Quote:
Originally posted by sugar and spice
Just because you say it's not about sexism doesn't make it so. The fact that managers perceive a skirt as more professional smacks of sexism -- because even if, on one level, it's about professionalism, WHY is it considered more professional to be wearing a skirt?
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It's the whole "woman knowing her place" thing. Docetboy said that a woman in pants is "try[ing] to look like a man." What do we say when a woman's in charge of a family? We say that she "wears the pants," i.e. that she's assuming a male role: being strong, assertive, making money, supporting others, and setting the rules. If a man lets his wife "wear the pants," he's seen as being less of a man. He's "whipped." By keeping women in skirts, we keep them in traditional roles.
So to follow that argument, a professional woman is one who wears a skirt, symbolic of knowing her place. Where is her place? Subordinate to men, of course.