DPS Rohini, one of the most well-known schools in the city of New Delhi has reportedly asked its female students to adhere to an extremely strict dress code, which involves wearing 3 layers of clothing to avoid any distractions for the “other gender”.
The Root Of The Controversy:
As per various student accounts and an article published on Youth Ki Awaaz by a few alumni members of DPS Rohini, the female students have been reportedly asked to adhere to the following guidelines:
They’ve been instructed to wear slips along with bras underneath their school uniform shirts.
Secondly, they’ve been instructed to wear only skin-colored bras and have been further told that they’ll be sent home if they wear bras of any other color.
Thirdly, it has been reported that more buttons will be added to their shirts to conceal any sort of skin-show, with the apparent reason being that DPS Rohini is a co-ed school and they wish to avoid any distractions for the boys.
All this might sound irritating and excruciatingly annoying on paper but no one knows the reason behind this move.
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The Cause:
There is no specific information about this rule on the school’s website yet (in the “Uniform” section as well) and neither has any spokesperson from the school come forward to explain the reason behind the alleged move, its application and the potential consequences that the move could cause.
The Reaction:
Meanwhile, the alleged move has had a rather hostile response from the students, as it applies to every female student from class 9 to class 12. Social media outrage has been evident, with women speaking out further about the inequality in terms of treatment of male and female students.
Female students have also talked about how the school has reportedly refused to accept any excuses about wearing 3 layers of clothing and complaining about the dress code being too hot and uncomfortable to wear, making it extremely tough to pull off something like that in the scorching Delhi heat.
Is It The Right Way To Go About Things?:
Where the reasons for the move are unclear, it still portrays a rather extreme perspective where authorities are going ahead and engaging with such matters by being more oppressive towards the female demographic under the idea of being “protective”.
Instead of teaching and counseling the male students of not just DPS Rohini but schools all over the country about appropriate conduct towards women, in and outside the ambit of the school walls.
Inviting the hostility of one side of the gender under the name of protection is just one way of ignoring a larger problem and being passive about it, which is even more wrong as it allows that problem to still exist and grow.
In the school’s defense, we still don’t know the actual reason as to why this move has been undertaken and if there exists a larger narrative that has led to such an extreme consequence.
Regardless of all the hoopla, this incident carries a bigger debate altogether that at what point does school uniform need to become a metric to protect a girl’s modesty and at what point do we start teaching boys to not get “distracted” and use excuses such as “it’s the girls and their clothes that provoke them”.
As of now, we await a response from the authorities of DPS Rohini and we shall update the story as it further develops.
Image Credits: Google Images
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