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| A student stands on a wall in a skirt to mock anti-equality protesters opposite. AFP (S) |
"Skirt Day" is held in France every 16th May after the film by the same name. It's an opportunity for many students to denounce sexism in school, at the workplace, and sexism in general. However, needless to say, the idea of men in skirts didn't please the 'Manif Pour Tous' too much; one of the leading French anti-LGBT equality groups, or Le Figaro, the right-wing paper.
A big debate was started by Le Figaro, the national right-wing newspaper, who started a rumor saying that the education board in Nantes asked boys to wear skirts to school last Friday, stating that "not everyone agrees" and "since it's supported by the Nantes education board, it's part of the national education board's program". Of the 142 high-schools in the Nantes academy, only 27 participated.
This is in a political climate where the right is stating "the majority of parents are afraid of the new anti-discrimination education their children are getting since gay marriage was legalized", and worried the left-wing government will start to teach the famous "gender theory" to all of France's schoolchildren, thus teaching them how to be gay, and they can be of the opposite sex if they want to.
Clearly, they've got it all wrong and in reality a lot of parents seem to be happy that schools are breaking down the barriers between men and women, helping to build a more equal future. Children are simply taught that everyone is different and you mustn't discriminate, that women are just as good as men, and some children have two parents of the same-sex. Full stop. No-one is telling them to have a sex change, no-one is telling them to be gay, and no-one is brainwashing them, it's called education.
Something the 'Manif Pour Tous' ("protest for all") is concerned about, because their slogan is "one father, one mother, there's no better for a child". However, taking into consideration the fact that most of this group's members are very implicated Catholics, I must say (having spoken to a lot of them over the last two years), it doesn't surprise me when you hear that "the woman's place is at home" to look after the children and cook dinner I presume, and "the man's place is at work". And they call these wonderful values "tradition".
So without further ado, for those of you who aren't yet acquainted, here they are outside a Nantes high-school picketing "Skirt Day 2014".
What you have just witnessed is around 150 anti-equality protesters in a face-off with 450 high-schoolers. Has that brightened up your day?
If not, know that around 30% to 50% of male students took part in the "Skirt Day", and even more took part in the debates.
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