When I first got a gig at Microsoft, my account rep noted that I seemed to dress very differently when I came into the vendor agency office and when I was actually at the Microsoft campus.
I tend to downplay my fashion choices when I work as a coder. It’s hard enough to get taken seriously as a female coder without letting my fellow nerds know that I happen to ADORE red sequins and stiletto heels. Given a choice, I dress more like a character in a video game than the person who programmed said video game.
Still, the choices I make as a coder and a female when it comes to the way I present myself offers up an ethical dilemma.
Am I betraying some sort of Chick Code by dressing down so as to not startle my male colleagues? I don’t mean by dressing work-appropriate; there are many choices of work-appropriate attire that would be far more flattering to me without being at all immodest or unprofessional. I mean a deliberate choice to not wear makeup, or heels, or skirts, or my beloved rhinestone hair accessories and 20s vintage jewelry—in favor of t-shirts, jeans, ponytails, and trainers.
If you’ve seen Criminal Minds, you know that the resident tech genius Miss Penelope Garcia wears AWESOME clothes, jewelry, and accessories. I tend to have the film noir version of her taste in clothing. Hell, let’s be honest: I weekend warrior as a renaissance reenactor and live action roleplayer; I LOVE costuming and looking good.
Still, am I being unethical by failing to live up to my sense of personal expression within professional guidelines? When I was in graduate school in Michigan, I experienced repeated and vicious sexual harassment (and on more than one occasion, actual assault) when dressed in feminine attire, and much less when I wore t-shirts and no makeup.
Should I have kept expressing myself and fought the good fight? Am I being untrue to myself now when I dress down to deliberately appear as a Plain Jane? Am I being disrespectful to the women who broke into the profession I now follow?
What’s a girl to do?
Dress for inconspicuousness.
May 25th, 2010 § 6 comments
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I'm not really sure how I feel about this issue, mainly because my sense of appropriate clothing for work has changed a great deal in the last couple of years. I used to wear a t-shirt and jeans every day, but that was because it was all I owned. When I started buying nicer clothes, I reserved them for other things. Now that the majority of my clothing (my summer clothing, anyway) is dressier than that, I feel comfortable wearing something dressy to work, because it feels like part of me.
You want the focus to be on the work you do, of course. I think as long as you can strike a balance between expressing yourself honestly and not distracting from the work you're doing, you are ok.
It was so easy when I had a uniform to wear every day.
I haven't experienced the degree of bias you have. The only time I've been harassed, I WAS wearing a uniform. I was also 17 and had no clue how to handle myself.
I see what you're saying…but I am NOT striking a balance between expressing myself and work. I am deliberately MISexpressing myself. I just made a word, and unusually, I'm not even proud of it.
1golPb Very true! Makes a change to see soemnoe spell it out like that.
> I am deliberately MISexpressing myself. I just made a word, and unusually, I'm not even proud of it.
Then don't. It might be too simple for me (a guy) to say so, but if you feel so strongly about it, you shouldn't continue doing the thing you actually don't want to do. I'm guessing your male colleagues will eventually come accustomed to the way you look, rather than being startled every single day. I get it though: I don't usually dress up for meetings with other "techies", although I do like wearing suits. That doesn't mean however I go about wearing t-shirts just because I want to fit in, I figure you shouldn't want to do that.
In short: no, don't do it, do what you feel like. The guys at work will (hopefully) accept it.
The guys might accept it, but I'm not looking to create an issue. The problem is that while my colleagues accept and like me, I have to maintain the sort of appearance that makes them and my superiors comfortable to be around me. It's important to get along in corporate environments, and perhaps the rules are simply different for women in traditionally masculine occupations.