Trying to ‘Look the Part’ at Work
Before COVID, I spent twenty minutes each morning straightening my hair like my career depended on it.
I ignored the burning smell from singed strands, and avoided the parallels between my deadpan hair and my watered-down office persona. My hair protested, falling out in heaps as I burned it to a crisp day after day. But I shrugged it off, because to be competent, I had to look competent. And to look competent, I had to banish frizz, squeeze myself through a pencil skirt, and fill in my eyebrow scar.
As one female classmate summarized it: “In the first few years of my career, looking the part at work meant giving up on time, money, sleep, and, in some ways, my sense of self.”
In ten conversations with GSB women this month, I learned about our shared rituals to “look the part” across industries. We traded sleep for elaborate hair routines and functional backpacks for impractical totes. We chose blacks and greys over vibrant colors, and signed up for clothing subscriptions for a constant supply of conservative dresses. We turned the floor beneath our desks into a rotating shoe rack for teetering heels we had to wear for important meetings, and flats we could actually walk in.
These rituals helped us meet an implicit set of rules for how we, as women, were allowed to present ourselves at work. We were expected to look polished but not too conspicuous, elegant but not too effeminate. As one GSBer described it: “I realized early that not following these unwritten rules would hold me back, so I chose to operate within them in my tech job. I wore dark jeans and avoided sleeveless blouses because bare arms made me stand out as the only woman around. I was part of an industry where when people visualize a leader, they imagine a white dude in a blue shirt. I couldn’t fit that mold, so I kept my appearance inoffensive, as unremarkable as I could.”
On days when we overstepped these rules, we faced backlash, often in the form of criticism from other women. A female coworker once asked me to remove a pair of earrings because it might distract the team. Another once called my sleeveless dress inappropriate for a client meeting, and “strongly recommended” I borrow her cardigan. One GSBer described being called edgy and unprofessional by female colleagues when she wore a t-shirt to work on a Friday, even though men in the office wore t-shirts frequently without facing any objections.
At times, it felt like our female counterparts were trying to watch out for us, making sure we weren’t punished unknowingly for how we presented ourselves. Other times, it felt like they had internalized bullsh*t rules for so long that they took the slightest repudiation of these standards as a rejection of their own values.
The rules felt more stringent, and the punishments more convoluted for women of color. “My experience in corporate America has been complicated by the fact that I am both female and Black,” shared one GSBer. “I started out with straight, relaxed hair because I could imagine no other hairstyle getting me through this job — that is, until my hair started snapping off in chunks. I was forced to transition to braids, and chose the smallest ones I could find. But I will never forget how scared I felt walking into work the next day. My coworkers asked me questions, like ‘How’d you make your hair grow so fast?’ while my clients gave me the side-eye, as if I was acting unprofessional. That first month, I felt like hiding; I didn’t want to take any meetings. It took me a while to remember I was still good at my job.”
Our hair, skin, clothes all felt inextricably tied to our competence. If we chose not to iron every coil out of our hair, or if we threw on a t-shirt on a Friday morning after a long week, we risked being called lazy, unprofessional, unworthy.
That is, until COVID-induced Zoom work brought us unexpected respite.
“In the Zoom world, I finally get to do what men have always gotten to do!” exclaimed one GSBer gleefully. “This summer, I rolled out of bed, and was ready for work in minutes. I never had to ask myself whether I looked too masculine or too feminine, too dressed up or too dressed down. No one cared, including me.”
Another student agreed whole-heartedly. “Instead of all the posturing before a client meeting, I just choose between four athletic shirts. Instead of worrying that my skin is acting out, I just turn on the touch up my appearance Zoom feature. No one cares if my shoes go with my pants. No one cares about the shade of my nails. People pay attention to what I am saying, not what I look like — which is how offices should have been run all along.”
Like my female classmates, I found myself cruising through my internship without ever touching a straightening iron, my laundry basket full of workout clothes that subbed as work clothes. I felt free to look like myself at work, even as work was reduced to countless hours in front of a computer. I started asking myself — why does it feel easier to show up to my job in this dystopian new world where we earn and learn without ever leaving home?
Perhaps because no one has the capacity to uphold rules on female workplace attire in the middle of a global pandemic. Perhaps because it’s hard to criticize women for not looking the part when you can’t see 70% of our form. And perhaps because it’s easier for coworkers to reconcile our ambitions with our gender when we are reduced to a two-dimensional box on a screen. As women, climbing the ladder and leading organizations across popular GSB careers like tech, venture capital, or private equity still feels audacious. Women hold 11% of executive positions in tech, 9% in VC, 6% in PE; the percentages shrink even more for Black and brown women.
We are stuck in paradoxical rituals, seeking silent approval of our aesthetic while dreading overt comments about our appearance. Just like we are caught between fiery demands to lean in and shatter glass ceilings, and the cold, hard fact that 9 out of 10 leaders around us are still men.
I asked my interviewees whether they will require female mentees to “look the part” when it’s their turn to sit in corner offices. Will they hold on to gendered dress codes or offer feedback on skirt lengths, hair textures, nail colors?
“Never. I feel fundamentally in my bones that women should wear whatever the hell they want at work,” said one GSBer.
Another felt more conflicted: “If a colleague gives me feedback on a female mentee’s outfit, I’ll tell them to mind their own business. Then, I’ll give the mentee a call so she is aware of what people are saying about her. While these standards are all screwed up to begin with, as long as they exist, information is power.”
All eleven of us, however, are holding out hope for a day when C-suites carry so much diversity along dimensions of gender, race, ethnicity, hair, body type, and appearance, that we’re no longer agonizing over how to slot ourselves into managerial ranks. Most of us will go back to the office next year, and back to worrying about whether we “look the part.” But one day, not too far off, we hope there will be many more ways to look like a leader.
