Office Wear

According to research from the Paris-Sorbonne University, women who wear low-cut tops in job application photographs are up to five times more likely to receive an interview offer than those who wear round-neck clothing.

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Dr Sevag Kertechian, who carried out the research, said that the results were quite shocking and negative, but not necessarily surprising, and showed we need to conduct more research.

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Quite apart from the fact that women shouldn't feel pressured to wear high heels or low-cut tops at work if they don't feel comfortable, it wouldn't necessarily even help their careers if they did.

It's only a few years since a study revealed that bosses considered low-cut tops one of the biggest mistakes a female employee can make, and that one in five managers had fired someone for inappropriate dress.

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This indicates that society has very different ideas of this situation when it comes to men and women. If there is a threat of being fired, or losing a promotion for inappropriate dress, then it matters that there are many more ways in which women might be considered to be dressed inappropriately than men.

The dramatically different surveys have one thing in common in that they both suggest that a woman's workplace performance may be judged on her appearance, and specifically on how sexual or attractive that appearance is considered to be.

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But for women, office dress requirements and surveys such as these create a carnival of complex hoops to jump through, with the rules seeming to change constantly and no easy way to win.

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In short, women in the workplace often find themselves trying to walk a fine line between madeup but not overdone, smart but not prudish, stylish but not flamboyant, neat but not uptight. Suddenly, clothing becomes more than just what you wear to work, it is who you are, and how good you are at your job. This isn't happening to men, who often complain that women use their sexuality in the workplace, or scoop undeserved promotions by dressing provocatively.

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For many large-breasted women, finding smart, well-fitting office clothes that reveal no cleavage at all can be a real challenge. But why should they pay the price of somebody else's perception about what that small patch of flesh signifies?

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Suggestions of what women should and shouldn't wear in the workplace may seem harmless on the surface, but in reality they risk compounding the normalised judgment of women on the basis of appearance instead of performance. Unless a woman is turning up to the office in a bikini or a snowsuit, we should be focusing on her work, not what she's wearing.

The Guardian