I really try to respect everyone’s right to be free from harassment, even passive harassment (if I can phrase it that way). On the other hand, I have always been bothered by women whose work attire shows, for example, a lot of cleavage. This doesn’t seem to me to be appropriate to the workplace. It doesn’t mean I think I have the right to stare, but I don’t understand the motivation for women to dress like that in a place where, I have to presume, they are not interested in getting hit on or flirted with.
Today I had to spend an hour in a conference room with 2 other men, and a young woman who was dressed in this way. She was a petite woman and she was wearing a necklace of a size, shape and color to draw attention to her cleavage. However, she didn’t only have cleavage, her top was sort of stiff and it would move around in ways that made it visually clear that she was not wearing a bra. She seemed oblivious to the fact of this exposure of her secondary sex characteristics.
As it happens, I’m gay, and I don’t have any sexual interest in women’s breasts. But it was very hard to keep my eyes on her face, and most of the time I spent looking elsewhere. I was terrified that she would notice where my eyes would stray to, and call me on it.
Am I completely wrong and sexist that this bothered me almost to the point of being offended? I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if we had been in a cocktail bar. I don’t think she deserved to have her breasts stared at or for anything unpleasant to happen to her, but I honestly don’t know what to think. Did she cross a line, or have I?
I don’t either. I can think of several possibilities, including (1) that she is an exhibitionist and likes being looked at, (2) that it was a sort of power play designed to make you uncomfortable and keep you off-balance, or (3) she really was that oblivious. As well as possibly several others. I don’t feel competent to judge how probable these various possibilities are, though.
In any case, my own opinion is that it’s none of my business how a woman chooses to dress, and it shouldn’t affect how I behave towards/around her.
Probably just likes the top and necklace. I’ve worked in offices with only women and there have been some who wear low-cut tops even though there are no men around. If I look in the mirror and think I look good, I just think that I look good today. I don’t think about how men are going to perceive me or my intentions.
Depending on who you ask, “cleavage” is the space that’s obviously between the breasts: by that definition, anybody who’s got breasts has cleavage. M-W has that definition: “the depression between a woman’s breasts especially when made visible by a low-cut neckline”.
Note that it refers to “the depression”, not “the slit”. Your definition is limited to that space being a slit.
If it was low enough for me to exposing ‘a lot of cleavage’ without a bra, that would be a very very low-cut top, and there’d be a high risk of accidental nipples. Which I agree, is generally work inappropriate.
The OP, however, mentions more about her necklace ‘drawing attention’ to her breastal region, rather than her top being very very low-cut, as well as ‘stiff fabric’. I’m having a lot of trouble visualising an outfit that can be made work inappropriate by a necklace. Short of, y’know, an obscene pendant. I also don’t quite get why a stiff fabric would be less appropriate than a flowing one, which would normally draw more attention to movement of body parts.
I think the uncomfort zone is dependent on a contrast between how an individual person is dressed and the level of coverup that is typical in that same environment.
I’ve been on a clothes-optional commune and you get used to it (naked people) surprisingly quick. I’ve not been in an environment where women tend to wear low-cut blouses or other decorous or provocatively revealing garments, but my guess is that you’d get used to that pretty quickly too. But a juxtaposition of someone dressed one way in an environment where the dress code (informal or formal) calls for something else can make it attention-getting.
It’s not as simple as she does or does not want her breasts to be noticed. She could also want them noticed by somebody, but not you and/or not me.
There is, more importantly, a huge overlay of social things, such as getting trained to equate her own value with her attractiveness, and getting trained to please, and learning to use her breasts as weapons, and having past experiences she might resent, and on and on. I think this is somewhat analogous to the use of slurs that some people consider hateful or hurtful and others use as a way of reclaiming. I get that dressing so that more or less of the breast is visible can have a distracting effect. I also, though, feel very cautious about how I (a middle aged man) treat the issue.
It’s hardly as if I have much of a right to expect the situation to be trivially easy for me to make sense of and navigate.
Since you said she was young, I’d say it has something to do with her not having been taught to distinguish between “looking good” and “looking sexy.” I know that as a young woman, all the advice men gave me about how to look better–and hoo boy, were they liberal with the advice–was intended to bring out cleavage, ass, etc. If a woman doesn’t have a highly aware mother or belong to a church that specifically harps on dress codes, then she’s probably unaware that there’s a difference.
I think women unconsciously dress sexually sometimes. Maybe most of the time. Some women need the constant validation but some women think it’s a basic standard to show a little cleavage, not realizing what they’re doing to the men around them. It’s been ingrained in us that we’re sexual beings and our value is in our beauty and sex appeal.
However, I’d stare just as much as a guy. Necklaces do naturally draw the eye to a woman’s chest. There’re too many factors here for me to be completely convinced she’s as innocent in her attire as the average woman, but I could be wrong.
Heavy cleavage
No bra
Eye-attracting necklace
She’d possibly feign indignancy if she were to be hit on or catch a lingering stare, but as a woman, I’d think she was full of shit. We know exactly how much attention we get and how to calibrate it. She’s on a warpath wearing clothing that way. You’d best give her a wide berth.
Do you also think that women who wear miniskirts to a bar are asking to be raped? Do you think girls shouldn’t be allowed to wear tank tops to school, lest they distract the boys?
I’m sensing a fair degree of victim blaming from you. I am a woman, too, and no, I don’t know exactly how to calibrate the attention I get from men. An outfit that goes unnoticed by one guy could earn me leers from.another. That’s on the leering guy, not on me.
Look at it the other way around: what would you have felt and done had she turned up in a burqa? What would you have felt and done if she had been a he and had been dressed equivalently (say done the medallion man thing)?
Are you her work superior? Then you should be familiar with your company dress code, have called her on it, and have asked another woman to attend the meeting in her place. If she was touting for business (get your minds out of the gutter!) then you can add her unprofessional behaviour to the list of rejection reasons. After all, if she’s unprofessional, then so likely is her employer.
BTW with regard to keeping your eyes off her breasts, the human eye is attuned to movement.
And very often, what looks like “a little cleavage” in front of a mirror to a 4’something woman is a canyon to a 5’lots guy seeing it pretty much from above.
There’s also something to said about fashion. Unless a woman is willing to make her own clothes and be willing and able to alter patterns or make her own, she is, by necessity a slave to fashion. It is difficult to buy clothes that don’t in some way conform to today’s trends, and people, especially women, can brutal about people who do not conform.
If you are petite, it can be very difficult to find a top that does not show cleavage, because of your body shape. I suspect many women don’t know how to address the problem, don’t feel the need to, or don’t want to.
The fashion of t-shirt dresses is another example. I was standing behind a Kinder teacher who was wearing one. She bent over, and I could tell exactly what kind of underwear she had on. I’ve seen girls wearing very short skirts sitting with their knees apart so if you were standing at the right place, you could see straight up the skirt. No one is teaching girls how to sit like a lady or the advisability of foundational undergarments.
But it is the same principal, make the woman change HER behaviour because it’s distracting the immature men.
‘The Office’, doesn’t seem to have a problem with this attire, that’s on her manager to speak to. It’s one immature man who feels this is distracting. He needs to grow up, in my opinion.
Without seeing a picture or concrete example, I’d say we are both speculating. It could go either way. The fact that a gay man was distracted leads me to believe that her dress was out of the ordinary for the setting. But the OP wouldn’t be the first gay man to show an interest in fashion and cleavage/breasts, I’ll admit.