Think a woman being sent home for not wearing heels is the same as being told to wear a suit? Here's why you're wrong

The crux of the issue, then, is that social attitudes about what constitutes a smart and professional look for a woman seem to retain fetishised ideas of sexy secretaries and pin-up girls

A woman was told to leave work without pay after refusing to wear high heels (APA- PictureDesk GmbH/REX Shutterstock)

It’s 2016 and apparently the question of whether women at work are there to be looked at or to do their job is still up for discussion. A receptionist has spoken about how she turned up for her first day at work at a London office only to be told that her flat shoes were unacceptable and she must change into high heels. When she objected that walking in heels for a nine hour shift would be painful and unpractical and asked if any male employees were subject to the same dress code, she was laughed at and sent home without pay.

What’s most concerning is that the recruitment company which set the dress code appears to have been acting legally. While it is not explicitly allowed in law to insist that female employees wear high heels, it is legal to insist they look ‘smart and professional’ so long as different genders have equivalents.

The crux of the issue, then, is that social attitudes about what constitutes a smart and professional look for a woman seem to retain fetishised ideas of sexy secretaries and pin-up girls. Additionally, the general consensus is that there’s no problem with expecting a woman to suffer a not inconsiderable amount of pain to conform to these expectations.

How a woman looks and conforms to the heterosexual male gaze is still the most important factor women are expected to use in guiding their decisions. Performing an idealised femininity is how she will be judged above how she performs in her job.

Worryingly, this week’s incident is far from an isolated one. As a recent university graduate, I’ve seen many smart and talented female classmates and friends arrive at their first graduate job to be told that they must dress in a more feminine way, under the guise that it is a reasonable demand because it makes them look more ‘smart’ and ‘professional’.

One woman started a job at a national newspaper and was told to never again wear trousers because it was a ‘traditional’ office where women were expected to wear skirts. Another began work at a top law firm and was inducted into a ‘sexy formal’ workwear code for women who were expected to totter from courtroom to courtroom in stilettos.

This receptionist’s experience has rightly caused outrage since news broke. But amid the horror the usual ‘what about the men’ arguments have emerged from various crevices and corners of the internet. Men wear suits and ties, they argue, which can be quite uncomfortable on a hot day. This is a false equivalence. Suits may sometimes be uncomfortable, but they do not inhibit a person’s very ability to walk, or spark blisters and bloody sores. Crucially, a long history of sexualisation isn’t sown into the seams of a suit jacket in the same way.

Men do not struggle to be taken seriously for wearing particular kinds of suits, or come under pressure to alter suits to cling more to their calves, or feel the judging eyes of fellow men who deem they are flashing a bit too much ankle. The ubiquity and ease of a man’s suit comes from the fact that it blends into the office background, remaining impersonal and covering most skin.

For men, the suit is synonymous with professionalism. But no clear female equivalent exists. This is largely because women have been shut out of most professions for so long that no uniform outfit has had time to establish itself in the same way.

Dress codes like these serve as reminders of the grim reality that women are still seen as fetishised commodities, with bodies that are considered society’s property. They put into bleak, stark words the constant checklist of feminine behaviour which women are expected to subscribe to in every area of their life, writ large in employment contracts and employee codes of conduct. Above all, they prove that despite the many advancements women have made in the work place in the last century, a large section of society still isn’t sure why we’re really there: to work with or gawp at.