Clothes do not make the woman: what female academics wear is subject to constant scrutiny

Hello I long ditched the cliched Next suit for wellies and green weather proofs usually splattered with mud and muck. And yes I study at Chester as well as lecture and farm. Pin clothes and their cliches to the washing line of history. Just confuse the b*****s and have done with it next time. Turn up with a fetching pair of wellies with all sorts of accoutrements attached. Watch this space.

apologies, but after reading this twice i'm still not certain of what point the author is making. disappointed.

Anyone giving a formal speech with facial piercings/strange hair/scruffy clothes at a special occasion would draw unwelcome attention. At our wedding, my husband was lambasted for not shaving his beard. It happens. The only difference, maybe, is that a man wouldn't write a self-absorbed article complaining about it afterwards.

I agree with most of the comments here. As a male academic I have had repeated comments about wearing a t-shirt in cool weather and a colleague to snide remarks after he shaved his hair... both from a female manager. It would be interesting to see some real statistics on gender differences, but it is far from being one-sided. There are unfair differences in that the unofficial dress for women is often more complex and expensive (to wear, choose and clean), but the article did not discuss that. I could chose to wear a shirt and tie as many do and some of the people later in the article do, but luckily most students are less stuck in their expectations than the staff are so I can get away with only a separate set of trousers for work. Less concentration on appearances might be helpful in many areas, but to paraphrase from a media course I took: diverging from what society expects you to look like becomes part of your message when speaking in public whether you want it to or not and your message can get lost.

Sheer ill-manners, commenting adversely on someone's attire, isn't necessarily sexist, it's just plain rude. Me I only recently started work in a university, and started off quite formal: skirts, hair up, etc. Now I wear what I wear everyday, trousers, shirts and jumpers (depending on how warm it is) and my flowing grey locks, well, flow. I feel more comfortable being like everyone else... but when it comes to graduation, the skirt and hairpins come out once more. That's a formal occasion, and it's my students' special day, so I make an effort for them. It's only polite after all...

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