I think it’s really hard to generalize about “sexy”.
The woman who is very attractive and dresses very fashionably is not going to lose points for being sexy. Neither, generally, is the woman who is just really comfortable with herself–she dresses that way because she likes those clothes, likes that look. What generally turns people off are women who seem to use sex–not coitus, but flirting/attraction/tension–as a major part of how they relate to men. That’s unprofessional and turns people off. For one thing, no one likes a manager that treats any two groups–in this case, men and women–dramatically differently.
I haven’t had a manager, but I have had a colleague who fits this description. I’m pretty sure she had histrionic personality disorder so yeah… respect was pretty lacking.
I think anyone who dresses inappropriately for the office loses respect, whether it’s dressing overly sexy, or overly slobby, or even being way overdressed for the workplace culture.
If they were to prove themselves in all other aspects of the role, then they’d probably earn some respect back, but I’d still have a bit less respect for them. I think in the workplace you should get noticed for your work, not for how you dress.
Never having been a boss and having limited experience as a team lead, I can only say that getting cooperation from men was always a challenge for me. After all, I’m just a girl - what could I possibly know about an engineering project??? :rolleyes: Trying to extrapolate that to Jennifer’s situation will obviously include my personal baggage. However, I can’t help but think that less cleavage and leg will make interactions with men less distracting, therefore more effective, all other things being equal. How she talks to them is another factor - businesslike vs. flirty, confident vs. “can you do this for me?”
All I can say for sure is that in my work situations, being a woman in a predominantly male environment, I had to put a lot more effort into proving myself than coworkers with deeper voices and external plumbing.
It’s official, Mika: we can never marry. 'Cause I don’t fish, I do hunt, and I love, love, love babies. My own most of all, of course, but really just about all of 'em.
I would certaily lose respect for my boss if he dressed provocatively at work. Of course, we’re both over 50, male and straight (or at least married with children, I ain’t speculating on how he swings in private (in any sense of the word)).
I have absolutely lost what little-respect-I-had-before, for bosses that showed up in professional environments in sexy clothing. Outside of the adult entertainment industry, I can’t imagine any professional environment where accenting one’s sexuality would be appropriate.
It astonishes me that anyone would lose respect for someone who would otherwise have their respect over clothes. My last manager dressed provocatively enough for me to notice; her cleavage was a fairly standard attendee at every staff meeting. She was extremely attractive and not shy about it.
She was also the best manager and editor I’ve ever had, an exceptionally good writer, and always ten steps ahead of everyone in every way. Her leaving was a huge loss to the company; we practically flew flags at half mast when she went.
Why, why, would I lose respect for this person just because, from time to time, it pleased her to show an extra quarter inch of skin? That seems irrational to me, and reflects a very weird view of women and their sexuality.
I’m not FairyChatMom, but I’m going to say that when I’ve had supervisors in the past where this was an issue, I had a real damn hard time taking discipline, coaching and instruction from someone who clearly and obviously failing at baseline professionalism. Dressing appropriately for the situation is pretty much baseline professionalism. Please note, however, that in my personal professional experience, “dressed overly sexy” had a 100% correlation with “not behaving professionally”. The people I’ve known personally who did the overly sexy wardrobe at the office thing were inevitably the people who behaved inappropriately also. I’ve only ever personally seen the overly-sexy-dressing thing in other women in the workplace, but when I have it correlated 100% with a pattern of flirty, cajoling behavior towards male co-workers and either outright ignoring female co-workers or micromanaging paranoia towards female co-workers. The people I’ve known who do the overly-sexy-dressing in the workplace thing always seem to also treat supervising like a co-ed trying to get frat boys to move heavy furniture for her.
As for leadership, good leadership depends - nay, requires - respect as a foundation point. If I don’t respect you, then whether you are my supervisor, there won’t be any “leadership” goin’ on. I will still do my job - I am a professional, after all - but I won’t be looking to that sort of supervisor for leadership or advice or coaching. I’ll listen politely if they feel compelled to coach at me, but everything that comes out of their mouth will be sort of tainted for me by the aura of “if you’re so smart, why are you dressed for the office like your next stop is a pick-up bar?” I would feel the same way about, for example, someone who wore a formal gown to the office or someone who came to a business-professional office wearing board shorts and flip-flops. To me, appropriate dress is a baseline professional skill. Why would I trust the professional judgment of someone who can’t seem to master baseline professional skills?
My former boss (an attractive woman in her 30’s) often showed more cleavage than I was comfortable with, and she liked to wear what her boss called trophy-wife shoes (not sure what they are called officially but they had really high heels and the bottom was maybe 3/4" thick; she had one pair in leopard print). But these things did not cause me to lose respect for her as a boss, even though I found them unprofessional and a little annoying. She was too Midwest wholesome to come across as uber-sexy, and she was very good at her job. I just never understood the need to dress that way at work.
I have had bosses that dressed provocatively, and they always had a slew of other issues that made them bad bosses in general. So, it wouldn’t necessarily be that I would lose respect just for the inappropriate dress, but the inappropriate dress would clue me in that there’s probably a lot of other problems below the surface and I’d be taking everything said boss said or did with a grain of salt.
A couple of years ago I worked at a large-ish law firm who had an office manager that fit the OP’s description to a T. Her skirts were always really short, her heels really high, and her cleavage really prominent. She was only mildly attractive, but she had a nice body, with great boobs.
She was also really good at her job. She worked faster than everyone else, rarely made mistakes, and somehow managed to keep up with the flurry of emails that buried the rest of us. She garnered respect for her performance.
But…she was a bit of a joke anytime people talked about her privately. As office manager, she would sometimes go on business trips with the (married) law partner. Or she and he would have closed door meetings. So it was naturally assumed that they were having an affair.
And female co-workers tended to be derisive toward her; she had a definite attitude (i.e. she was one of those people who frequently labeled others as “losers”, and she had an annoying habit of doing an impression of others where she would use a high-pitched, whiny voice), but she was a “bitch” (or worse) when they described her. And plenty of those women would roll their eyes anytime a male co-worker mentioned her in a flattering way. One female lawyer told me when she left the firm, having felt disgust at seeing the manager “with her boobs hanging out” at a networking event, that she didn’t want to be associated with that type of image.
Ultimately, I think work performance will be the biggest factor in whether a provocatively dressed woman would get respect at the office or be able to lead a team of workers. But she is creating an uphill battle for herself to earn respect (especially, in my experience, with other females) and is going to invite speculation and rumors about her private life. In short, she is making it harder on herself.
I work in a department of mostly women. At one time, we had one employee who was a bit on the chesty side. My boss had a quiet word with her about one of her shirts, which did show quite a bit of cleavage.
I don’t think she realized…she certainly didn’t wear other inappropriate clothing. IIRC, she retired that shirt from the workplace.
Assuming they fall within the general realm of “business clothes” and aren’t in danger of embarrassing the company, I’m probably glad she took a solid side of the impossible, poorly defined, razor thin line between “top frumpy” and “too sexy” that women have to gamble on every single day. It’s a game you can’t win, so props to her for not even trying.
I’ve always wondered who buys all those “too sexy for work” business clothes. What is the market for “pencil skirt slit up to there” and “button popping blazer?”
Two women, notably. One, very smart, but couldn’t seem to help herself around men. Turned into a breathy Marilyn Monroe clone, and played on her sexuality. In the workplace, her attire was more suitable to nightclub, and I had people coming to me (not her manager) asking for tips. She was avoided and eventually shuffled out.
Diva Two. Also very smart, also dressed like nightclub. Cheap nightclub. But she was smart and driven. She’s clawed her way up the ladder to Director. And I think she finally talked to a wardrobe consultant at Nordstrom’s. I saw her this week, and vast improvements have been made.
To your situation Skald, does this person come across as cheap and tawdry? Are they presenting even the appearance of leveraging the sexuality to get work or favors? Cheap or tawdry ain’t great for morale or general ethics, but there’s another aspect. Companies can and do get sued for workplace violations that can include things like a manager dressing or acting in a sexually forward manner, regardless of gender.
My former boss (an attractive woman in her 30’s) often showed more cleavage than I was comfortable with, and she liked to wear what her boss called trophy-wife shoes (not sure what they are called officially but they had really high heels and the bottom was maybe 3/4" thick; she had one pair in leopard print).[\QUOTE]
The proper term is “hooker shoes”. I’ve even heard the women who wear them refer to them as such. It seems that some females who dress and act absolutely professional have a weakness for hooker shoes. Not sure why that is, and I can’t think of a parallel in male attire.
Character in music video. Decoy “bait” for a sting operation. Meet-you-at-the-office anniversary encounter. Or Roderick’s boss
Ridiculous tie. Preposterous combover/hairpiece. Cowboy boots when you’re not in cowboy country. Porsche GT in the executive parking space. Hunting trophies including full grizzly bear mounted in your office.
…yeah, doesn’t quite work at the level of sexworker shoes, the microskirt or the blouse that can’t be buttoned across the bust w/o endangering someone’s eye, you say. But hear me out – men in business environment often express frustration that they are expected to dress in exacting navy/charcoal suit conservative uniform or in the dreadful “business casual” that says “neither”, and the most anyone dares do is a funky pocket square or George HW Bush-style socks, so they crave an avenue to “express” which is usually outside dress (heck, George skydives into his 90s). Similarly women, but in their case ***with ***dress and grooming.
Roderick’s boss, by his own report, was “Midwest wholesome and very good at her job”. She probably feels that on top of all that, having to live in “frum” day in and day out would be too stifling and at this point in life she’s secure enough that there’s no need to put on a “monkey suit” to do the job right and it’s not her problem what others think.
So these businesswomen feel the environment’s more flexible for them to express a certain flamboyance in personal appearance than for their male counterparts. Like** even sven** said, more power to them, as long as they do the job without creating a disturbance.
But I can also imagine the people at HR may feel uncomfortable calling Marie up and saying, “Marie we have to talk… everyone at the office knows what color panties you are wearing”, lest Marie answer “Well, WTF are they doing looking? discipline THEM!”
Perhaps there’s also another group who may be acting up along the lines of* “all right, dudebros, now I’m boss… come on, dare to check me out… easy to be disciplined and egalitarian when we all are in khakis and a company pullover, right, let me unleash the Inner Hottie and watch you squirm as you try to fix your sight on to forehead and measure every single word you speak.”* That’s probably a tiny minority. We hope
How about management level women who adorn their persons and offices with tons of pink? I was just in a meeting with someone, in her office and here are the pink items I saw:
blouse
bracelet
glasses
lipstick
fingernails
toys on her desk
folders in a paper file
pink marker writing all over her whiteboards
mouse
other little details like a photo of her dog in a baby wading pool where the pool was bright pink
People like this seem to be going overly childish to me, so I have trouble taking them seriously. I mean I’ve never seen someone go nuts with any other color like these “pink girls” do. And this isn’t the first one I’ve met.
