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<\/p>\nAnnie Sinclair thought the way she dressed for work at her boutique PR company was fine. \u201cI wore pants and heels \u2013 nice ones. In my eyes I looked good,\u201d she says. But her bosses thought otherwise. She looked good. But not quite \u201cgood\u201d enough.<\/p>\n
Sinclair was in a debrief meeting with her CEO and three colleagues, discussing a client meeting that had just taken place with an older man known to \u201clike the ladies,\u201d as Sinclair puts it. Her boss started by telling her that she had been \u201ctoo shy\u201d in front of the client and, furthermore, she should have \u201cdressed up more.\u201d \u201cI was basically told bluntly that I had to dress in a slutty way to impress him in future,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
An older woman chimed in. \u201cOh yeah, I just flash a bit of cleavage, it totally works,\u201d she told Sinclair, laughing.<\/p>\n
Everyone in the room found it funny, Sinclair says. She didn\u2019t. She resigned shortly afterward.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sinclair\u2019s story isn\u2019t unusual. Bank executive Mimi Fuller, 33, says that her boss got her a blow dry appointment before an important meeting, with no warning. \u201cJust before the meeting one of the top-level managers said she had booked me into a hairdresser,\u201d she says. \u201cI surf before work whereas she has two blow dries a week, so our ideas of \u2018acceptable levels of appearance\u2019 are different. It\u2019s not like I was a mess in any way that day though.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consult any HR guide or, for that matter, the various Sex Discrimination Acts that apply to the various states and territories of Australia, and you quickly discover that any employer who asks their female workers to change their appearance in a way that they wouldn\u2019t ask their male counterparts to do is potentially breaking the law. \u201cRules regarding dress could be discriminatory if they single out some employees for different treatment because of their background or certain personal characteristics,\u201d the Australian Human Rights Commission explains, going on to explain that gender is one of those characteristics.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s acceptable for employees to have a broad dress code, and ask their employees to be neat and presentable, but it\u2019s potentially discriminatory to force a womea to wear heels, makeup or anything else that a man wouldn\u2019t be asked to wear.<\/p>\n
And yet it happens. Over and over again.<\/p>\n
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Katie Lewis was working behind a bar in a popular Perth, Australia pub, pulling beers. She wore jeans and sneakers, for comfort and practicality. But when her pub was taken over by a company who insisted its female wait tables wearing short shorts, Lewis was uncomfortable, particularly as none of the men who worked there were asked to dress differently.<\/p>\n
But she liked her job and she liked her boss, so she agreed to give it a go.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt like I was being stared at. Just uncomfortable. If they\u2019d just said \u2018denim shorts\u2019 or made some kind of blanket \u2018shorts\u2019 rule, I wouldn\u2019t have minded so much \u2013 but the fact that they said \u2018short shorts\u2019 I was uncomfortable,\u201d she says. Lewis asked to go back to her old job behind the bar, wearing jeans, and her boss agreed. But slowly he began cutting back her shifts until Lewis\u2019 job barely existed. Discouraged, she left.<\/p>\n
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Lisa Heap, a women\u2019s rights advocate, says she hears stories like these almost every day. \u201cWe\u2019re still seeing women as being defined by the way they look at work,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd, as stupid as it sounds seeing as women make up half the workforce, it\u2019s because women are still seen as an oddity in relation to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March, The Daily Mail took this leering attitude to new heights when it published a shocking front page comparing British Prime Minister Teresa May\u2019s perfectly uneventful outfit to that of her Scottish counterpart, Nicola Sturgeon, whose dress choice was similar. The paper treated them like exotic birds in a zoo, critiquing every inch of their appearance from the slimness of their legs to the fabric of their clothes. \u201cSo, is this proof the fashion world fails to cater for career women and there really are so few options for a high-powered female that everyone ends up dressing the same?\u201d The newspaper asked.<\/p>\n
Well no. It\u2019s proof that once again women aren\u2019t taken seriously in the workplace, and are looked at like they\u2019re freaks \u2014 even if they\u2019re two of the most powerful humans on the planet.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Australian law is supposed to protect women from having to face the perpetual barrier of appearance in their workplaces and let them get on with the job. But Heap says the law is largely toothless as very few women ever speak up if they feel they\u2019re being asked to change their clothes, hair or makeup in a discriminatory way, for the very real fear of being persecuted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve represented women in these sorts of discrimination situations and the system does not work well for them at all,\u201d Heap says. \u201cIf you make a complaint you\u2019re potentially jeopardizing employment if you\u2019re still working there. If you\u2019re not there and you\u2019ve left you\u2019re likely only going to be looking for compensation or an apology. We know compensation amounts are very low and it\u2019s a very difficult process.\u201d Plus, she says, you risk getting the reputation as \u2018difficult\u2019 with future employers. \u201cIt\u2019s a damaging, difficult process,\u201d Heap says.<\/p>\n
In fact, when a woman does speak up it makes headline news around the world, because it\u2019s so unusual. Last year United Kingdom receptionist Nicola Thorp was fired for refusing to wear high heels at PricewaterhouseCoopers. After collecting 150,000 petition signatures she forced the UK government to investigate the way bosses treated women at work in terms of their appearance. \u201cIt is fair to say that what we found shocked us,\u201d Labour MP Helen Jones who headed the committee said. \u201cWe found attitudes that belonged more, I was going to say in the 1950s but probably the 1850s might be more accurate, than in the 21st century. \u201c<\/p>\n
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Heap says the only way women will ever see change is when workplaces begin admitting that there\u2019s a problem. \u201cIt\u2019s an unpopular line because people believe we have equality,\u201d she says. \u201cBut every indicator we have says this is not the case. The number of women who are making complaints around sexual harassment has increased. The number of women who are experiencing discrimination returning to work after pregnancy is increasing. The gender pay gap is increasing. Every indicator we have tells us gender equality hasn\u2019t been achieved at work. And yet we like to accept as a country that we have got equality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only when workplaces start taking this problem seriously, and women work together collectively to stand up for their rights will there be any sort of change, Heap says. She yearn for the day when women can wake up, put on something safe, comfortable and functional and simply do their jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not normal,\u201d she adds, \u201cfor us to be treated this way.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared<\/a> on WHIMN<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n Annie Sinclair thought the way she dressed for work at her boutique PR company was fine. \u201cI wore pants and heels \u2013 nice ones. In my eyes I looked good,\u201d she says. But her bosses thought otherwise. She looked good. But not quite \u201cgood\u201d enough. Sinclair was in a debrief meeting with her CEO and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[391],"tags":[772],"yoast_head":"\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"