I’d say it’s pretty difficult for a dress code not to be biased against men, because we have so few options. Of course that is more or less true anyway.
Consultant jobs often seem to be the most strict; once on jeans-and-sneakers Friday I met one of our visiting consultants in the elevator who was considerably more dressed up, and told me his firm required it regardless. Another time I had a meeting with someone who had just come from the airport (LAX) after a flight from London. Apparently they have to dress formally even when sitting in an airplane, if it’s on company business.
IANAL but I think I know the answer to this one: you would be in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
So, policies requiring black employees to dress differently from white employees would be discrimination in work environment based on racial group or perceived racial group, and hence a no-no.
Having dress codes that involve males dressing differently from females, though, is technically not discriminatory. Gender-linked differences in clothing styles are firmly established in social custom, so requiring your employees to conform to conservative clothing styles is inevitably going to involve some gender differences in what they can wear.
Color me somewhat shocked, though, to hear that earrings for men are still not accepted in many dress codes. I had thought that for at least the past three to five years earrings (or at least single earrings) had been established as a completely acceptable, if still optional, part of male attire for pretty much any occupational group other than high-level politicians.
I work for a big ol’ Silicon Valley company and the only employee regulation I’ve ever seen that pertains to dress is a policy that, for safety reasons, we must wear shoes at all times. I have to confess this rule is often broken.
It’s interesting because even in the absence of a dress code, those of us who work in the headquarters building or in any of the other buildings which have customer briefing centers generally dress at least business casual, while those in regular buildings are casual casual (often REAL casual). Somehow even in the absence of a dress code we manage not to offend customers and to get the work done.
I would assume, without looking too closely, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1946, 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e ff, or a federal regulation propagated under that law.
And on edit… damn… beaten to it…
The USA is a big place, and this has gotta vary wildly by region. Around here (the aforementioned conservative backwater) one or more earrings on an adult male would almost certainly provoke the immidate reaction of assuming the wearer was either gay, or a total treehugging liberal, either of which would provoke a negative reaction from most of the populace.
In my office, men can wear earrings. None have tried to wear anything big or dangly though.
Don’t be so sure about that. 
I have found that women can get away with all kinds of stuff that men can’t.
I work in a very large bank, and women show up on casual Fridays, and mind you this is defined as business casual, in what are basically house dresses, or flip-flops, or very weird looking pants that, to say the least, aren’t flattering. But no one says anything. Why anyone would want to show up in public looking like they’re cannibals or the offspring of such is beyond me, but that’s how about a quarter of the women show up, when the weather is nice.
The men, OTOH, virtually never wear sandals, or strange pants, or shirts that reveal all their chest hair or something else that absolutely no one really wants to see.
I’ve figured out that these days, wearing flip-flops to work in the spring and summer is downright fashionable, if you’re a girl. This despite the fact that in NYC you’re going to work in filthy subways, and then getting off and walking on sidewalks where, perhaps, a dog has recently defecated. I’ve seen, on a day just after a rainy night, a young lady plop herself straight into a puddle and get herself and associated flip-flop stuck in a large and dirty puddle.
I’m sorry, but this is just incredibly stupid. I betcha she makes lots of money though. I wouldn’t hire her to clean my house, given she’s too stupid to know what to wear to keep herself clean on the sidewalks of New York.
I have worked in places where the dress code was totally open… and lots of people dressed really badly. Plaid with checks, greens with pinks. It was just wrong!
On a more serious note, some people do need more guidance in what is acceptable work wear. I’ve worked with guys who’ve worn the same outer clothes for nearly two weeks. I shudder to think what the under parts were like (yes, these were complete programmer nerds). Needless to say, soon after the stench was washed out of the office, a dress policy was instituted. Ignored. I left that job before finding out what happened, damn.
The place where I presently work says “no jeans.” There are some women who wear denim skirts. This, apparently, is ok. It’s their sandbox, I gotta play by their rules or I’ll have to find another sandbox.
Did he (or she) recover? Sorry, this comment just begs all sorts of questions.
I shudder too. That goes way beyond dress codes, getting into the area of personal hygiene
I feel for you; I think “business casual” is an oxymoronic travesty. (See my comment on slacks above). Can you get away with non-jean pants that are styled like jeans, like these? Though I think the ad copy here is a bit over the top–I haven’t once hoped, when buying a pair of pants, that they would be the envy of my friends.
Women often do seem to be able to get away with more when it comes to dress codes, but I think this is more a result of the fact that they have so many more options generally. They can wear most male type clothing without anyone batting an eyelash, and the reverse is obviously not true.
Yep. The next time such a request is filled, someone actually has to die.
Y’know, I’ve been working for more than 40 years, now, for more bosses than I care to count, and I cannot think of a single time when the company’s requirement that I wear a particular article or type of clothing ever caused me discomfort, embarrassment, hardship or lost money. I never spent a single goddamn minute resenting any dress code, and as far as I know, no boss ever resented the money he paid me. And that includes full-dress uniform in blazing heat and 80% humidity. If you don’t want to dress the way your boss says you should dress, shut the fuck up and go find another boss.
And no, to answer the OP, according to every HR regulation I have ever read, it is not sexist or discriminatory or any other kind of victimization.
Seriously, people, arguments over dress codes belong in junior high.
If wearing a full-dress uniform in blazing heat and 80% humidity has not “caused you discomfort”, then you must either be some sort of olympian man-god, or be totally lacking in sensory organs.
What you really wanted to say was that all the whiners out there should suck it up and “shut the fuck up”, full stop. That’s nice. You’re entitled to your opinion. I, however, am opposed to foolish dress requirements in the same way I am opposed to any other foolish requirement, and am opposed to predjudiced and unfair requirements on principle as well.
Of course, I’ve never quit a job due to a stupid rule or dress requirement either, or even complained about it in earshot of the boss. But that does not make those rules and requirements that I’m tolerating good or fair.
(And any dress code that says women can wear skirts and men cannot is by definition sexist. Just so’s you know.)
The reason people complain about it, or ‘whine’ as I suppose you would call it, is because we spend such a large part of our waking lives at the office, and some things about dress codes just seem to be along the lines of, “because we can make you.” I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be standards, and that dress codes or even uniforms aren’t necessary in many cases, but sometimes they do seem unnecessary and I don’t see how they add value to the operation.
IMO if you tell people what to wear they’ll resent it. But if you encourage reasonable standards of neat and clean attire, it won’t be an issue.
Considering that many public middle and high schools are adopting uniforms, or laying down “business casual” dress codes–you’re absolutely right. They belong there too.
Nah, the purpose of dress codes is people with power and money lording it over those who have less power and money. “This is how you will dress, serfs.” Don’t mistake the rationale and pretense for the substance.
You’re right, of course, that one was a non-sequiter, and I know better than that. I guess what I meant was that I did it willingly and gladly and didn’t complain about it because the reason I was there was far, far more important than the sweat I lost over it.
As for the rest, yep, it’s my opinion that people bitch about stuff that just is not important. There’s this idea that we all should be able to look like whatever the hell we want to look like regardless of how it reflects on our employer. It’s a selfish, unearned sense of entitlement.
:rolleyes: Or, it’s about the people who own a company wishing to project a certain image to their clients. You’re really imagining some evil CEO cackling and rubbing his hands together at the thought of oppressing his employees with ties and pantyhose, aren’t you? I assure you, said CEO is far too busy raiding their pension fund to concern himself with their attire.
Sure, some dress codes are questionable, and I’m certain that there are some purely ridiculous ones out there. But they’re the exception, not the rule.
I’d love to wear jeans to work, but it’s simply not appropriate for my workplace. So I can continue to work for my current employer in clothes that aren’t my first preference, or I can leave and take a job where I can wear jeans. If my primary criteria for selecting a job was wardrobe, that’s what I’d do. But it’s not (and I think that’s true for most people) so I suck it up and wear the appropriate clothing. I also refrain from belching the alphabet in front of clients. I don’t consider either of these things to be an unreasonable sacrifice on my part.
No, dress codes belong in high school. Adults should wear what the hell they want.
I’ve never encountered a good argument for corporate dress codes, either in this thread or elsewhere – except in cases where it’s important to visually differentiate between employees and the public, as in a hospital.
Really? So you think that client expectations are not argument enough? All things being equal, people would rather purchase from a more professional looking establishment. That would be enough for 99% of the employers out there.
You can argue against the rationality of this, or file it with all of the other human interactions that are don’t subscribe to rationality.
I guess now it would be your turn to trot out your friend from HS that is the best programmer evar, but only if he is allowed to do so completely naked while sitting on a denim bean-bag chair eating cheetos out of his cavernous belly button. Fortunately, he’s found an employer that understands him and allows him the necessary freedom to achieve his true potential. We expect true AI any day now.