Girls were forced to wear skirts at school to 'preserve chivalry.' So they sued -- and won.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/03/30/girls-were-forced-wear-skirts-school-preserve-chivalry-so-they-sued-won/?utm_term=.c8aae98a32e4By Kayla Epstein March 30 at 4:35 PM North Carolina
Every so often, Charter Day School in North Carolina would hold fire or tornado drills in which students had to kneel and protect their heads from flying debris or crawl on the ground to avoid imaginary smoke.
But girls had a much more immediate threat to fear: the boys.
“I don’t think the boys were supposed to be looking up our skirts, but they did,” former student Keely Burks said in a statement to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. “I wished I was wearing pants or shorts during those drills.”
She was prohibited by the school’s uniform policy.
Hot damn!!!! Treating girls like it's the 14th century! If that's the case, the boys should not be allowed running shoes made from synthetics, electronics of any kind, and they should remove any and all electronics from the school!! No school bells, no lights, no heat, no running water in the bathrooms. I mean, if we're gonna go all medieval, then let's start with latin and quit when they can read the bible. No standardized tests, give them all quills, parchment and inkwells!!!
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At my boarding school when we had to be outside in the winter to change classes we could wear pants, but they had to be the right kinds of pants, no jeans, especially not those with holes. My roommate was constantly getting sent back to our room to change. 
The girls had a uniform and the guys wore dress pants and shirts. 
My boarding school had been there since 1879, after all. My friend went to Catholic School and they did wear uniforms - and I remember that they rolled them up since shorter skirts were the norm back then, LOL. But in public school girls wore skirts and not even boys wore jeans. I remember when the school picnic was unexpectedly canceled, the boy who sat next to me was sent home to change! 
In the winter and we could wear pants then, just not jeans. Though by my senior year they had even relaxed that. And it sounds like you were in school at the same time as my brother - who was four years behind me. He stayed and graduated from public school and I can remember picking him up from school once and all the kids were wearing flannel shirts and jeans! What a difference only a few years made!
I remember someone in my family who organized a teacher rebellion in a public middle school in central NY state.
The principal had been sending teachers home who dared to wear pants. It's unimaginable, but I remember it clearly.
So, they picked a day when they knew the principal needed all teachers on board, and they all wore "pant suits." The pant suits were thick, stiff, bulky, and long: Mid thigh tunics that revealed nothing of one's figure. They were about as sexy as a nun's habit.
And from that day on, the principal gave up and had to allow them to wear pants. Here's an example: This one's silk, but I remember clearly they were thick, stiff double knit, a new synthetic polyester fabric.
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