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From: ecl@hocsj.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Dress Codes
Message-ID: <134@hocsj.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Sep-84 08:49:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: hocsj.134
Posted: Tue Sep 25 08:49:56 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Sep-84 03:53:09 EDT
References: <360@houxb.UUCP>, <502@pucc-i>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 32

REFERENCE:  <360@houxb.UUCP>, <502@pucc-i>

 >	When I worked as a secretary (for one year, at Syracuse University),
 >there was *no* dress code specified for me.  The office was rather casual
 >(Student Government Association).  For the first few weeks, I wore shirt,
 >tie, slacks, etc.  After a while, the tie got dropped from the apparel
 >collection with no complaints.  During my last weeks on the job, jeans
 >and t-shirts/sweatshirts/jerseys worked just fine.  I wonder if a woman
 >in the same job could have gotten away with this sort of stuff.

Here at AT&T (Bell Laboratories, what-have-you), male MTS's (engineers, to
those who don't follow the terminology) regularly wear t-shirts and jeans.
Female MTS's don't--to do so would risk being classified as a clerk or some
other position "below" MTS.  (Dressy jeans and heels seem to be common
secretarial dress though).  I try to compromise by wearing slacks (perhaps
jeans cut, but not Lee's, Levi's, or anything else in the blue denim range)
and shirts purchased in the boy's department (Izod and L.L.Bean are about
as casual as I feel I can get).  I often go the pants, jacket, and tie
(regular or bow) route.  (One exception--if 18 inches of snow have fallen the
night before and have to be shoveled before I go to work, it's jeans and a
flannel shirt--hardly anyone's there to see it anyway!)

Since discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal, a company would have a
very hard case insisting that a woman wear a dress--particularly if she were
dressed just like all her male colleagues.

I'd be curious on other women's experiences with trying to figure out what
to wear to be treated at their job level.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					...ihnp4!hocsj!ecl