Shorts banned? Men choose to wear skirts instead

After shorts were banned from their workplace, Swedish train drivers embraced the nuances of the dress code and wore skirts to work.

Shorts banned? Men choose to wear skirts instead

Commuters in Sweden got an unusual sight this week as their male train drivers donned skirts in protest of a ban on shorts.

It gets up to 35° Celsius inside the train, so when the Swedish train company banned employees from wearing shorts they got creative.

Driver Martin Akersten and about a dozen other conductors have started wearing skirts to work, putting comfort above convention.

“We have always said that when summer comes, we will get some skirts and wear them,” Akersten told the BBC. “It’s very warm weather here so we would like to wear shorts but if we can’t then we have skirts for comfort”.

Arriva, the company that runs the line, could not force the men back into their pants because it would be gender discrimination.

In fact, the company said it would allow all drivers to wear skirts as long as they look “nice and proper”, however, the company also reconsidered the shorts prohibition, putting them back in the dress code.

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