To think that the school cannot enforce this uniform rule?

[ReanimatedSGB]

DS started back at school on Friday and has come home with an annoying student handbook full of various pissy instructions and threats of hour-long detentions.
One thing I noticed was that 'boys' hair must be no longer than collar length. DS has long hair. While I completely understand a regulation that long hair must be tied back for school, isn't it actually illegal for them to insist that boys can't have long hair? IE sex discrimination?

@YorkieButtons a Ketwig? As in a Ketamine wig? Wtf

School is out of line. Its as bad as insisting girls must wear a dress or skirt
I cant believe some are trotting out the ready for work crap, take a look around, the real world does not care if a guy has long hair
Even worse, the contact sport crap, wtf, what era are you in? Many women do contact sport shock horror with long hair omg
Long hair wont stop a boy from playing sport

Neat and tidy is one thing, that can be achieved with any length hair
Determining how long ones hair must be based on whats between their legs is utter bullsh!t

There was a boy here (NZ) who won his case a few years back, it ended up in the high court. Not sure exactly what the circumstances were but he was allowed to keep his hair, keep playing rugby and had his suspension overturned.

It is so time we all.just started just judging people on.their actions and behaviour not how they look.

The best services/encounters I've had have been with people with long hair or tattoos or piercings etc

Some of you are talking nonsense. If you or your dh or dc are sick or your house is burning down there is no way you would turn them away and request another with short hair.

Do you request full body scans and strip searches on your pilots when you go on holiday.

Have you checked your kids teachers aren't hiding a prince Albert....

It's just ink. It's just metal. It's just hair. If you are a dick head you are a dick head. It's not the hair. It's you.

DH's incredibly strict Catholic boys' school had this rule when he was there in early 90s. Had thought we might have moved on since then.

DH grew his hair as soon as he left and has had long hair ever since, always wears it tied back. He is in senior management in a large engineering firm.

Beatrice

Yes that's what it's referred to- horrible word isn't it?
To be honest i don't know the reasoning behind it but it seems to have stuck.

the consultant analogy was an actual experiment conduct and journalised in an academic journal for my university course so it's provan fact

Three degrees Rightnow and you can't spell proven? Anyway, you say you have been to university. Did you and your fellow students turn up to lectures in smart suits, preparing yourselves for the world of work? I bet you didn't. Most of the lecturers themselves wore jeans at my university. No one cared. They still did their job just the same.

YANBU OP, but I would suggest talking to the school, not going in all guns blazing.

Giles nails it as usual in these debates. Many other countries have moved on from this conformity obsessed nonsense. Why can't the UK?

As for the people implying that rules must never ever be questioned and scrutinised - striving for dystopia much?

Yorkie and every boy 5 years ago had short back and sides in Liverpool and was called a scally and they were treated like such.

Shouldn't judge someone by their hair.

My brother has never once had a complaint or a patient refuse treatment btw he ties his hair back and has a tattoo.

Quite a few lads on my course (Med) have longish hair. Some people are so dramatic

My school (secondary) allows long hair on the lads.

Up to shoulder length is ok down. Then we ask it's tied back, like we do with the girls.

That's mainly for safety reasons like with bunsens and also we've found an increase in teens with nits (thank selfies and crowding round their phones) and tying back long hair is supposed to help reduce that.

But rules are applied the same to either gender.

I couldn't care less, so long as they're vaguely neat and tidy. Neither could the head. He tends to take more issue with the undercuts, patterns shaved in etc. Lads with longer hair is a non issue.

I'm so glad my boys school has no such rules about long hair. Not that mine want to grow their hair, but it's so bloody annoying.

I've heard of so many boys being told to get their hair cut, as they can't possibly do PE with long hair, or do this or that with long hair. Yet girls aren't told the same.

Surely as long as it's tied back when appropriate then that's all that matters.

And I don't give a damn about men's hair length in whatever jobs they do. The man who served me in the bank when I was dealing with the loss of my mum had very long hair. He did the job he was supposed to do and showed me compassion and that's all I cared about.

He could always go to a different school, but your school has that uniform policy.

Underneath, what do you suggest he does if there are no schools in the vicinity with vacancies?

I'm with the school, long hair looks messy and and daft on boys and is dangerous if they're playing contact sports - just get it cut.

This is an amazing comment, underneaththeask. Do you not think that girls (including those with long hair) do sport, too?

I'm with the school, long hair looks messy and and daft on boys and is dangerous if they're playing contact sports - just get it cut.

Strange how several members of the teams playing in the recent Women's Rugby World Cup had long hair then, isn't it?

I'm also restraining myself from posting pics from one of the rather brutal contact sports - ice hockey - where long hairstyles on men were once so ubiquitous that that style is now known as "hockey hair".

(I wouldn't recommend that style, though - hockey hair is like a really dreadful mullet.)

My son had long scruffy hair in 6th form. It was clean but never looked brushed, never tied back. His hair, he was old enough to be married or join the army so I let him get on with it. The number of "well meaning" friends and relatives who got in a state about it was quite funny. Well now he is 40 and doesn't have much hair. I'm so glad he had his mad few years with long scruffy hair.

Life is short, let kids enjoy it. By the way his scruffy hair didn't stop him getting his A levels and a degree.

My ds has long hair. He always tie it back. I see no problem. I wouldn't force him to cut it short. But I do get odd comments from other parents, suggesting I should cut it when he is asleep,etc. So I assume still some people have problem with boys with long hair.

“It is outrageous that the school even asks them to be neat and tidy as that has no impact on their learning either and is discriminatory against pupils that can't be arsed with all that.”

Haffiana

I don't think we have any rules about men with long hair at work, but we don't have any. I don't know whether this is because they have been discriminated against or because they just don't have long hair. We have loads of tattooed people at work though.

DD's school has very strict uniform rules, but as far as I know they are OK about hair length on boys. DD is in 6th form there and has green hair.

i think your appearance has nothing to do with your ability to do any job, so in school the same must be considered.
one of my doctors has a ton of piercings and he is very competent and does his job well and at the hospital one of their best nurses is a man with waist length hair, both men are considered very good at their jobs and are sort after by patients, no one seems to discriminate against their appearance and if they did they would be missing out on professionals with a caring manner and good senses of humor and the ability to do the job

@underneaththeash There are many lads playing rugby at my local club who have long hair. They just tie it up. Totally not a problem.

its not my rules but imagine someone turned up to any of the large banks wanting a job if they had hair down to their shoulders do you honestly think they'd get in the front door?

Yes, because banks regularly recruit men with long hair in practice. Strange as it may seem, they tend to recruit on the basis of ability, not appearance.

It won't get you anywhere if the school want to enforce it they will

And that may well not get them anywhere if a sex discrimination case is brought against them.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Richard_Branson_March_2015_%2528cropped%2529.jpg/1200px-Richard_Branson_March_2015_%2528cropped%2529.jpg&imgrefurl=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson&h=1749&w=1200&tbnid=zXbL7iSU6dTK2M:&tbnh=186&tbnw=127&usg=__gM06AHlDrTCBRtIErsn9sTqvGfI=&vet=10ahUKEwiysP7dzpzWAhXCbFAKHUQFDO0Q_B0InQEwEw..i&docid=xIrzO9pHUuq-HM&itg=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiysP7dzpzWAhXCbFAKHUQFDO0Q_B0InQEwEw&ei=6ju2WbKTIcLZwQLEirDoDg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">This businessman seems to have done OK out of a lifetime of long hairedness.

OP - you have my sympathy - I also chose my DD's school partly on the basis that there was a shirt tail hanging out in the otherwise glossy prospectus photos. It implied that the school wasn't so anal about uniform that the odd slip-up would be regarded as a hanging offence. And a good balance between reasonable standards without blind adherence to stupid rules, which is exactly the ethos of the school.

I do think you have a good argument on sex/gender discrimination (can't be bothered to argue which). Whether you want to fight that battle probably depends how strongly your son feels about it and whether he wants to put his head (literally) above the parapet.

Love to see them try that here, I'm i Wolverhampton, it has one of the largest Sikh communities outside India.

OP

It's sex discrimination it is also racial discrimination (Sikhs and Jews both mentioned in race relations act as being a 'race' as well as a religion).

This is another reason why children want to identify as trans. If school tells them that boys can't have long hair because boys don't have long hair, then what message does that send to children?

If he 'identified' as a girl, the school couldn't do this.
Same for wearing skirts etc.

So many issues could be prevented if boys and girls were allowed to do the same thing.