There’s about as much revolution in this thread as a cashmere twin set!

jenfromjersey:

First: Read the article at the link- it’s really good and correlates (I feel anyway) to my experience searching for work/interview attire.

Second: Read this comment. Because it pretty much breaks down the idea of what is “appropriate” and who defines it in an eloquent, humorous fashion I could only dream of mastering. 

That comment was so spot on that I stared in amazement as I kept reading.

There was one more point I would have added (if it was possible to add anything to such a well rounded comment, anyway) and it’s how the whole debate was a dog eat dog minefield. All these women, defending “dress codes”, it was appalling, if only because, as working class themselves (and I bet the vast majority are), I do not understand how they lack in basic class consciousness. Dress codes exist so that, in one glance, we can asses someone’s position in the social ladder. What we wear dictates how we are treated. Not only the choice of types of clothes, but the quality of said clothes. Keeping workers (and anyone who lives pay check to pay check, no matter how big that pay check is, or what the job title says, is nothing more than a worker) easily identifiable from one another, keeping the hierarchies clear so that nobody has to second guess the way they are supposed to treat the person in front of them, that’s the whole purpose of a “dress code”. And the people who defend them staunchly, are actually playing into the system that keeps these hierarchies in place. At the end of the day, these easily identifiable hierarchies do not benefit workers, they benefit the employers only because they are designed to keep people in tow, policing each other, keeping an eye for any potential violation of the “code”. The worst offenders are those who are so keen on reinforcing them because they are not acting in their own benefit. They are only tools to keep any trace of individuality of self expression down and cut from the root.

If I was a Marxist, this would be an excellent example of how the bourgeois (or even aspiring bourgeois)  is the best tool in the hands of the oligarchies to keep the working class down. These aspiring bourgeois, terrified of being identified as lowly working class, will do anything to keep the system running. At least, that way, they think they are not bottom of the barrel.