I can't believe I just wrote that), the most rebellious thing you could do was to wear loose pants halfway down your bum - and no one got kicked out of school for it.

Instead of avoiding bullying at the expense of someone's freedom (which only serves to keep up a false pretense that bullying does not exist), wouldn't we be better off investing the time and resources in teaching them self-confidence and how to stand up to bullies?

It's not a great idea for society to be teaching young adults to "suck it up, it's the rule". It's a much better idea to tell them to speak up when they don't think they're being treated fairly. Otherwise, we are raising complacent people who'll take whatever's put in front of them - say, $6 blocks of butter or lower wages if you happen to be born with a vagina - and accept it because hey, tough luck, mate, them's the rules.

Also, uniforms are expensive and boring - that, alone, is enough of a reason to ditch them.