Washington, DC, USA. Strip the Human Race absolutely naked and what is left? It is the eye of other people that ruin us. [N1]

Although we enter the world most certainly without clothes, each and most every one of us lives in society that require us to be dressed. The clothes often wear us, rather than we, them.


Virginia Woolf had it right: "We may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking." [N2] There are dress codes for church, there are dress codes for work. Weddings, funerals, baseball and football all have dress codes. Even Christmas dinner with your grandparents, parents and extended family has a minimum dress code: you probably aren’t coming to the holiday table without the top and bottom parts of your body covered.

The human species habitually produces farms and cities and cultural dress codes. Like ants building nests and bees building hives, it’s what we do and we show little sign of ever changing. The rich and the poor, women and men, owners and workers, young lesbians and gay men — our social group, however we may define it, pressures us to conform. Resistance, while not futile, is at our own peril.

No more so than in the work place where most every business has a dress code, implied or otherwise. Even when it appears no obvious dress code exists, the requirement for uniform non-conformity may become just as rigid as the published dress policy established at the most conservative prep school or religious university.

I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born. [N3]

Complaining about a corporate dress policy will not get you hired; refusing to at least compromise with established workplace policy may get you fired. How badly do you need the job?

If you must be always who you must be, you might better start your own business and be your own boss. But if you want to be hired by someone other than your father, you had make more than a cursory attempt to look vaguely like the other workers who have been hired. Either way, you must know your boss and the rules he (or she) must work under.

Corporate dress code policies can sometimes seem like elaborate pranks if you have arrived from a less rigid environment. Especially if you are a woman.

• Shiny lip-gloss, visible bangs, and hair that looks blown dried may be out. The number of jewels a woman wears may be limited. Or perhaps all the women must wear scarves.
  
  
• Tattoos can still result a division of the sexes with a men’s tattoos allowed to be more rebellious. Boys will be boys after all and bad boys most of all.

Although the double standard may be loosening, a woman’s tattoos most often must be ladylike and visible tattoos on female flesh make that impossible in some eyes. As you might expect, a lot depends on the location of the tattoo and if it can be covered up, even if there are no formal policies established. Remember, all things being equal, human resource managers will hire the more clean-cut employee, the one who most resembles all the other workers they have hired. A company’s culture is everything and seldom includes visible piercings or tattoos.

Or those applicants and workers whose dress openly crosses expected gender lines. You won’t be discriminated against because of your gender but how you express that gender. If you wish to be hired, corporate expectations must be met at least half-way.

Don’t blame me. They are not my rules. It’s just life in the human race. If you are a member of some other species, the rules need not apply.

In jobs that deal with the public, employees must normally meet the expectations of that public. What might be acceptable dress and gender presentation in Seattle may be verboten in Huntsville or Duluth. Know your audience.

We must put up with our clothes as they are — they have their reason for existing. They are on us to expose us — to advertise what we wear them to conceal. They are a sign; a sign of insincerity; a sign of suppressed vanity; a pretense that we desire gorgeous colors and the graces of harmony and form; and we put them on to propagate that lie and back it up. [N4]

There are many stumbling blocks that can stop you from being promoted or even hired. [N5] You might not like them, but they exist.

• Piercings are at the top of list. Visible ones on the lip, nose, or eyebrow. Women, of course, are expected to wear a discrete number of earrings. For heterosexual men, the expected number is often zero. The sexes still divide on some things.
  
  
• Brush your teeth. Use a good mouth wash. Noticeably bad breath is a sure way to avoid being hired.
  
  
• Visible tattoos. Many businesses have strict policies against tattoos. That’s life. If you got them, cover them up if you really need a job. It’s not a protected class covered by discrimination laws.
  
  
• Iron your clothes. Wrinkled clothes are taken as a sign that you are not serious about yourself or the job you are seeking.
  
  
• Comb your hair and get a good haircut. Messy, unkempt hair, especially on women (sorry) is a no-no.
  
  
• Dress for the job and the organization you wish to work. Casual dress — shorts, tennis shoes, tee shirts, etc. — brings into question your commitment to both the job, the workplace, and the company.
  
  
• Too much perfume or cologne can be a show stopper. You know who you are. Enough said.
  
  
• Too much make-up on a woman is just as bad as too little. Too much make-up on a man may raise more questions than you wish to answer. Meeting minimum cultural gender expectations facilitates a successful life in the workplace. Check out ahead-a-time what might be expected. You flaunt your differences at your own peril.
  
  
• Some cultures abhor a messy cubicle or office. Neatness counts in many places. It’s not my idea but it is often reality.
  
  
• Chewed fingernails are seldom attractive. A man’s should be neatly trimmed, a woman’s carefully manicured. Nail polish, if any, should be conservative and mat clear if you are a man.
  
  
• Being too suntanned can be just as distracting as being too pale. You are not the Speaker of The House of Representatives. Orange is not a normal human coloration.

The sexes still divide on many things. Clothes, jewelry and make-up are among the most obvious. Not my rules, you may not like it, but it is the world we live in. Crying about it changes nothing. And what Mark Twain observed is just as true today:

• Naked people have little or no influence in society
  
  
• nor do they often get the job.

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