Abigail L. Ureña
Prof. Sara Jacobson
ENGL 11000 R
29 October 2019
How Fashion and Dress in the Workplace has Evolved and How These Changes Affect Stereotypes in the Workplace
Due to the large feminist movement of the 1960s, women were enjoying more prominent roles in the workforce, which called for new styles of clothing. The 60s were a decade of change for women; they replaced the men that were now at war (Khan Academy). Many women worked outside the home before the war, however, it was usually certain groups: women of color, and single women, who have almost always had to work. During and after the war, work became abruptly available for an increasing number of women. These new roles called for more modern and different ways of dressing. This research essay will mention the new fashion trends that were popularized and the clothes that were advertised and marketed for women that worked outside of the home. The way in which work clothes have evolved as well as how the stereotypes of working women has changed throughout the decades, creating a larger divide between these two decades.This essay primarily focuses on women, as they relate to appearance and professional settings because many of the issues faced by women in professional settings are unique. Therefore, it would not be appropriate to address these issues as they relate to both men and women within the same framework.
In the early 2000s, the increasing number of women that were entering the workplace ceased, due to a large recession. The portion of working women dropped without bouncing back; the gender wage gap and the faster growing male wages, discouraged women from joining the workforce. The inception of the new century brought many things for women, and this led to a substantial change in the culture and fashion of the professional work environment. The differences between workplace culture in the 1960s and the 2000s was immense. The goal is to understand how fashion has affected these differences, and how they have led to different stereotypes in a professional setting.
The thesis Clothing, Image, and Presence: Women in the Corporate Workplace, written by Colombe Nadeau-O’Shea, describes all of the aspects that can either enhance or detract from a person’s overall career success in a professional workplace. According to Nadeau-O’Shea, clothing, appearance, and grooming, are all aspects that interact to create an individual’s physical and psychological identity in the workplace. In this thesis, the author sets the mood for her analysis by using stance and language to argue that the obsession with beauty and physical appearance, detracts from a women’s intellectual value at the workplace. The main reason for this discrepancy is that the history of women as workers within corporate settings is quite different than that of men. Nadeau-O’Shea focuses on the history of women entering the workplace and how beauty standards have affected the success of these women in the workplace. The author says, “ Despite advances in this regard, young women continue to be victims of this beauty obsession, which is effectively harming many women physically, financially and emotionally” (Nadeau-O’Shea 5). Within an office environment it is of the utmost importance to appear and dress appropriately; a requirement expected from both men and women. A corporate office is a place often filled with confusion when it pertains to navigating complex gender dynamics. The author mentions the burden women face everyday in the workplace, and the factors that have to do with this issue; “pressure that women face to adhere to cultural beauty norms, both on a personal level and professional level, and often despite receiving little to no feedback, is compounded by the relatively “new” relationship that women have with the corporate world”. (Nadeau-O’Shea 5). For many centuries, a man’s place was in the office or at work to provide monetarily, and a woman’s place was in the home, to tend to the family and care for the home. This dynamic has been steadily changing since the 1960s; when women first began working outside the home. Even though a large gender gap exists in the corporate world, we are beginning to see more women enter the corporate world and many even reach its upper echelons. During the earlier decades of the 20th century, many efforts were made to introduce women into the workforce; however, many laws and customs made it difficult for married women and women of color to retain jobs.
In fact, in 1942, a federal National Selective Service program was put in place to recruit women into the industrial labour force during the War, due to the severe shortage of workers. The program, however, sought only to register single women, excluding married women entirely despite the severe need. Marriage was such an integral aspect of Western culture during this time that there were laws in place that barred married women from working. (Nadeau-O’Shea 15)
The exponentially growing number of educated women holding professional jobs, ceased in the 2000s. One of the reasons for this is the gender wage gap and discrimination, which provides less incentive and motivation for married women to continue working outside of the home. This fact, paired with the much broader scope of clothing and fashion available to women, poses an issue for many women in corporate settings.
Women have a unique relationship with clothing and fashion. Not only are women judged based on their dressing styles in a professional environment, but are also judged in contemporary society, so much so that often their appearance is used to make assumptions about their cognitive abilities. Nadeau-O’Shea, provides an example how women may be perceived to be more emotional and have lower cognitive abilities than men.
For example, middle-class, Western cultures in Europe and North-America still use gendered terms and relationships drawn from biology to describe other phenomena that are completely non-biological, like politics, morality and social relations. The idea is that inherent gender divisions, male versus female, and the stereotypes that accompany them, are natural because they “…grew out of a scientific explanation of biological sexuality”. This notion is also tied to the fact that the qualities that are often thought of as physically beautiful in women are simply symbols of female behavior that a culture or period in time considers desirable, meaning that “beauty” is always prescribing behavior, and not appearance. The implications of this 12 reasoning are significant: connections between the human body, gender, words and acts are reinforced, leading to gendered bodies being judged and interpreted on “unequally valued dualities: good/bad, matter/spirit, male/female”. These aspects indicate that appearance, gender and cognitive abilities have been intertwined for a long time. (Nadeau-O’Shea 11, 12)
Despite the immense number of women working in professional settings; gender equality has not yet been achieved. Evidence of this divide is very abundant in the corporate workplace. Gender discrimination and stereotyping are rampant within these settings, and may serve to undermine and challenge women’s roles in the workplace. Still there are many barriers to overcome the discrimination of women in the workplace.
The first world war brought many changes, including the roles of women and their clothing. The dawn of WWI liberated women’s clothing, and this showed how relaxing the lines and silhouettes of the clothing did not restrict women in many ways as clothes had done before; this contributed to many women joining the workforce during this time. Wartime liberated women from corsets and dresses with full bustles. These women that were now emancipated from the contraists of their attire could be seen carrying out new roles as working members of society. These wartime efforts to make women more prominent in society, has had an impact on fashion now. Pantsuits and more relaxed fits, which are customary now, can be dedicated to the change in fashion standards during the times of war. There was a huge distinction between the pre-war “restriction” fashion and the post-war “release” fashion (Pidd 1) .
In the 1960s, “37.8% of women in the United States participated in the workforce” (U.S. Census Bureau). This was a massive increase compared to the past decades. During the 1960s clothing became slightly less casual than the past decades. Men started wearing more fitted suits and hats; it became more fashionable and appropriate for women to show their legs more, “minidresses and miniskirts became fashionable for women for the first time” (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). A Presidential Executive Order in 1967 banned the discrimination on the basis of sex in hiring and employment. This allowed women to further integrate into a professional workplace. Thus, society adopted the structured look as androgynous as women’s rights advanced. This was said to have sparked the second wave of feminism in the U.S.
In the 2000s, “59.5% of women participated in the U.S. workforce” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Attire in the workplace experienced many changes during this decade. New guidelines were established, these new guidelines prohibited certain restrictions and requirements placed on women’s clothing. After these guidelines were announced in New York City, many of these standards were banned in the professional setting, “Enforcing dress codes, uniforms, and grooming standards that impose different requirements based on sex or gender.” (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). This means that employers cannot require men to wear ties unless women are required to wear ties; women do not have to wear heels unless men have to wear heels. Since the 2000s, there has been a more relaxed attitude when it pertains to clothes worn by employees in a professional environment. There have been measures to move away from the traditional suit in the workplace, and more women began swapping out their skirts and dresses for pants in the workplace. However, “ with jeans allowed as regularly in the office as blazers, women no longer feel the need to impose their status of power through suits. Women are re-asserting their femininity by wearing dresses and skirts—a new type of power play.” (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).
What women wear to work says a lot about how far we’ve come in gender equality. According to the author, Theresa Avila, “To See How Far Women Have Come, Just Look at Their Work Clothes” (Mic). In the 1960s, women were required to appear ‘ladylike’, and dress ‘respectable’ by wearing dresses with high necklines. During this decade, the American economy grew and legislation for equal employment gave women incentives to join the workforce, “more women populated offices across the United States,…. Women also remained single for longer periods of time and stayed in school longer, the report found, thereby increasing their chances to move up the career ladder.” (Mic). The author used tone and genre to get her message across to her audience. The author mentions that, “Our skinny pants and heels prove that being powerful and being feminine aren’t mutually exclusive” (Mic), this helps the audience better understand the contrasts of dressing for work between the decades. In the 2000s, more options became available and acceptable for women to wear to work. The last decade has seen women explore more style choices than ever, pantsuits are almost obsolete, and women now dress more closely to what they would wear when not working, a vernacular style of dressing.
Fashion trends that became popular in the 1960s, were pastel colors (Mashable). In many photographs depicting what women wore to work in the 1960s it can be seen that many of these women wore bright and pastel colors, compared to the muted and subtle hues worn by women decades before them. During this time many women also sported shorter hair styles, and wore their hair in volumized updo styles. According to Business Insider, a trend that was popular among working women of the 60s, were pussy-bow blouses; “One fashion trend in particular took on special significance for career-oriented women. Pussy-bow blouses were viewed as a fitting equivalent to the traditional masculine suit-and-tie look.” (Business Insider). For many women this was seen as an attempt to be feminine but fit into what was then a male world. Formality in workplace dress codes, have decreased since the 2000s. In the 2000s, it could be seen that many workplaces had adopted a more casual style, women now sported many different outfit choices, they also had the ability to wear many different hair styles and makeup choices.
In a dissertation written by Andrew Douglas Hale, titled The Effects of Race, Gender, and Clothing Style on Stereotype Activation, the author describes how one’s outward appearance shapes the perceptions others hold of them and how they can become incredibly useful for people in all points of life, from interviewing for a job to making a good impression on a date (Hale 4). This becomes relevant later when women began wearing pants. In an interview with my grandma, Felicia Paredes, she mentioned that when she began wearing pants to work, the reactions she received differed greatly compared to when she wore a skirt or a dress. Felicia mentioned that her male co-workers were often confused and didn’t think that pants were appropriate attire for women. This prejudice transcended past the workplace, and into her daily life. Her new clothing choice, was received by many “objections, protests, and rude comments” from many of the people around her. At this time, it was so unfathomable for women to make such a daring fashion statement as was wearing pants. The shorter hair styles, bold makeup looks, and vibrant colors popularized at this time, can be used as evidence that women in the workforce changed fashion because they opted for trends that were more suitable for their new roles in the workplace.
In an article written in 2007 titled “The DOs and don’ts of Workplace Fashion” it listed the “golden rules” for dressing appropriately for the workplace. This article mentions that one should, “DO dress for the job you want and not the one you’ve got — appearance is a key indicator of how seriously you take your career and your company. Are you striving to move up the career ladder or do you look more like the handyman carrying it around?”(Aziz 1). This may have had an impact on the women of the 20th century, they adopted new styles of dressing and their positions in the workplace became more prominent and significant. As the decades passed, the women began wearing clothes that allowed them to have more mobility in their daily lives; this was proportional to the mobility they experienced in the workplace.
Donna Karan once said in an interview, “The reason is started Donna Karan, it was a line for me and my friends,…. this line had seven pieces, a navy blue blazer, a white t-shirt, a pair of jeans… and a trench coat”. These pieces became standardized as part of women’s fashion. Karan, is a pioneer in women’s workwear fashion. She used simple silhouettes, and versatile colors and items to create a look that has become a standard for the modern working woman. Karan also stated, “Women do make the change, women are the change makers, there is a change that is happening right now that is far bigger than fashion”. This can be credited to the women that changed fashion in the workplace. The prejudices that women suffer based on their preferred style of dress is immense; fashion in the workplace has evolved tremendously so has the stereotypes women in a professional face (Hale 8).
The obsession with outward, physical beauty is highly problematic for a number of reasons, one of them being that this value placed on appearance serves to detract from women’s intellectual value, which is directly applicable to their presence and success in the workplace. Women’s new roles in the workplace called for more modern and versatile modes of dressing. Since women first entered the workforce, fashion has evolved enormously. The stereotypes and prejudices that women face have also evolved. Women in the workforce is what changed fashion. Their new positions in society called for more modern ways of dressing, which prompted them to begin wearing pants. Women now have the largest options on what clothes to wear that are appropriate for a professional workplace. The newer fashion trends and more versatile modes of dressing have allowed women to become more successful in the workplace.
Works Cited
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