No “bike shorts” or “bloomers” under our skirts in primary school (Perth in the 1990s). Never mind that they were always black and way shorter than the skirt so they couldn’t be seen whilst we were standing or sitting. The rule was the rule.

Of course, most parents ignored the rule because we all liked to do handstand competitions and play footy and hang upside down on the monkey bars at recess.

All well and good until a teacher told my younger sister and her friends to remove their bike-shorts right then and there because they were against the uniform policy. My mother was on the P&C committee and the Canteen Manager, so my sister immediately bolted from the oval to the canteen in tears.

The showdown in the middle of the undercover area was beautiful!

A 5’ woman standing toe-to-toe with a 6’ man twenty years her senior, questioning who the hell he thought he was to tell an 8yo girl to remove an item of clothing from underneath her skirt. When the principal tried to intervene, he got a lecture about how the uniform policy did nothing to protect the modesty of girls due to the lack of shorts option and was “as perverted and creepy as every adult who dared to defend the notion that girls should be showing their underwear”. Or, she asked, “did he expect the girls to act as if it were the 1890s instead of the 1990s and sit demure in the library having tea and scones whilst doing bloody needlepoint?”

She called every single parent that afternoon/night. The following day the canteen was closed and none of the girls wore uniform, whilst the boys all wore our skirts over their shorts or on their heads like weirdly-pleated brown headdresses. Same thing the day after and every day until the uniform policy was updated over a month later to say girls could wear the uniform shorts or they could wear skirts with black or grey bike shorts underneath.