The other night I was hanging out and playing pool with some of my friends – a typical Friday night activity. One friend and I were discussing the difficulties we’ve been having with our job hunts. Then she raised an interesting issue. She said she had an easier time finding a job years ago when she had longer hair than she does now. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup and prefers pants to skirts. Even though she is a qualified and educated candidate for a job, she thinks it is her appearance that is deterring future employers.

I started thinking about the issues women face trying to find work. Is there really an additional expectation of femininity in the workplace?

I started thinking about the changes I have made in recent months as I’m trying to find a job. I grew my hair out from a short crop cut into some longer layers. I started wearing makeup – or at least more than my usual swipe of mascara. I got manicures before every interview. This was not the first time I changed my appearance for a job. Several years ago, I was working in an office when my boss pulled me aside. While I was dressing in appropriate business attire, she wanted me to look more feminine. I needed to get a haircut, wear a little more makeup and buy some trendier dresses. I loved my job and so I did. I never thought twice about it. Now I look back and think, shouldn’t my work performance have been more important than how I wore my hair?

To learn more about hiring practices, I called my friend, Anna, who is a graduate student at Illinois Institute of Technology studying industrial psychology. We talked about how improved businesses have become with treating women but still have far to go. In the seventies, interviewers would ask women questions such as, “How does your family feel about dinner being late when you’re working?” and “How does your husband feel about you working outside the home?” Now such questions are illegal, but there are still some prejudices that go unspoken.

Anna explained that “like hires like.” When employers are interviewing people, they look for someone similar to themselves and other people in the office. They want someone who will fit into their workplace not just in professional ability but also in appearance. If most women in the office are feminine, they will look to hire a woman similarly dressed – whether or not it is ethical. Appearance may not be spoken about openly, but it is still on an interviewer’s mind. “If you have two equally qualified people applying for a job, the attractive person will be the one who gets it,” she said.

I suppose the most disturbing aspect of learning about this is that I haven’t come up with a way to combat it. It is not illegal to hire an attractive person before an unattractive person or to prefer a female candidate in a dress rather than pants. Expectations about how women should look and dress in the workplace seem to be deeply rooted into the professional environment. It is a trend that won’t change without altering the way our culture thinks in general. As long as appearance is prioritized over ability, a skirt in an interview will still be as important as a resume.

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