To the White House: Wear-Pants-To-Work Day is Every Day
One-hundred years ago, Jeanette Rankin assumed her role as the first woman elected to Congress. Thirty years ago, Barbara Mikulski became the first woman elected to the Senate in her own right.
The year is 2017 and we’re living in an Atwood-dystopia.
In an announcement to White House staff, Donald Trump said “women must dress like women.” Whatever that means.
I think it is safe to say this is a condemnation of women wearing anything but dresses, things like, God forbid, pantsuits. But, boy, does it put us on a slippery slope to undo the progress in workplace equality women have made in the past thirty-or-so years. With this order lashing out against pantsuits, it begs the question: why the hell this is so important?
Women have not always had the right of wearing pantsuits in the Senate. Up until 1993, it was unclear if it was even allowed. Turns out, it was not, and the Sergeant at Arms had to amend the dress code so the legendary Barbara Mikulski could wear slacks. Not for nothing, but it has been less than thirty years, and Donald Trump is hinting that he finds pantsuits unacceptable.
Many girls grow up detesting dresses and the color pink because they feel it puts them into prescribed, gendered boxes that inhibits who they truly are. Some grow out of it, some do not, but both are women all the same. So, when Mikulski donned a pantsuit on the Senate floor, she signaled to millions of girls that you do not need a dress to be a woman, and that a woman can be just as influential, and as powerful as a man.
Pantsuits, since then, have become emblematic of women on the move, especially in government. Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and Carol Moseley Braun are all famous for their fashion choices. And, just because it is fashion, does not mean it is to be taken lightly. The symbol of the pant-clad women is infinitely more powerful than Lady Godiva. Images of women in their pastel and jewel-toned ensembles, standing at podiums strike me just the same as Judith beheading Holofernes.
Women make up only 21% of the House and Senate, though they are a good, solid half of the population. Fifty-nine other countries have had female leaders, while the U.S. could not manage to do that one good thing. Think about that. In the amount of time it took for American women to get the right to wear pants to their job, forty women assumed the highest government office in their own countries.
And it’s pants. You’re telling me the White House is afraid of some female staffers in pants? What could a woman possible be hiding in her pants — that never have pockets, because such is the standard in female fashion — that a man is not? What is offense, unnatural, unholy about a good pair of slacks? Is it that women look too good in pants, and it makes all the boys cry because they can never rock a pair like that?
Gosh, it is just pants. This is the stupidest thing to make some decree over. Scratch that. It isn’t just pants. It’s meant to signal that women aren’t up to snuff, that we aren’t up to the task of government office, that no matter what our merits are we will always be remembered as the second sex — the one that wears skirts.
So, White House staff, I beseech you, wear pants. Wear bright, hot pink, leopard-printed pants. While doing a kickass job. In the pants.
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