Why I Feel More Confident In Men's Clothing

A couple nights ago, I met an outgoing businessman at a meetup in Santa Monica. The man applauded my intellect and passion at such a young age, and I was genuinely grateful for the compliment. We continued to talk and by the end of the conversation, this man who was thirteen years my elder, proceeded to ask me out on a romantic date. It felt disgusting. As an eighteen year old girl who got all dolled up in a pencil skirt just for the occasion, it sucks to realize that the only reason an older gentleman applauded my business skills was to get with me. Before last night, no one had ever applauded my intellect at such a high level and now it feels as though it was completely false.

So I told my mother this story in hopes to hear that it gets better as I get older. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.  My mother has actually conducted a social experiment at work. For the longest time, she has wanted a pixie cut and only recently had she gained the courage to do so.  At no time in her decision process did she think about how her hair would influence the way others looked at her. Now that she has the shorter hair, my mother has realized just how much your appearance influences the way you are treated. She told me that now that she has what is perceived to be a “boy’s cut”, the comments in the hall are more about her ideas and less about her looks. The comments about her dress or her appearance have decreased and she noted that she felt like heterosexual men made the biggest change in how they approached her.

In her true southern mom fashion, her last advice for me was to dress like a man. And I can’t help but think that maybe she has a point. The perception of women as sexualized objects doesn’t seem to be leaving any time soon. Although women may be seen as climbing the corporate ladder more often than before, we are still nowhere near equality in perception. Business Insider wrote an article on just how much your dress can influence other’s perceptions. I thought that it was interesting that there was a tip specified just for women. At no surprise at all, it was about how much of their bodies were showing. The article suggested no short skirts or spaghetti straps. Besides the obvious point that they are unprofessional for either gender, there is some real significance that they targeted the advice towards women only. To be professional as a woman requires me to cover up. This leads to two different issues. Firstly, it assumes that all men are sharks and I am the meat. Not all men are sexist and generalizing them as so only feeds into their need to prove their masculinity with misogynistic behavior. Secondly, it proves my fear that I need to start dressing more masculine to be taken seriously.  And as much as I would love to protest the system like the college kid I am, I also need to realize that as a young adult, I should be doing everything in my power to establish myself as a serious, intellectual businesswoman.

As I write this article, I can’t help but think about my high school days when I used to tell the popular girls to stop complaining about all the male attention. We as a society need to stop doing that. We need to stop criticizing girls for speaking about their unsolicited romantic encounters with men, especially in the business world. All it does is contribute to a culture that views men so high above women that women should be thankful just to get any attention from men. So please, before you make that comment about how I should be grateful for this inappropriate gesture by a man thirteen years my elder, don’t.

All I want is for people to value my education and new perspective. I hope for people to see me beyond my gender and I know that dream may never be possible in my lifetime. If I want to be successful, I will have to manipulate the system and start dressing more masculine. Because Lord knows if I started being assertive in a skirt, I would be labeled bossy.