Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!elroy!ucla-cs!uci-ics!adobe!!pettit@decwrl.dec.COM
From: adobe!!pettit@decwrl.dec.COM (Teri Pettit)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: The issue of physical appearance
Message-ID: <17239@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 9 Jun 89 01:43:25 GMT
Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu
Reply-To: Teri Pettit <adobe!pettit@decwrl.dec.COM>
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View
Lines: 76
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu


In article <5041@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> tan@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Greer Hsing Tan) writes:
>
>Question, what is the appropriate "dress" for a woman in the office?  My
>mother thinks I ought to wear light pink, light blue, beige ... pleated
>pants and a silk blouse ... no argument that this is appropriate, but she
>holds that this is all I should wear.

It depends on whose office. What is appropriate at a bank is different
than what is appropriate at a music production company is different
than what is appropriate at a software company. Your mother must be
blind to the variety of office environments there are in the real
world.

>I tend to favor executive skirts
>with a tailored jacket or some times a sleeveless top (I work in a
>casual environment in Southern California ... it gets hot)

You call executive skirts with a tailored jacket "casual"? I wear blue
jeans and T-shirts or cotton shirts to work almost every day.  (I'm a
software engineer too.) A lot of the second level managers also wear
jeans to work, except on days they have meetings with Japanese
businessmen (Japanese businesswomen seem to be a nonexistent breed) or
IBM representatives :-) This is appropriate here. It wouldn't be
everywhere.

>So, we came to the issue of what the
>objective is to dress.  We agreed that offering an "image", i.e. making
>a first impression, is really the issue.

I would say it is more a matter of expressing an attitude towards ones
coworkers and associates. This attitude is much more pervasive than a
"first impression." It is also why people will dress differently
depending on how the people they are going to be meeting with that day
tend to dress. It has more to do with expressing an attitude of "I
will respect your conventions and values while we are working
together" than it does with what image you want them to have of you.

>But the question is who has
>defined the appropriate "female" attire in the work place in the past?
>Was it not male employers with female secretaries?  If we dress as
>secretaries, is that how we will be constantly perceived regardless
>of our job?

Yes, if the secretaries in your environment tend to dress one way and
women in different positions tend to dress another way, and you dress
like the secretaries, I think you will tend to be perceived like one.
But I don't think this is particularly sexist. A very similar dynamic
occurs with men as well. They dress differently depending on whether
they want to fit in with the technical types or the marketting types
or the artistic types or whatever role divisions tend to exist in
their workplace. (The dress you favor tends to be seen as a
marketting, sales, or non-technical management type around here.
Secretaries tend to wear more colorful, less tailored dresses and
sometimes pants and blouses or sweaters.)

> but if we are to dress toward
>the position we are to achieve, what if the only Lab Directors and
>Executive Technical Directors have all been men in the past, does dressing
>in masculine clothes promote women in executive offices?

Not in many places. Even in "dress for success" type environments
(like investment banking), "masculine looking" suits for women are
seldom seen. I think pants for women are much more acceptable in very
casual environments like us jeans-wearing software types than they are
in more "business-look" environments. Employers and coworkers tend to
look more favorably on women who dress like "one of the gang",
whatever the gang in question dresses like, but not necessarily "one
of the guys."

It sounds like you've scoped out your particular workplace fine, and
your mother should spend a few weeks there if she wants to be
well-informed enough to critique your wardrobe.

	Teri Pettit
	adobe!pettit@decwrl.dec.com