If they don’t wear that clothing, they don’t get the job.
I noticed this today while waiting for the microwave in our lunchroom. TV was on a station showing stock tickers, etc. Two commentators — one a very pretty woman about 30 in a tight sweater (covered, but VERY shapely) and a man in his 60s with gray hair in a suit. I remember thinking, no way would a woman his age be allowed in that seat (especially if she didn’t color her hair). And that the sweater was carefully chosen to appeal to male viewers.
How do we change this??
Back in the '70s, those in charge declared that women couldn’t be television news anchors or voiceovers on commercials because people didn’t take women’s voices seriously. Obviously that has changed. How do we change the clothing issue?
Frankly, in many many markets the anchors choose their own clothes. Michelle Obama was the one who set the sleeveless trend. I suggest if you find women anchor clothing offensive in your market or even nationally, send them an email, every single one of them has an email and a twitter account. I highly doubt the station manager or their peers are “pressuring” them about what they wear unless the colors or the patterns are discordant for television or they are breaking some stations regulations regarding appropriate clothing.
Women should not use their sexuality or sex to get ahead. As long as women ‘sleep their way to the top’, women who have some morality and don’t do this will be propositioned to see if they are ‘that kind of woman’. Kamala Harris, for example, got her start in politics by being Willie Brown’s mistress. He gave her her first jobs, political appointments. She slept with him, a married man. At the time he was the most powerful man in Sacramento apart from the governor. What kind of an example is this for young women?
Seems to me a little more information on Kamala Harris and Willie Brown is in order. Willie Brown was technically married but in name only for undisclosed financial reasons. It was widely reported in the early 80’s that he and his wife had “separated amicably.” They have not shared a residence since that time. Kamala Harris met him 10 years after that separation and they never concealed their relationship. He had been in circulation socially for many years before he began a relationship with Harris.
By the time Harris first ran for public office in the early 2000’s her relationship with Brown was well behind her. And it didn’t help her at all. I would argue that in fact it hurt her as it became a campaign issue that Brown was technically still legally married when Harris was dating him.
I think the point is that there are a multitude of decisions that women make as individuals and rightly so…how they dress, who they sleep with etc. It is a fools errand to think that you can take away a woman’s right to choose simply because it does not agree with another person’s particular mindset. We all know or have known women who dress maybe a tad proactively in our opinion or have an affair with someone who is married. If they are a close personal friend you might have the ability to discuss but if you don’t know them, I am a believer is zip your lips.
Thank you for the context @HarvestMoon1 .
They shouldn’t have to. Men shouldn’t make that a condition of their hiring, promotion, etc yet it seems the choice too often is “sleep with him or suffer the economic consequences”.
IMO it’s a problem with that system, not with women who decide they need to participate in it to live.
I totally agree. And would add that women should not support women who have sexed their way to the top. Women who prostitute themselves make all women more vulnerable to being approached like that.
^^^Harvest Moon’s account of these events doesn’t support what you said about her “sleeping her way to the top.” Whose version is correct?
I’m not sure who you’re referring to as having “sexed their way to the top,” TatinG, but Kamala Harris, whom we’ve been discussing, has a conventional work resume for someone in her position. She graduated from Howard, got her JD from Hastings (University of California, San Francisco), became a deputy DA in San Francisco, was elected San Francisco DA, was elected California Attorney General, and then was elected to the US Senate.
Brown’s Wiki confirms he and his wife separated in 1976. He dated Harris in the 90’s after many other very public relationships.
I’ll have to look up the LA Times article later but her first jobs were appointments facilitated by Willie Brown.
@TatinG Her first job after law school and passing the bar was Deputy DA of Alameda County in 1990. 3 years before she started dating Willie Brown.
Depends on if you are a Democrat or Republican, like so many things when the persons involved are politicians.
According to Wikipedia: Kamala Harris got her first job, Deputy DA in Alameda County (not San Francisco as I incorrectly wrote) in 1990. She began dating Willie Brown, then the powerful Speaker of the California State Assembly, in 1993.
Brown ran for San Francisco Mayor in 1995, and Harris was very active in his campaign. He broke off their relationship shortly after he won the election.
In 1998, while Brown was still Mayor, Harris was brought into the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. That could have been a patronage job. But Willie Brown appointing someone to a patronage job is about as newsworthy as water being wet, and has little to do with sexual harassment or sleeping one’s way to the top. Willie Brown was notoriously the master of levers of power.
Typical smear campaign against a woman getting ahead in politics. @TatinG Where did you get the info?
Willie Brown facilitating a campaign ally to get a government job is not an example of anyone sleeping their way to the top. It is an example of Willie Brown acting like Willie Brown. Former SF Mayor and current Governor candidate Gavin Newsom, as well as the late SF Mayor Ed Lee, were also Willie Brown proteges, but nobody says they slept their way to the top.
“Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, continuing his rush to hand out patronage jobs while he retains his powerful post, has given high-paying appointments to his former law associate and a former Alameda County prosecutor who is Brown’s frequent companion.
“Brown, exercising his power even as his speakership seems near an end, named attorney Kamala Harris to the California Medical Assistance Commission, a job that pays $72,000 a year.
“Harris, a former deputy district attorney in Alameda County, was described by several people at the Capitol as Brown’s girlfriend. In March, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called her ‘the Speaker’s new steady.’ Harris declined to be interviewed Monday and Brown’s spokeswoman did not return phone calls.
“Harris accepted the appointment last week after serving six months as Brown’s appointee to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board, which pays $97,088 a year.”
That’s from the Nov. 22, 1994, Los Angeles Times.
But rather than get into the (political) weeds of Kamala Harris, the point I was making is that equality demands that people get their jobs equally, not because they are sex partners of powerful people. Men who solicit sex for jobs are johns. Women who grant sex for jobs or money are prostitutes. Both are equally guilty.
Women should stand up to this sort of job corruption (for want of a better term) against both men and women who do it.
Corporations and government should not condone this. Being someone’s sex partner should be a disqualifier for jobs or promotions to prevent this sort of thing.