Annie Rose Strasser and Tara Culp-Ressler for ThinkProgress wrote a good article about dress codes and slut shaming. A middle-school in New Jersey banned girls from wearing strapless dresses to the prom, and whatever your feelings are about the "appropriateness" of strapless dresses for preteens, dress codes and uniforms almost exclusively target girls
My private high school required girls wear a uniform -- plaid skirt, white blouse with a collar, socks or tights in school colors only, and a shoe that wasn't a sneaker or a sandal -- while the boys could wear anything they wanted except jeans, tee shirts, and sneakers. This was because the girls "needed" the uniform. The boys didn't need a uniform because, well, boys aren't into silly and superfluous things like clothes. (I started high school during the ass-end of the eighties. Like hell they weren't. Judging solely on the boys' sartorial choices, my high school was like a mix of House Party, Saved by the Bell. and a midwesterner's interpretation of Less Than Zero.) And had we the agency to dress ourselves we might do something crazy and show a little too much thigh or clavicle and -- gasp -- distract the boys.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have been the first to cry "slut shaming," or at least, damn unfair. (We did lobby for the boys to get uniforms of their own, something along the lines of gray pants and a white shirt. At least we'd look like we belonged at the same school.) But we took at as fact: We needed to be told what to wear because, you know, apocalypse or whatever.
I don't know where you're posting from, but in England most school uniforms are unisex, consisting of trousers and T-shirts/polonecks, although girls can wear skirts if they so choose. I think it's a good move, although I miss the school tie, which was outlawed on spurious health and safety reasons.
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