Visible bra straps, teeny tops - this woman boss has had enough! Dress for the office girls, not a hen night!
The young woman sitting opposite me had submitted a pitch-perfect application letter and one of the best CVs I'd seen. She had been one of almost 70 applicants for a job on the magazine where I'm editor, and her application alone should have been my star candidate, but the minute she walked into my office, and before she even opened her mouth, she failed the interview.
Cleavage or bust: Women are wearing low-cut tops and revealing far too much flesh in the office, according to one female boss. She was wearing a 'spray-on' dress, cut low enough to reveal yards of cleavage and high enough to barely skim her thighs, with shoes so high she had trouble walking in them. Those clothes spoke volumes more than the carefully crafted CV and told me two essential things: this woman is not intelligent, and she does not respect me or herself.
The way we dress for work has become a minefield. We live in less formal times, where dress codes have been all but abandoned and the old 'power dressing' rules for women were killed off when we stopped wanting to behave or look like men at work. As women became more confident and more powerful in the workplace, we felt free to be more feminine and more individual. Our dress codes relaxed. But relaxed has turned into confusion and led to a workplace awash with women who look as if they've just dropped in on their way to a hen night.
The way we dress has a huge effect on the way we perceive ourselves, and on the way we're perceived. Sadly, the two don't always match up. My star candidate in the sexy dress, for example, may have looked in her mirror that morning and seen 'confident, individual, fashionable'. I saw 'bimbo, trying too hard, someone who doesn't have the sense to dress for the context in which she's going to be seen'. The more ambitious you are, or the more your job matters to you, the more seriously you should consider the messages your clothes and personal presentation are giving off. Not for the office: Hen night attire should be left at home
Peter Glick, a psychologist at Lawrence University in the U.S., has researched the way women dress for work, and found some depressing - if unsurprising - results. Sexy clothing and over-high heels, for example, are considered inappropriate for both senior and junior staff, but the senior woman will be more harshly judged for it, and seen as more threatening and untrustworthy, and less competent or intelligent - and that's by male and female colleagues alike.
Of course it shouldn't matter what we wear - we should be judged solely on what we say or do. But it does matter how we dress - that's the world we live in.
The young woman sitting opposite me had submitted a pitch-perfect application letter and one of the best CVs I'd seen. She had been one of almost 70 applicants for a job on the magazine where I'm editor, and her application alone should have been my star candidate, but the minute she walked into my office, and before she even opened her mouth, she failed the interview.
Cleavage or bust: Women are wearing low-cut tops and revealing far too much flesh in the office, according to one female boss. She was wearing a 'spray-on' dress, cut low enough to reveal yards of cleavage and high enough to barely skim her thighs, with shoes so high she had trouble walking in them. Those clothes spoke volumes more than the carefully crafted CV and told me two essential things: this woman is not intelligent, and she does not respect me or herself.
The way we dress for work has become a minefield. We live in less formal times, where dress codes have been all but abandoned and the old 'power dressing' rules for women were killed off when we stopped wanting to behave or look like men at work. As women became more confident and more powerful in the workplace, we felt free to be more feminine and more individual. Our dress codes relaxed. But relaxed has turned into confusion and led to a workplace awash with women who look as if they've just dropped in on their way to a hen night.
The way we dress has a huge effect on the way we perceive ourselves, and on the way we're perceived. Sadly, the two don't always match up. My star candidate in the sexy dress, for example, may have looked in her mirror that morning and seen 'confident, individual, fashionable'. I saw 'bimbo, trying too hard, someone who doesn't have the sense to dress for the context in which she's going to be seen'. The more ambitious you are, or the more your job matters to you, the more seriously you should consider the messages your clothes and personal presentation are giving off. Not for the office: Hen night attire should be left at home
Peter Glick, a psychologist at Lawrence University in the U.S., has researched the way women dress for work, and found some depressing - if unsurprising - results. Sexy clothing and over-high heels, for example, are considered inappropriate for both senior and junior staff, but the senior woman will be more harshly judged for it, and seen as more threatening and untrustworthy, and less competent or intelligent - and that's by male and female colleagues alike.
Of course it shouldn't matter what we wear - we should be judged solely on what we say or do. But it does matter how we dress - that's the world we live in.
Shelley, APA
Taken from an article by Maureen Rice, Daily Mail 20 July 2009
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