By Julia Hixon
In grade school, many students look forward to not having to abide by dress code on the weekends, breaks, and after they graduate. Dress code, however, continues with you your entire life. Almost every person will have to abide by a dress code in the work environment. Do dress codes get better with age? Are the policies more strict with one gender over the other? Do these rules restrict a person’s self expression or self identity? Let’s look at a few different dress codes to try to find an answer to these questions.
It is very common at a young age for a girl’s dress code to be more strict than a boy’s dress code. It would be safe to believe that this would continue with age: that a woman will always be under a closer eye for dress code.
Women’s Dress Code in the Professional World
From my own personal experience at California State University, Chico: I was speaking with a professor about the Engineering Capstone projects, and we were discussing the importance of how you present yourself at every presentation, especially your final presentation. He told me that it is important for all men to be in a suit to the best of their ability, and it is very important that all women be in a blazer and heels, but it doesn’t matter if they are in slacks or a skirt. When I asked him why it was important that a female student wears heels, he just said that it is a common practice in a real world work environment for engineers. It was just shocking to me that this rule was so specific, and it felt weird that this particular kind of shoe could possibly define whether or not you were a good engineer.
After some personal research, I came across an article by Tylee Bush on Priority HR featuring General Motor’s dress code and the woman that rewrote it. From the article: “In full, GM’s dress code is: “Dress appropriately.”
Mary Barra, the chief executive at General Motors and the woman who worked to change this dress code, did not assign a gender specific rule or a class specific rule. She wants all of her employees to feel comfortable and, most importantly, get the job done. She recognized that what you wear does not affect the result of all of your work as long as you still dress appropriately.
The original dress code was ten pages long with a revision that is now only two words. Slowly, but surely, companies are moving away from a strict dress code to an inclusive and trusting one.
Military Dress Code Expectations of Skin
While dress codes are becoming more inclusive and less strict for genders, are they still suppressing self expression? A very common form of self expression, and controversial, would be tattoos. Tattoos seem to have many rules on them in the work environment.
A career with the most strict rules on tattoos in the work environment would be any in the military. The most strict branch is the Marines.
Their top rule and best summary of their rules is “You CAN have tattoos anywhere on your chest, back, torso, upper arms (NO half or full sleeves), upper thighs, and groin” (OMK, Marine Corps Tattoo Policy). They are allowed to have their tattoos as long as they can be concealed by a PT uniform.
There are also rules as far as what tattoos are and are not appropriate. Now, a Marine can have a tattoo that is not covered by the PT uniform, but the rules become even more strict.
Is it fair to restrict what they put on their body? This is just one example of a career with rules on tattoos. According to Pew Research Center, 40% of Gen-Xers have a tattoo. They also state that “about half (54%) have done one or more of the following: gotten a tattoo, dyed their hair an untraditional color, or had a body piercing in a place other than their ear lobe” (Pew Research). All of these listed bodily changes are considered to be forms of self expression. Many careers and jobs have rules that restrict hair color, hair cuts, nails, piercings, and tattoos. Many people use these practices as a way of expressing themselves, so should dress codes be allowed to restrict this? As previously stated by Mary Barra, dress appropriately. If more than half of a generation has normalized these ways of expressing themselves, can it be deemed as inappropriate?
If more than half of a generation has normalized these ways of expressing themselves, can it be deemed as inappropriate?
As we can see, dress code can be based on gender and can be used to suppress self expression. Dress code does not seem to get better with age. We do have the power to change it. We have the power to “dress appropriately” and define what that means.
Sources
https://www.priorityhr.com/blog/entry/general-motors-company-dress-code-is-2-words