Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:53 am  

An amusing tale about "PC gone mad", from Sweden. Apparently train drivers, seemingly an all-male occupation there, used to wear shorts on hot summer days, but were banned from doing so immediately after Arriva took over the train company in January. Then the drivers had the absolute masterstroke of saying, well then, we'll wear skirts. And they did. Checkmate. A no doubt chastened Arriva spokesperson was quoted as saying: "Our thinking is that one should look decent and proper when representing Arriva and the present uniforms do that. If the man only wants [to wear] a skirt then that is OK," Tellingly, he added: "To tell them to do something else would be discrimination." Total capitulation, but still not the wit to add a uniform pair of shorts to the range! No doubt they think that would make them look foolish. Bravo the drivers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22828150

An amusing tale about "PC gone mad", from Sweden. Apparently train drivers, seemingly an all-male occupation there, used to wear shorts on hot summer days, but were banned from doing so immediately after Arriva took over the train company in January. Then the drivers had the absolute masterstroke of saying, well then, we'll wear skirts. And they did. Checkmate. A no doubt chastened Arriva spokesperson was quoted as saying: "Our thinking is that one should look decent and proper when representing Arriva and the present uniforms do that. If the man only wants [to wear] a skirt then that is OK," Tellingly, he added: "To tell them to do something else would be discrimination." Total capitulation, but still not the wit to add a uniform pair of shorts to the range! No doubt they think that would make them look foolish. Bravo the drivers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22828150

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:09 am  

I was expecting a thread about Scotland...

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:31 am  

On a broader note, why shouldn't men wear skirts? I often think they'd be cooler even than shorts on a particularly hot day. I like the idea, but don't want to be the first!

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:45 am  

Has been the apparel of choice for most of history - the attire of great warriors to boot - the Romans, Scots, Greeks, Sikhs, Egyptians etc.

Trousers are a relatively new concept for the majority of civilisation, a garment worn by few cultures in antiquity and therefore should be regarded with deep suspicion.

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:27 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

An amusing tale about "PC gone mad", from Sweden ...

I read the report earlier.

The issue of the drivers wearing shorts appears only to have became an issue after the service was sold off to Arriva. So, this is a private company initiating something new – the sort of thing that you could imagine plenty of knee-jerkers over here assuming was public sector behaviour.

Anyway, good for them.

Oh – and WormInHand is completely correct about being the choice of warriors in many cultures. Many still wear them for ceremonial dress.

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:00 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Oh – and WormInHand is completely correct about being the choice of warriors in many cultures. Many still wear them for ceremonial dress.

Although I have to say that the Greek one, at the risk of offending Greeks for they are very protective of their military dress code, does appear to be a bit too flamboyant for military use - I can understand and see where the kilt was derived from but I cannot for the life of me see a brigade of Greek warriors lining up in anything that looks even vaguely like their ceremonial uniform of today.

So thats definitely upset the Greeks then...

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:32 pm  

WormInHand wrote:

Has been the apparel of choice for most of history - the attire of great warriors to boot - the Romans, Scots, Greeks, Sikhs, Egyptians etc.

Trousers are a relatively new concept for the majority of civilisation, a garment worn by few cultures in antiquity and therefore should be regarded with deep suspicion.

On the contrary, in the cooler climes such as the UK, skirts are nature's way of warning us about the wearer ... i.e. it's either a woman or an attention-seeker.
Anyway, if the Scots were such great warriors, how come they lost so often to trousered redcoats?

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:40 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Anyway, if the Scots were such great warriors, how come they lost so often to trousered redcoats?

Because you t0ssers had to support your German king!

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:50 pm  

WIZEB wrote:

Because you t0ssers had to support your German king!

And a minority of Scots stuck with the softcock Bonnie (snigger) Prince who escaped dressed as a woman (no irony lost there then) ... and lost to the trousered civilisation.
Putting any perceived rights and wrongs aside, the skirts still lost.

Re: Men in skirts : Sun Jun 09, 2013 2:52 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

And a minority of Scots stuck with the softcock Bonnie (snigger) Prince who escaped dressed as a woman (no irony lost there then) ... and lost to the trousered civilisation.
Putting any perceived rights and wrongs aside, the skirts still lost.