Subfusc

[supergee]

Ungendered academic dress at Oxford (title chosen because I like the word)

Thanx to andrewducker

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Heh, that's taken a looooong time. We would all have loved to wear pants. The traditional student response was to wear the most distracting subfusc possible in hopes of putting rival examinees off their game (and also in the traditional student response to authority; Oxford and Cambridge both still employ beadles, whose main function used to be catching students ungowned when they were supposed to be gowned, and secondary function, catching them out of college after curfew. Outwitting them was a whole section of one's undergraduate education. I can still tell you where and how to get over the walls of half a dozen colleges.) I've seen some micro-skirts and red flowers in teeth. But we female students were examined to make sure we didn't flash any bare leg, and in summer and with anything other than a midi-skirt, that was a right pain. (I bought a skirt specially at the flea market.) Pants would have been so much easier.

M