Women as employees

A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, innovative, and creative. We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much (Adichie, 2012). Which is interesting in our society when taking into consideration our history, women came as workers and labourers not as wives with the onset of colonisation and slavery and fought side by side with men when it was ended and continued to build the nation afterwards (Hosein, 2009). This is evident in the cities as it is in the home as there are women employed in every field of both skilled and unskilled labour with varying proportions to men because some fields are more welcoming than others and women sometimes have to betray who they are as women to survive in the work environment.

Heels, walking through the city observing, there were tall ones and short ones and many in-betweens. Skirts or pants? Yes quite a few of varying lengths and fits. In high paying administrative jobs it would seem that women would dress to hide or remove emphasis from their female form to avoid the stereotypes associated with femininity like bossiness, emotional irrationality and lack of ability to critically think. In the lower paying administrative and retailer service jobs it appears as though women wear more form fitting clothing. This is either due to the fact that they are surrounded by their peers (other low paid working class women) and dress to be attractive either for males or to compete with other females (I believe it’s the latter simply because most suitors are rejected openly) or they attempt to use their femininity and the preconceived notions that come attached to their advantage in the work place (to bask in mediocrity, to be asked to do certain jobs over others, etc). Women’s work wear is a complicated as there is the need to either emphasize the female form or hide it, very few have the confidence in the work environment and just exist it seems it all appears intentional.

Or am I just a product of my society and think that women use their bodies to send messages and to gain socially and economically? Is that I am assuming that they are not just clothing themselves based on what they can afford or what they have but serving a purpose, feeding the gaze, the scrutiny that they face. Am I also generalizing women’s work wear to the office suits and uniforms of various franchises? Yes, because I have thus far ignored the women that work in the protective services, in the sanitation services, on the port and within the construction industry. Their jumpsuits, boots and protective gear are women’s work wear too simply because women wear them.  

References

Adichie, C. 2012. TEDxEuston (transcript) ‘We should all be Feminists’. Vialouge.

Hosein, G. 2010. TEDxUWI (video) “Revolution A Way of Life”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUp2JClvEcM .