I work with an assortment of female personnel. From lawyers, accountants, engineers/scientists, and administrative assistants.
The executive administrative assistants, by and large, are the sharpest dressers. And not only are their clothes really nice, but their hair and nails are always perfect.
But the rest of us are a motley crew. My super-supervisor is a lawyer, and she’s quite bohemian in her style. I think she always looks really hip and you can tell she shops at expensive places. But she doesn’t “dress to the nines”. Neither do the other lawyers. And of course, we techies look like techies. No better or worse dress than our male colleagues, with a couple of exceptions.
Women who compete for clientele–like, say, real estate agents or psychotherapists–feel more pressure to look a certain way than other professionals do. When my mother retired from social activism and renewed her real estate license, she chopped off her dreadlocks, bought a bunch of fancy wigs, and ditched the shapeless African wear for some Anne Taylor. A 60-something woman has to look fierce if she wants anyone to take her seriously. The older women in my workplace (55+) tend to care more about their clothing and make-up than the younger women do. Are they trying to impress other women? Or are they just trying to stay relevant and youthful-looking to everyone?
I also think that women who take good care of themselves because can they afford to do so tend not to rely so much on the kind of make-up you buy at the Clinique counter. A nice hairstyle, tailored high-end clothing, fit physique, tanned complexion, cosmetic surgery (including laser hair removal), and straight white teeth are also forms of “make up”. They can make someone look naturally beautifully when really they just have $$.
It is very possible to be “high maintenance” but not look that way at all.
People tend to dress according to the standards of their respective subcultures and cliques. Individual taste matter a lot, but those tastes are mostly shaped by the values of whatever community they identify with. This is why hippies dress like hippies, goths dressed like goths, and preppies dress like preppies. By reinforcing their ideas of group identity, members reinforce their bonds with each other and their feeling of inclusion. But this isn’t a property of women; this is common to people.
When men groom themselves, they might not consciously be trying to appeal to women (“ooh yeah, the ladies will love these khakis”). But if they are interested in mate-seeking, usually they try to match the image of what they themselves have decided looks attractive. What differs is what people consider attractive and how much work they are willing to put in to be that way.
On what basis do you think that this is the most plausible explanation, and not ‘women dress up when they’re ovulation because that’s the time of the month when they are most interested in extra-pair copulations’?
I’d say that the standard evolutionary argument is more parsimonious and more plausible, unless you have some good evidence to the contrary.
Every time a man has sex with a woman, a woman has sex with a man.
So unless there is some secret clique of uber-sluts-who-dont-fill-in-questionaires* out there, this idea that men are less choosy or more promiscuous, is simply garbage.
Women enjoy sex.
The large disparity in effort-for-physical-appearance between genders is a cultural construct .
An alternative explanation is that ovulation is correlated with feelings of well-being. I’m posting on a portable device so I can’t provide a link, but there is research indicating that women’s creativity and energy levels are heightened during this phase of the cycle.
I know that when I’m in a good mood, I’m more likely to put more attention to what I wear. And it’s not unreasonable to assume that a happy woman is more attractive-looking than one who is not happy. This may give the appearance that the happy woman is dressed in a more sexy way, when really she’s not.
Also, a woman’s body temperature increases during ovulation. (I know mine did a couple of weeks ago!!) It could be that women wear less clothing during this time not because they are hawt, but because they are hot.
(FWIW, I have no problem buying that ovulation is indeed associated with wearing sexy attire. But I do think there are additional explanations besides the “obvious”.)
Which is exactly my point. There are scrubs and there are scrubs. Some of them fairly fashionable and more flattering than unisex, if not exactly lighting the runways on fire. Most nurses chose not to wear them because they’re more expensive and they’re just going to get vomited on anyway…not because they are not allowed to. Take away the social pressure to dress up for anyone, male or female, and women, just like men, often don’t give a crap what they’re wearing.
You’re a man, aren’t you? Here’s a thought experiment for you: You wake up tomorrow and you feel like you’re getting the flu and as you get ready for work with some difficulty, you find that none of your usual clothes fit you. Your trousers won’t close around your waist and all of your button-down shirts are straining at the buttons. You feel exhausted, you’re achy all over, and you know you have some casual pants and polo shirts in the back of your closet that are usually a little too big. You work at a job with a dress code that will allow you to wear such clothes to work.
Do you:
gird your loins and force yourself into your now-too small clothes, shaving your face and styling your hair to your usual high standards, or
opt for the comfortable clothes and groom yourself just enough to avoid public shaming at the office?
If you would choose (1), can you understand why another man would choose (2)? If so, there is your answer.
If not, how the hell do you figure the “standard evolutionary argument is more parsimonious and more plausible” than “I feel like shit right now, so I want to be comfortable”?
I’ve recently spent a bunch of time visiting in a hospital. There’s one total babe RN on the floor who has perfect posture, tailored flattering scrubs, shiny attractive but practical shoes, and impeccable though subtle makeup. The other RNs run the gamut from neat and businesslike to borderline haphazard and slovenly.
Turns out the babe is a part-time fashion model and her husband is also a fashion model who looks pretty GQ on his days off too.
She looks glamorous just starting an IV. She also seems to be pretty darn good at her job.
She dresses that way because she can’t not. Looking good is what she does.
I don’t know when that was, and current fashion is for heavier makeup than it was, say, 20 years ago, but the main differences are:
choice of makeup. A foundation that matches your color vs. one which does not; lipstick which is close to your color vs. Firetruck Red.
amount of items used. Foundation (or not even that, but concealer), lipstick and a touch of mascara vs. foundation, lipstick, contrasting lipliner, three shades of eye shadow, mascara, heavy eyeliner…
Many of the women who use heavy makeup end up looking like they just came offstage: kabuki foundation, Aida eyeliner and Some like it hot lips. That doesn’t take less time than concealer and lipstick.