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White-Collar Men’s Top 5 Dress Don’ts

10/23/2015

Erynn Masi de Casanova, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati. She conducts research on the intersection of gender, work, and identity and is author of the award-winning book Making Up the Difference: Women, Beauty, and Direct Selling in Ecuador, among many other publications. Her new book on men’s work dress in corporate America, titled Buttoned Up: Clothing, Conformity, and White-Collar Masculinity, will be published by ILR/Cornell University Press this fall.

by Erynn Masi de Casanova, Phd
Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Cincinnati

As part of the research for my forthcoming book Buttoned Up: Clothing, Conformity, and White-Collar Masculinity (ILR/Cornell University Press), I asked 76 men to complete this sentence. Their answers are in this word cloud:

What can we learn about white-collar masculinity from this illustration? These sartorial “don’ts” stem from a desire to be seen as professional, masculine, and current. To see how these aspirations come together in men’s advice about what not to wear, let’s look at the most popular answers:

1) White socks. Many interviewees thought that men should not wear white socks, especially to the office, in the words of one: “unless you’re Michael Jackson.” The prohibition relates to men’s desire to be seen as professional. White socks are seen as casual or athletic wear and thus unprofessional. Perhaps because white socks are associated with sports, they place men’s bodies on the body side of the mind/body split. Traditional masculinity values mind over body, an ideal that meshes well with white-collar work, seen as requiring brain rather than brawn.

2) Jorts. For those who don’t follow University of Kentucky basketball (I don’t) or come from the South (I do) or remember the early 90s (no comment), I should clarify that “jorts” is a mash-up of the words “jean” and “shorts.” Men mention jorts for at least two reasons: one, it’s a funny word and they enjoy saying it, and two, jorts are seen as incompatible with a middle- or upper-class appearance. Men’s bodies are seen as working-class or poor when they are wearing jorts. Jorts are uncool throwback gear, something that my interviewees maybe used to have in their closets but have long since donated to Goodwill.

3) Flip-flops. Some men think flip-flops are just fine, depending on the situation. Certainly these guys aren’t wearing dress shoes to the beach! But many see flip-flops as inappropriate in even the most casual workplace. This has to do with professionalism, but also with masculinity. Some men don’t like drawing attention to themselves and their dress, and the smacking sound that flip-flops make when you wear them does just that, according to one interviewee.

4) Pleated pants/Big clothes. So these are really two separate answers to the question of what a man should never wear, but they send the same message about masculinity and being current. The thinking—which showed up in many of my conversations with men about clothing—goes like this. Pleated pants make you look like you don’t know what’s in style. They also make you look bigger than you are, and not in a good way. Big, looser-fitting clothes are for men who don’t want people looking at their bodies, which fits with traditional ideas of masculinity. But changing norms of masculinity are making it increasingly acceptable to look at men’s bodies, and for men to want to be seen as bodies. So wearing flat-front pants or slimmer clothing is a way of staying current that signals new ways of thinking about masculinity.

5) Women’s clothes/Women’s underwear. (See also other answers: purse, high heels, capris, and more.) Given men’s frequent rejection of baggy clothing (see #4 above) and embracing of more body-conscious clothing, we might think that old ideas of masculinity have been totally thrown out the window. Not so fast. Popular answers to the question of what men should never wear included some version of “things that women wear.” So today’s white-collar masculinity sticks with the traditional definition of masculinity as anti-feminine. The bottom line: today’s white-collar men generally eschew clothing seen as feminine, while valuing professionalism, being open to the possibility that their bodies may be looked at by others, and staying in step with the times.

What would you contribute to the word cloud? What should a man never wear?

Learn more about the book: http:www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100091120

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On Reclaiming Body Hair

10/15/2015

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Helana Darwin is a doctoral student at SUNY Stony Brook.
She earned her Master's Degree in Jewish Women and Gender Studies at The Jewish theological Seminary in Manhattan. Her research focuses on the gender binary system.

by Helana Darwin
SUNY Stony Brook

“Are you sure you want to wear that?” my partner asked me, after I finished my practice presentation for an academic conference. “Won’t they dismiss you as biased if they see your body hair?” I had to think about this for a moment before replying very slowly, “Overweight women who research fat stigma cannot conceal their bias so why should--and how can I ethically--conceal mine?” I was on my way to report my findings on the stigma associated with women’s body hair, along with the potentially liberatory implications of feminist “strategic outness,” and yet here I was, considering passing (Orne, 2013). By sharing my experiences with body hair, I hope to encourage scholars to expand their definition of feminism beyond the invisible realm of labels and ideology, so as to acknowledge corporeal expressions of feminism as well.

When I choose my clothing in any given day, I must consider the risks associated with my embodied deviance, which are highest when I enter a professional setting. On the days when I go to work or a conference, I must consider the reactions I will generate if I wear a pencil skirt with bare legs or a cap-sleeve dress that exposes my underarm. These are clothes that hairless women wear regularly without comment, but my exposed body hair seems to render these same garments obscene. Theoretically, eroticized gender capital should be irrelevant within a professional field, yet Title VII protects employers’ rights to hire and fire based off of employees’ conformity to the company’s desired image, including gendered grooming regulations. Even when conformity is not explicitly enforced, it is implicitly encouraged. Women’s shaving is neither a free choice nor a personal choice, given these systematic and institutionalized disincentives.

I used to shave. I began to remove my body hair at age 11 when a female bully chased me around the tennis court, threatening to beat me up for looking like a man. Santa Cruz was a relatively safe haven for adult hairy women, but within the angst-ridden peer culture that is Junior High, my body hair had compromised my safety and diminished my gender capital. By dutifully removing my masculinized and pathologized “excess,” I transformed my female body into a feminine body.

I continued to shave until I moved to Portland, Oregon to attend college. Although the political climate of Portland is similar to Santa Cruz, I discovered that the radically different weather required a new wardrobe. Concealed by clothing and rendered celibate through the 40:60 male:female ratio, most members of my peer culture transitioned towards lower-maintenance body projects, rejecting conventional grooming standards in favor of ragged beards and hairy legs. Once I discovered that I did not have to shave in order to be accepted, I realized that I actually did not enjoy shaving. I had only shaved in order to cultivate gender capital, erotic capital, and cultural capital within a peer culture that had become irrelevant (Hakim, 2010).

When I returned home for summer I became aware of the sexual fields within Santa Cruz that value women with body hair. However, it is possible that my hyperfeminine aesthetic decreased the threat that my body hair might have otherwise posed to my erotic desirability. If my appearance had deviated from the feminine beauty ideal in any way other than through body hair, my dating success might have diminished when I eschewed the hairless norm. Moreover, as a cisgender woman who is white, middle-class and heterosexual, I do not pose a stereotype threat to any marginalized group… except for feminists.

The hairy feminist icon of Women’s Liberation has rendered body hair a stigmatizing marker of “man-hating” (Herzig, 2014). This may not be the only reason why 97% of Western women regularly remove their body hair, but it is one of them (Toerien, Wilkinson, and Choi 2005; Tiggemann and Hodgson 2008; Terry and Braun 2014; Boroughs 2012). Men are also removing their body hair at increasing rates, but the social acceptability of body hair on men is significantly higher than on women (Terry and Braun, 2013).

Feminism is not over, though the stigma surrounding the label pressures its proponents to remain invisible. By retaining my body hair, my body has come to symbolize feminism, reminding those who would believe in the postfeminist myth that feminists are actually all around them. By practicing “strategic outness,” by reclaiming my body hair, I practice a form of “embodied feminism.” “Embodied feminism” must be remembered alongside “nominal feminism” in future debates about the stigma associated with feminism, in recognition of the very different stigma management strategies that we practice. Not all feminists choose to “pass” within antifeminist spheres and we pay a considerable price.

Works Cited
Boroughs, M. S. 2012. Body Depilation among Women and Men: The Association of Body Hair Reduction or Removal with Body Satisfaction, Appearance Comparison, Body Image Disturbance, and Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptomatology (Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida).

Fahs, B. (2012). Breaking body hair boundaries: Classroom exercises for challenging social constructions of the body and sexuality. Feminism & Psychology, 22(4), 482-506.

Hakim, C. (2010). Erotic capital. European sociological review, 26(5), 499-518.

Herzig, R. M. (2015). Plucked: A History of Hair Removal. NYU Press.

Orne, J. (2013). Queers in the line of fire: Goffman's stigma revisited. The Sociological Quarterly, 54(2), 229-253.

Terry, G., & Braun, V. (2013). To let hair be, or to not let hair be? Gender and body hair removal practices in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Body image, 10(4), 599-606.

Tiggemann, M., and Hodgson, S. 2008. The hairlessness norm extended: Reasons for and predictors of women’s body hair removal at different body sites. Sex Roles 59(11-12): pp. 889-897.

Toerien, M., Wilkinson, S., and Choi, P. Y. 2005. Body hair removal: The ‘mundane’ production of normative femininity. Sex Roles 52(5-6): 399-406.

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The Price Mothers Pay, Even When They Are Not Buying It

10/1/2015

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Angie Henderson, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Northern Colorado

Representations of what it means to be the “perfect” mother are everywhere in contemporary society; Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, twitter, mom-blogs, playgrounds and playdates, to name a few. I know, because I am one of those mothers; I’ve embodied this ideology (though now I try really hard not to). My mom-friends ask me how I “do it all” –from a standpoint of both curiosity as well as criticism. Before I began researching the ideologies associated with modern motherhood, I couldn’t really say how I did it “all” (whatever that means). In fact, I had no idea I was even participating in the hegemonic discourse of motherhood, much less actually giving off the impression that I was achieving some unattainable standard of “doing it all.” I also had no idea just how damaging those unattainable standards could be.

But that was before I had three children, before I lowered my standards, before I learned from (and laughed about) my early mistakes, and before I embarked on a sociological research project examining modern motherhood.

It all started on a playground with my first child, listening to other moms discuss the best way to feed (homemade baby food or store bought?), diaper (cloth or disposable?), teach (homeschool, charter, or public school?), and wash (homemade bath soap or store bought?) their children. I immediately began to question my own parenting abilities, wondering if I wasn’t doing enough and whether or not my firstborn would suffer because I wasn’t going above and beyond to raise him. I wasn’t feeding him all-organic food, I wasn’t making my own laundry soap to wash his clothes, I wasn’t testing all of his toys for harmful chemicals with a special kit. For months, I agonized over these issues and worried about my performance as a mother. I also (thanks to my insatiable academic curiosity) read everything I could get my hands on, including trade books on motherhood and parenting, and also academic research that examined the “why” and “how” of modern motherhood. There was not much scholarly literature on the topic at the time, which turned into an awesome opportunity for me…I knew I had to research the sociological underpinnings of modern motherhood.

The first question I had to know the answer to was why…WHY was this how women were “doing” motherhood? Douglas and Michaels (2004) pointed the proverbial finger at the media depictions of celebrity moms’ perfect lives and flawless post-baby bodies. This, however, contrasted with my own experience. I didn’t care about celebrity’s lives, and I certainly didn’t hear other women discussing them at length either. Instead, I saw firsthand how even the most innocent conversations about parenting could easily make any bystander anxious about their own decisions as a mom. So, a colleague and I launched a motherhood study using a convenience sample of our own personal contacts. We e-mailed our motherhood survey to 164 women, and asked them to forward it to any other moms they thought would be interested in participating in the study. We learned one thing right away: moms LOVE to talk about motherhood. Our sample grew over 50% in size, snowballing up to 323 completed surveys. We asked women about the pressure to be perfect and where they thought the pressure came from, and we framed the analysis using Michel Foucault’s (1975) conceptualization post-structuralist surveillance. In other words, we argued that it wasn’t necessarily just “the media” that perpetuated the pressure to be a perfect mom. This is an important distinction because it’s easy to blame the media for almost any social problem. It’s much more difficult, on the other hand, to both identify and disrupt a problem if the source is unidentifiable. Foucault considered post-structuralist surveillance as automatic, with no traceable source of origin. Therefore, the source of all the arbitrary rules and guidelines that embody modern child-rearing are anonymous, but omnipresent. In fact, Foucault’s central tenet to his conceptualization of power is that it cannot be located; it is everywhere and therefore also inside us (Foucault 1975: 108). Therefore, women are upholding the unattainable standards of perfection by policing themselves and other mothers. Indeed, 26% of participants in our study felt compelled to write-in that the source of parenting expectations came from “self” instead of selecting an external source (such as family members, professionals, friends, etc.). This is problematic because even though women are influenced by external sources, they are internalizing this pressure and claiming that it comes from within themselves. This is quintessential Foucauldian behavior; participants were well aware of the social expectations of what it takes to be a “perfect mother” and also actively trying to achieve these normative standards of perfection. Yet, when they do not measure up to the ideals, women look to each other and to themselves for the source of the problem. It’s a powerful cycle of self-blame that unfortunately distracts us from identifying and critiquing the external forces at play.

Our most recent study examined the mental health consequences of this type of motherhood discourse on all mothers, not just those who subscribe to intensive parenting ideologies. The reason we framed the study in this way is because we wanted to problematize the discourse, and critique the ubiquitous standards of perfection as opposed to critiquing mothers themselves. This is a departure from some of the recent literature on intensive motherhood; other scholars were asking why women subscribe to intensive mothering ideologies as opposed to identifying the power of the ideology and how it affects all women.

The results show that moms who experience the pressure to be perfect have higher anxiety levels, higher stress levels, and lower levels of self-efficacy, regardless of whether or not they subscribe to the traditional ideologies of motherhood. This is important because it shifts the responsibility for carrying the weight of guilt and self-blame off of the mother’s shoulders. It is not any one choice that women make that compounds the pressure to be perfect; instead, it is all around us. It is part of the modern mystique of motherhood.

So where do we go from here? Can we escape these standards of perfection? The good news is, the counter-hegemonic discourse is in full swing. While we could argue that social media only make the problem worse by allowing parents to post picture-perfect glimpses of their family lives, including their perfectly themed birthday parties and Pinterest-inspired Halloween costumes, the other end of the parenting spectrum is also being celebrated. Social media sites provide comic relief to help parents take the daily challenges of raising children in stride; hashtags such as #momoftheyear, #pinterestfails, #nailedit and others help us identify and critique the (often) ridiculous standards of perfection associated with parenting and motherhood. In addition, social media sites are also inspiring new avenues for research on the hegemonic discourse of motherhood, fatherhood, and everything in between. It’s an exciting time to be researching these issues, and it’s important to keep in mind how far this line of research has come. Since Betty Friedan identified the “problem that has no name,” we’ve named it, investigated it, identified how it’s changed over the past 50 years, and we are actively critiquing it.

As for me, I don’t, and never have “had it all,” and I never will. Because that standard – that perpetual voice inside all of our heads pushing us to give more, do more, bake more, make more….it’s not reality. It does create fear, anxiety, and stress…and it certainly sells us all sorts of things we don’t really need. So instead of having it all, I challenge it all. I challenge it in my research, in my own social circle, on social media as well as interpersonally. My children do not have Pinterest-inspired snacks every day after school, built on these idealized notions of motherhood and family life. I’ve gotten better at practicing what I preach in my research, and so far, my kids seem to be okay. #fingerscrossed

References
Douglas, S. J. & Michaels, M. 2004. The Mommy Myth. New York, NY: Free Press.
Foucault, M. 1975. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House.

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White-Collar Men’s Top 5 Dress Don’ts

On Reclaiming Body Hair

The Price Mothers Pay, Even When They Are Not Buying It

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