She added that the uniform policy was "generic" which meant that it could be purchased from anywhere, and the only piece of branded attire was a school tie, which was given to existing students for free. The issue, she said, was simply that "shorts do not feature as part of the main school uniform".

In an interview with Reuters TV, he said the current wave of women speaking out about inequality “makes you aware, that the time has come that you can’t take a few things for granted, especially the categorisation of humanity. “I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, I think biological difference inequality is extremely primitive and extremely stupid if I may say so,” he added.

This Halloween, hundreds of women dressed as bandaged-wrapped mummies will march for the rights of working mothers. Campaigners say that archaic legislation allows workplaces to discriminate; about one in nine new mothers said they have been forced out of their jobs, according to a 2015 report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which could mean as many as 54,000 women a year.