Why is women's comfortable clothing still treated as less "professional" than men's?
We had a department meeting this week and afterward my manager pulled me aside to say my shoes were "a little too casual for client-facing days."
I was wearing plain black sneakers, clean, no giant logos, with black trousers and a blouse. The funny part is that two men sitting in the same meeting were wearing sneakers too. One had bright white running shoes and the other was basically in jeans and New Balances. Nobody said anything to them.
When I pointed this out she said men's office wear is "a bit different" and that women are generally expected to look more polished.
And I know this is such a small thing compared to actual workplace discrimination, but it annoys the hell out of me because what does "polished" even mean here? My clothes were clean, fit properly and covered everything they're supposed to. Apparently the missing ingredient was shoes that hurt after four hours.
I've had the same thing happen with flats before too, where perfectly normal comfortable shoes somehow read as lazy while a guy can wear the same pair of sneakers every day for 3 years and nobody even notices.
I'm not trying to show up in sweatpants or argue that offices can't have dress codes. I just don't understand why women's version of "professional" so often seems to include being slightly uncomfortable for no practical reason.
Has anyone else run into this? I'm tempted to ask HR for the actual written shoe policy because now I'm genuinely curious if this rule exists anywhere besides my manager's head.