The Associated Press reports that a Harvard librarian has brought race and sex discrimination charges against the University, claiming that she has been repeatedly passed over for promotion because “she is black and is perceived as just a ‘pretty girl’ whose attire was too ‘sexy.’”
Since completing her MA in library science in 1999 (she also has a master's degree in English literature and seven years of experience in the library of Boston College), Desiree Goodwin says she’s been rejected for 16 jobs at Harvard:
“I feel no matter how much education I achieved or how many contributions I made, there was nothing I could possibly do that would impress them so that they would open the door for me to allow me to advance,” Goodwin said during a court recess.
She said she was shocked when, in late 2001, her supervisor told her she would never be promoted at Harvard. In court documents, Goodwin said her supervisor told her she was “a joke” at the university's main library, where she “was seen merely as a pretty girl who wore sexy outfits, low cut blouses, and tight pants.”
Multiple degrees be damned…wear a low cut shirt and you’re just a “joke.” Lovely.
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Was her boss a woman? I find it very difficult to believe that man would tell a woman that she is considered "a joke" for being pretty. In my experience it seems more likely to me that that turn of phrase might be used by another woman to explain why she was not advanceing someone whom she disliked for some reason other than a professional one. However, I may be very wrong. It just seems odd to me, thats all.
argh, this is why it is so frustrating being a woman in any damn profession. our outfits are apparently an extension of our competency. i'm in the legal profession, and if dress so that my figure is not noticeable, i'm dowdy or frumpy and therefore not interesting or worthy. but if i dress in anything remotely clingy, i worry about people looking at my boobs or not taking me seriously. why does it matter? the male partners dress like schlumps for the most part but no one seems to attach any meaning to this.
it shouldn't make a lick of difference. but somehow it does. every day it is a struggle for me to present myself as professional yet fashionable, feminine yet able to leap small buildings in a single bound. even one of the most radical feminists of our time (and an idol of mine), catharine mackinnon, dresses in tailored and feminine suits.
so what's the answer? fuck all and dress how we want? play the game and get an ulcer over how we should dress each day? work from home? wear a trash bag into work?
Part of the problem is that the same outfit gets judged differently depending on the woman wearing it. Something that would look neutral on an attractive woman like Ms. Goodwin would be called "frumpy and dowdy" if a plain-Jane like me wore it. While an outfit that would get me a rating of "she finally put on something fashionable" would be deemed "provocative" on Ms. Goodwin.
One of the ways that women are robbed of our power is by being pressured to spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about and working on our physical appearance.
One of the elements of male privilege is the availability of relatively neutral ground in clothing. If I wear solid or pinstriped suits and white shirts every day, it's just business attire. No meaning is attributed to it, other than that I am in uniform. In addition, unlike many of my colleagues, I wear suits even when dress codes are relaxed -- I don't do casual Friday. Nobody infers anything from this other than maybe that I'm a little formal.
Like C says, in my experience, women don't have anything like a "neutral" option. In women's clothing, every ensemble falls somewhere on a scale of sex appeal, and women have to pick a spot on the scale every day.
This is a classic example of the catch-22 situation that pervades womens' cultural existence in western society (frigid-whore being another such binary).
Like everyone else here, women don't have a 'neutral'. We HAVE to play the game, because otherwise we don't get anything, like this woman is experiencing.
oh, and tfreridge, it does happen, and happens often. A 'pretty girl' will be promoted, but only to meaningless positions with not much for someone as obviously motivated as this woman is. It's done regardless of sex. Even in the supposed educated halls of academia I hear comments like "maybe if she spent less time focused on her makeup then she might get more study done" about some of my female undergraduate students.
The level playing field is a myth that we can only see from a distance and dream about.
Feminist men are stupid. They have as much character as an African-
American who endorses the K.K.K. unfortunately, they are everywhere,
those self-hating morons who don't admit that only men, not women,
invented cities, cars, planes, to improve lives of people. I'd like to
take what is in the Klan handbook, and transfer the statements into a
feminist book about men, and see if anyone notices..I'm surprised they
don't burn a cross in a man's lawn. Also, chivalry is stupid crap, like
what happened on the titanic. What with all the male-bashing
of society,lets look after outselves first. By the way, the only reason that women have cushy jobs is that men created them. White men alone created cities, industry, houses, cars, planes, computers. If men didn't create computers, you wouldn't have them. And then they say that women never needed men. Wrong. It's the other way around. We need you like a bicycle needs a fish.
^^^ Now THAT is a troll.
(I hear if you don't feed them they go away.)
Good site, good blog, thank