As a homeworker, I’ve not done much work in offices. (Long story: words such as “disruptive” and “drunk” have been hurtfully bandied about.) Still, I find it amazing that any company would have the audacity to insist on an employee dress code, bar the obvious: “Cover yourself up in a half-smart way and give your clothes a generous squirt of Febreze when absolutely necessary.” Admittedly, for some journalists, my standards may be way too high.
Leading lawyer Ayesha Vardag’s 2019 email to employees at her legal firm, Vardags, has been leaked. At times, it’s less as though Vardag is addressing professionals and more that she’s remote-dressing Barbie and Ken dolls whose wages she happens to pay. No to jumpers, cardigans and woolly singlets. Yes to chignons, the “Savile Row look” and female trouser suits, the latter because her ex-husband didn’t like them. Hear that, female professionals: you must dress in a way that specifically annoys your boss’s ex.
Disappointingly, women are advised to be “simple and classic. Never be tacky or tarty”, and there’s an approving nod for “discreetly sexy”. Vardag also censures men for “super-tight trousers”. However, the advice to women has to be set against the backdrop of generalised over-policing of the sexuality of female clothing. This encompasses everything from chauvinist criticisms about how female politicians and all other women in public life dress (“too sexy” or “too drab” and nothing in between) to the once-routine propensity to blame women in short skirts for their own rapes. In this societal context, no working women should be ordered to second-guess their levels of sexiness.
Some of Vardag’s edicts, such as not wanting people to look as though they’ve just returned from backpacking on a gap year, are basic common sense. In an arena such as law, clients want people who look serious and competent, not gormless-looking festival hippies making peace signs. However, this does not excuse the overtly female focus of the emails or the startling control-freakery: from directions on “squeaky-clean hair” and keeping up with fitness regimes to the instruction to “inspire awe, respect, credibility and universally slavish adoration every single day”. Every single day? That sounds exhausting.
And few working women want to scrabble around with grips to sort out a sodding chignon on a weekday morning, however much their boss thinks it “packs a lot of power punch”.
Certainly, it doesn’t make sense to dole out so many dress codes that your staff end up late for work. More seriously, employers just shouldn’t tell employees how to dress, for the simple reason that it’s insulting and infantilising to imply they need to be told. As adults who dress themselves every day, they can be trusted to dress appropriately. They’re not overgrown children who need their shoelaces tied or their cleavages monitored.
Good to know Dave’s still able to splash out
Like everybody else in the UK, one of my major concerns in life is David Cameron’s happiness. It’s delightful to hear that he’s treating himself to a £50,000 swimming pool for his Cotswold gaff. His application for planning permission reveals that the pool would boast underwater lights and grey/black tiles (hmm, very bachelor pad 1983, but no matter) and would be constructed on a bit of garden that, until now, has been “left as meadow grass” (meadow grass – the humanity!). The former PM even thoughtfully arranged for the pool to be heated, so that lazy, spiteful hacks like myself could snipe about him being in hot water. Thanks, Dave.
I’m so pleased he has a new project. Though it’s sometimes hard to keep up with all the £25,000 shepherd huts, £8,000 hot tubs and other high-ticket items that are so relatable for ordinary Britons about to enter a deep recession exacerbated by Brexit and coronavirus, only one of which Cameron didn’t actively cause.
Frankly, I’m relieved that Cameron can afford his pool. Sasha Swire’s newly published memoir, Diary of an MP’s Wife, recalled Cameron joking about regretting closing global tax loopholes while in power, because he’d made so much from his post-PM career in speeches and consultancy. It would come to something if a chap had to pay tax like normal people.
Talking of Sasha, now that she and husband, Hugo, have been cast out of the “chumocracy”, the Camerons may need some new guests. Guys, give me a shout when the pool is built. I could pop over and, unlike some people, I don’t grass. Even if my invite fails to arrive, it’s nice to think of Dave splashing about. We all just want him to be happy, right?
Braverman’s put-down was misogyny of the worst kind
Ah, the pungent aroma of woman-on-woman sexism! The attorney general, Suella Braverman, called the Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge, Ellie Reeves, “emotional” for questioning Braverman’s support for the government’s attempt to disapply some elements of the Brexit withdrawal agreement via the internal market bill being debated in parliament.
Braverman said: “I prefer to take a less emotional approach than the honourable lady.” I see, because nothing says out-of-control hysteria than calmly asking why, as attorney general, Braverman failed to defend the rule of law. Maybe Reeves was on her period?
The attorney general was widely criticised for her response by, among others, Labour’s justice spokesman, David Lammy. The “emotional” put-down is a well-honed chauvinist tool, intended to frame valid concerns and queries from women as intellectually lacking, impulsive and hormonal. While you’d expect it from certain kinds of men, it’s always a shock to see women aiming it at other women.
• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist
September 27, 2020 at 01:47AM
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It's bosses who tell people how to dress who deserve a dressing down - The Guardian
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