The Cleavage Controversy: Is It Really A Business Crime?
by Elana Centor
Writing about cleavage in the workplace last fall, Glamour Magazine asked,
Across America, women seem to be celebrating Take Your Breasts to Work Day. With low-cut tops and push-up bras in every office ( and mall and airport and...), we have to ask: If you've got it should you flaunt it?
Just this week Wall Street Journal, attacked the issue. In that article, Gail Graham, executive vice president of marketing for Fidelity Investments is quoted as saying, " there's no greater crime" for a businesswoman, Ms. Graham adds, with just a smidgen of hyperbole, "than to show cleavage."
It's not just a matter of image; sometimes, there can be real trouble. Lisa Goldstein, an attorney and founder of consulting firm Rainmaker Trainers in Philadelphia, says that during a client dinner with spouses, a head of a law firm was propositioned by her male client and his wife.
The client "suggested that they swing together," says Ms. Goldstein, who was informally consulted on how to recover the professional-client relationship. The lawyer felt that her revealing evening dress had set the wrong tone, sending "signals that were misinterpreted," says Ms. Goldstein.
Any rational person should know better than to proposition his attorney. But the reason there are dress codes is to limit the signals that could go awry -- including ones that evoke the irrational.
The conversation continued this week at SheFinds.com with this post: Business Deals Going Sour Lately? Take Your Cleavage Off The Menu With Business Appropriate Attire.
Female CEOs and Hillary Clinton can't risk the bad press surrounding a low cut dress or a too-short skirt. "It's often women who reveal too much, leaving their clients or colleagues with indelible memories. The results can range from slight discomfort to a huge misunderstanding," says Christina Binkley.
Jonscott Turco, a psychologist and consultant with Partners In Human Resources International, says "[women] thinking it's an empowering thing that they can be sexy and professional, but guys don't see it that way. If she's dressed sexy, that's all they see." We powerful business women want to be remembered for our accomplishments – not our backless Donna Karan spandex gown.
The Fresno Bee is also covering the Cleavage issue.
...business etiquette expert Barbara Pachter sent out a note today saying employees should be careful when trying to beat the Valley heat. Short skirts, skimpy tops or otherwise inappropriate clothing don't cut it, she says.“Sexy is not a corporate look,” says Pachter, author of the "NewRules@Work: 79 Etiquette Tips, Tools, and Techniques to Get Ahead and Stay Ahead" from Prentice Hall Press. Clothing, she said, still needs to project professionalism.
She's got eight tips. Read on:
1. No cleavage—period. I am amazed that I need to tell women that cleavage is not appropriate for the office. And it’s not!
Last summer the Washington Post's resident fashionista--Robin Givhan wrote a 700 word article on Hillary Clinton's cleavage.
The cleavage, however, is an exceptional kind of flourish. After all, it's not a matter of what she's wearing but rather what's being revealed. It's tempting to say that the cleavage stirs the same kind of discomfort that might be churned up after spotting Rudy Giuliani with his shirt unbuttoned just a smidge too far. No one wants to see that. But really, it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away!
Which got this response from columnist Ellen Goodman
Not even Nora Ephron, who wrote a book called "I Feel Bad About My Neck," could have spent more energy deconstructing a neckline. Isn't there, somewhere, a booby prize for covering pulchritude instead of policy?[...]n the end, the question is not whether a candidate can show a hint of breast but whether you can have breasts and be president. It's not a matter of cleavage in fashion but cleavage in the voting population. Does anyone remember what Hillary was talking about on C-Span2? Education. Need I say more?
So, do you show a hint of breast at work or when you are attending an evening business related event? Do you think the pundits have it wrong that showing a little cleavage damages a woman's professional image?
Image Credit: Glamour Magazine Elana writes about business culture at FunnyBusiness
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Comments
This one... not 100% sure it's a feminist
issue
To me, it's more a question of appearing professional. I wouldn't want to see hairy chests peeking from open dress shirts any more than I would want to see "a hint of breasts" in the workplace. Female or male, I agree that "sexy is not a corporate look."
Vered DeLeeuw
www.momgrind.com
There's a fine line
There's a fine line between "hanging out" and showing some tasteful cleavage. I'm a woman and I love being one....I have breasts, go figure. I don't try to tape them down, hide them or pretend I don't have them. I'm proud of my curves but I think the mistake women make is showing way too much instead of being proud of the bodies we have. Think of breasts as an accent...like a nice necklace. Doesn't have to be the focal point.
I refuse to dress like a street walker but I'm not a nun. So, we all need to find a good middle ground with our two bouncy friends.
Cheryl
http://dailyblonde.blogspot.com
Keep it under control
I'm with Vered on this. I seriously don't want to see anyone's chest hanging out in the office or other workplaces. (Nor do I think short skirts are acceptable, and I really, really hate open-toed shoes in professional environments. Feet just gross me out. I can understand if you want to wear flip flops on your off time, but they so do not belong at work. Yes, I am a prude.) On the other hand, even if there is a little too much boob showing, it's not acceptable to be propositioned as a result, either. A low-cut blouse does not indicate that a woman is "asking for it" or whatever sexist crap excuse people give for sexual harassment.
Suzanne Reisman, Contributing Editor - Feminism & Gender
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants
While I don't think plunging
While I don't think plunging necklines or see through tops are at all acceptable office attire, a hint of cleavage is nothing to be scorned for!
I agree with Mommyt05 on
I agree with Mommyt05 on this one. It depends how much cleavage is showing and how that fits in with the overall picture of the outfit. Also, if you have larger breasts, most of what's available in the stores is going to show a bit of cleavage. That's just fact.
It reminds me of all that silly coverage in the British press about German Chancellor Angela Markel's cleavage at a foreign affairs summit or some such. So much hemming and hawing about how were the dudes in the meeting supposed to concentrate. "Oh my God! There are boobs in the room! How can we possibly think??"
I thought Hillary looked great in that pink suit. If that's "unprofessional", then pretty much all women over a size 5 are. Meh. Women have boobs. Grown ups can deal with it. Everyone can shut up or leave, as far as I'm concerned.
- Kuri Thought, Interrupted By Typos http://www.thoughtinterrupted.ca/
HA!
Great reply, Kuri......I laughed when you wrote "...boobs in the room! How can we possibly think??"
I wrote a blog a few months ago about Dolly Parton who was in the news for "taking a breast break"...(http://dailyblonde.blogspot.com/2008/02/taking-breast-break.html ) I don't know, but I've never been able for ask for one of those days off. Perhaps the big wig men who run the companies and go gaga over boobs in the room would stop acting like 18 year olds if women got breast breaks in addition to personal days and holidays. But then again, they might come back and ask for penis breaks. Which, by and large, would mean that their brains were on vacation.......
Cheryl
http://dailyblonde.blogspot.com
Had to think about my cleavage, in a business
context, this week
Some background - I use Twitter, but I don't use it for professional purposes, or for promoting blog posts, or anything, really, other than keeping in touch with people whom I like, on a personal level. My avatar, there, is the same as I use, here - because I choose to keep contemporary and recognisable representations of myself off of the internets. That said... Sunday I went to an awesome outdoor sporting event, along with 50,000+ others, on a blazingly sunny and bakingly hot day, and wore a bikini top and pair of shorts - along with many thousands of others. Feeling great about the day, I decided to use an image of that as my Twitter avatar. At 100 pixels by 100 pixels, wearing sunglasses, I wasn't too concerned that including my head as well as my bikini-clad torso was *too* endangering for me. Even so, after an hour (and despite some Twitter direct messages complimenting me on the new avatar) I thought better of showing my face, and replaced the avatar with one of my bikini-clad breasts alone.
The next day, I received a direct message from a close friend, saying that they would have to unfollow me, if I kept that avatar - because if I posted to Twitter, and that avatar appeared in their Twitter client while they were in a business context, it might cause them difficulties. I was, frankly, amazed - I didn't think there was anything tasteless about the avatar. But, this is a friend, and I knew they wouldn't ask lightly, so I replaced the avatar.
I've been thinking about this, ever since - being able to use that image meant a lot to me - for many, many reasons. Being asked *not* to use it... raised so many questions in my head. I had no desire to cause difficulties for a friend - and I *could* have just said, "well, unfollow me, then!" But they're a friend, and I value my friendships highly enough to see things from viewpoints other than just my own.
The fact that every other person who commented, in a reply or direct message, was a) a woman, and b) complimentary, supportive, or even outright envious... well, I don't regret using that avatar. Even if only for a day.
It's not like I can leave my curves at home!
My feeling is that, for the most part, flesh should be covered-ish. But at the same time, I'm not convinced that someone else's inablitiy to control themselves around people they find attractive is the problem of anyone other than the people who can't control themselves.
Certainly there are some obvious guidelines - if you would wear it to a club in the hopes of finding a little love for the night, then it's probably not appropriate for the office. However, I see no harm whatsoever in wearing outfits that happen to show that you have a body you are proud of. I don't happen to have cleavage, and no Wonder Bra can give it to me (believe me, I've tried!), but i am very athletic and it shows in my body. I remember wearing a nice pair of VERY PROFESSIONAL slacks once and being told that my butt was distracting. Well, what am I supposed to do, wear a moo-moo? I remember thinking that one of my male co-workers (who was also a triathlete) wore perfectly professionally clothes under which we could tell he was built like an underwear model. Should he have to wear a moo moo?
The idea that women should have to hide their bodies because men can't control themselves is patently offensive to me? Women (some of you anyway) have breasts, and there's nothing wrong with that! How can we send an empowering message while saying "good gods, cover those things!" Hillary Clinton's only fashion crime as yet another really dull pant suit, but that bare glimpse of cleavage - the tiniest speck of it - was no fashion crime. In fact, I thought she looked great! If she has to hide her boobs, then Obama should have to hide that grin that makes women swoon, it's only fair.
___________
Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE: A Web Site To Save The World
Start Her Up: A blog for Women Entrepreneurs
Never say never...
I will NEVER have a job where I have to worry about this! This whole corporate world hang up about bodies and professionalism is beyond uptight to me!!
Sorry if that hurts anybody's sensibilities, but there is such a lack of feeling, of being in our bodies, that a flash of cleavage, or chest hair, or toes for that matter, distracts people from their "work". Maybe the "work" isn't that important. Maybe these flashes are reminders that we live in bodies, and this whole separation of 40 hours plus a week from being those bodies is just palin ludicrous. Maybe this separation is what keeps us from being feeling bodies on the earth, and keeps us working 9-5 in corporate jobs that tend to be the front runners in destroying our precious home, ie the planet.
Here's to more tits, ass, toes and chest hair in the work place, and death to lives run by corporate priggishness, and sexual harassment!
Men will be men...
This one made me out-and-out REALLY laugh out loud. I agree with everyone here that there is a time and a place, but I don't think it's something that you can put a global mandate on.
For instance, I have a friend who has always been thin, and relatively smaller "up top." As such, she's been able to spend most of her adult life running around in tank tops and jeans and managing to not appear overtly sexual in doing so, in the work place or at home. That's just how she is / was. Then, a particularly interesting thing happened. She got pregnant.
While her husband was overjoyed with her new and improved "friends," she found herself having to rethink her entire wardrobe. Somehow, practically overnight, she went from being cute and thin and athletic looking to "boobs in your face porn star." The amusing side for me was that she had to re-evaluate her thinking on how other people looked in their clothes as well.
As someone who is comfortable in her own skin, who also works in a professional environment, I have one simple rule that I follow... If I put something on, presumably for work, and even have the slightest thought that I could wear the same thing *out* with the goal of attracting attention, it's a no-go at work.
My rambling point is that men will always be men, no matter how much skin is showing. Honestly, I have some low-rise wool pants that I wear with a TURTLENECK in the winter months, and have to admit that some men stare at that. Some men are distracted by the mere existence of a female form, whether it is covered from neck to toe or not.
--But I would LOVE if I thought that a man spent a moment of time stressing over a chest hair peeking out of his shirt. That's a conversation that I would enjoy. And how about men with "nips" showing?? HA-HA