It’s the way men are kept under control. We’re supposed to be largely interchangeable, and thus disposable. I even heard a comedian make a joke about that many years ago. “The groom and the groomsmen all wear the same tuxedo, so if the groom bails out, everyone just takes one step up, and the wedding continues!”
I would be interested in a follow-up experiment, where the male anchors wore noticeably different suits each day for a week: blue blazer one day, grey suit another, etc. Would that trigger e-mails?
Because that is what the comments from the anchors afterwards are getting it: women in the tv business feel that they are more exposed to public comments than men, because the viewing public is more likely to comment on women tv presenters than males.
It took Ronald Reagan to make the brown suit acceptable for men.
Depends upon the shade - Navy blue & no one would comment/notice, a summer suit in sky blue, might draw some attention; however, an electric blue blazer would probably get noticed by an anchor, maybe not so much by the sports guy. IOW is it a ‘normal’ suit color or is it off-the-wall outlandish color that only are worn by sports reporters or used car salesmen?
That’s a very good reason not to wear one.
What we need is truly imaginative menswear; the Tudors knew how to carry it off. We should encourage more puffling pants.
It’s absolutely a choice. A man can choose to be “invisible”, though surely a cheap suit will be noticed, or be a colourful dandy and ensure he is noticed.
And if you are catching people’s eyes it stands to reason you can put together more than one outfit.
Oddly, my husband some years ago was the one who mentioned the dresses on the women newscasters. And the ‘weather girl’. There was something we called a ‘weather lady dress’ - a solid color, but both side panels were black so it was a fool-the-eye thing, making her look slimmer on camera.
I dunno…yes there’s more SHAPE but the female anchors didn’t wear any exciting colors. Here’s the instagram post with a quick video of all the styles worn.
One woman wore a basic black dress
One woman wore a basic brown dress
One woman wore a black sweater with a brown top
One woman wore a black top (this top stood out the most, as it had an interestingly-shaped and somewhat plunging neckline)
One man wore a dusty blue suit with a blue tie
One man wore a slate suit with a red tie (this stood out!)
Yes, none of those outfits look “eye-catching” to me; no bright colours, nothing unusual about them.
I was struck by the red tie. I own several identical white or light blue dress shirts, and a couple of identical suits (and several more that look the same). But I have a number of ties, and likely wouldn’t wear the same one on consecutive days. And that tie is noticeable – more noticeable (to me) than anything the women wore.
Who are these people that watch their local news closely and habitually enough that they notice the anchor’s clothing, and feel compelled to write an email about it? Is this what I have to look forward to when I get into my senior years, or is this a strictly Canadian thing?
Noticing is one thing. Watching your morning news and the feeling to need to email the station/anchors to ask about the clothes women are wearing brings it to the sociology level. It was described as a flood of email, not a couple cranks.
If I watched the news every day, I might notice if the newscasters wore the same thing each day. And if I noticed, I might be curious enough to shoot off an email asking what was going on. (Did they tape the news for the whole week all on one day?)
Would the content of the newscast itself not clarify that? How wouldthat even work?
No, they wore the same clothes every day for a week, as stated in the article in the OP:
The experiment required anchors to wear the same outfits every day for a week, in an effort to observe the differences in how viewers would react to male and female anchors’ appearances.
It wouldn’t, of course; but that’s an example of the kind of thought that might cross my mind.
(Don’t some shows, such as game shows, tape more than one episode back-to-back and have participants change between episodes so that it looks like they were recorded on different days?)
My guess would be that far more women noticed and commented about the women anchors’ clothing than men. I highly doubt that the “patriarchy” (as described by a commenter in the first linked story) pays that much attention to women’s professional dress compared to the matriarchy.
Women are part of the patriarchy. We’re not immune to sexism. We’re soaking in it!
I will admit, I’m tired of seeing woman weather reporters packed into skintight sheath dresses to give them that “weatherbabe” look.
I’ll add my vote that this is the reason the women’s outfits were noticed and the men’s were not.
Why? Do you think men are being “oppressed”? There are expectations for both men and women about appropriate wear in formal settings. The difference is that women’s styles have a lot more colour and variation.
Or do you think men should show up at a formal dinner or a bank senior vice president should show up at the office looking like this? 
