I first became aware of the problem when I took a female faculty interview candidate out to lunch a few years ago.
“Deciding what to wear to interviews is a real challenge,” she had told me. “My advisor knows what the male faculty candidates should wear, but for me he had no clue.”
Indeed, professional dress is a difficult problem for women, especially those in male-dominated fields. As psychologist Virginia Valian writes in Why So Slow?, men have a professional “uniform,” but women are always “marked.” While men’s clothing is intended to help men blend in, women’s clothing is intended to help women stand out.
Why do women wear makeup?
Did you know that 44% of women don’t leave the house without putting makeup on? I watched a video in which a relationship coach…