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<p>A non-trivial percentage of males have some type of color vision deficiency. Persons who have full color vision may want to think about that if they see a man wearing clothing of odd color choices that do not seem intentional.</p>
<p>I’m interested too, or I wouldn’t still be here. I’m sure we all judge about some things or other things. I judge about abusive behavior, though I try to understand even that. Judging about clothing just does not compute.</p>
<p>We visited 20 campuses. Sweatpants would have been fine on any of them. I wouldn’t doubt that there are campuses where that might not be true. Most kids can figure this out in 5 minutes. Some of it does depend on weather and common sense.</p>
<p>Vermonters don’t care much about these things. I’m heading out to a political fundraiser dressed very casually. They’ll be happy I showed up.</p>
<p>The idea that it is wrong to make judgments about others based on their clothing is pretty naive. Humans must use all of their senses to evaluate and predict their world every day, or life would be chaos. </p>
<p>That is not to say that we might sometimes be wrong; most people know that. Selecting what to wear is something that people DO. What they select provides us with information about them. Most people do choose the clothing they wear for a reason, including that they don’t care about clothes or that they take pride in their fashion ability, which is an art - just as is the ability to put paint on a canvas in a beautiful way.</p>
<p>If you know someone who does an nice job of making the effort to look good most of the time, acknowledging it with a compliment would be a thoughtful and considerate thing to do.</p>
<p>Evaluating information, and judging character (which c’mon, is what’s going on here), are two different things. You know that.</p>
<p>It’s easy to conflate words like evaluate and judge which carry different shades of meaning both in a vaccuum and in context. But it’s misleading to do so.</p>
<p>I don’t understand your meaning, garland. Are you saying it is wrong to judge someone’s character? I do not think that is wrong. </p>
<p>I don’t think one can make a complete evaluation of another person’s character solely on the basis of what s/he chose to wear one day. I don’t think most people do this. But there is nothing wrong with taking into account how people dress when evaluating their character.</p>
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<p>Unless you’re a male teacher or boss and the person who dresses well is a female student or employee, in which case you’re far better off keeping your mouth shut.</p>
<p>Personally, I think it’s wrong to judge someone’s character by their clothes. I thought that was something basic parents taught their kids.</p>
<p>The only thing you can say at work now is about someone’s shoes, anything else is off limit. D1 gets a lot of compliment on her shoes.</p>
<p>roman - there are a lot of different parenting. I personally raised my kids to care about how they dress and look when they go out to the public. I don’t think I have ever seen their friends in sweats, boys or girls.</p>
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<p>No. The classic lessons are “first impressions are lasting impressions,” “the clothes make the man,” etc. BUT “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” Clothing is one element in the evaluation process.</p>
<p>OF, I get that. I just thought that was basic, but I was wrong. Which is why I said thought. Learn something new every day.</p>
<p>Btw, there’s a big difference between caring how you look and judging someone’s character partially based on their clothes.</p>
<p>Well, another reason to say something nice to your friends who dress well is because they won’t get to hear it from their bosses! :)</p>
<p>What do you mean by judging someone’s character? I don’t think just because someone doesn’t dress well (wear sweats, pjs, messy hair, rips in clothes, missing buttons) is a bad person, but just a person who doesn’t care about how he/she looks, and that tells me something about that person. If you call that judging, fine. But to me it is a data point.</p>
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<p>hey!!! that was a low blow Shrinkrap!</p>
<p>=P</p>
<p>I am amazed at the length of this thread! What is the purpose of college? I don’t feel it has anything to do with wearing sweatpants or not. Am I missing something? Does wearing sweatpants negatively affect the learning process???</p>
<p>I just wanted to add that I have a few pairs of pj pants, but I never actually wear them as pjs</p>
<p>this means they are acceptable to wear at other times</p>
<p>I dunno either. I think it has to do with cultural differences between regions and such. I have observed something in recent years in terms of dress that is interesting.</p>
<p>I work in an industry and an office that a mere 15 years ago was dominated by managers in very formal dress. And the expectation was that people new to the business and the office would follow suit in a “similar” manner - in other words, not quite soooo formal, but definitely not designer jeans and a button down shirt, which is absolutely the order of the day now. Ties are extremely rare now, where they used to be required.</p>
<p>Times have changed. Things have become more casual. Interesting trend.</p>
<p>So I went to this fundraiser for a US House candidate. People were dressed every which way; jeans, sneakers a few suits, maybe a dress or two. The character of the people was not discernible by their dress. We all enjoyed each other.</p>
<p>I don’t believe things have become more casual. When my older daughter goes out with her friends, they are more dressed than I was 30 years ago. Business casual has been around for 15+ years, but for management it is still dress shirt without tie, dress pants and a jacket in the office (just in case). I still wear suit without the jacket or a dress. On a Fri, I’ll wear jeans to “fit in.” Even at the tech company I work at, most guys have pressed shirts delivered to the office so they could change into.</p>
<p>I know dress casual has been around for quite a while. My experience is that while jeans and sneakers or loafers were once a Friday thing - now they are an every day thing in my workplace.</p>
<p>People still look extremely “smart” - don’t get me wrong - but there’s definitely a more casual feel. At least where I am.</p>
<p>Shirts are carefully laundered and pressed. Managers still wear designer jackets with their designer jeans - and even cuff-links with their pressed and monogrammed shirts. The tie is almost always absent, and slacks/dress pants are not a given.</p>
<p>And I should add that the majority of the work force is 25-40.</p>