A cleavage of views - pornification of the workplace

Interesting article in the Ottawa Citizen.
Shelley Page, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Sunday, July 02, 2006

I used to work for a breast starer. He'd summon me to his office for a chat but instead of meeting my gaze he'd plant his beady eyes on my chest, no matter how buttoned up I was.

I could be pitching a story idea, but he wasn't listening, too busy trying to sneak a peak through my shirt, the proverbial deer caught in my headlights.

This happened to all us female reporters. So when we went into his office, we'd hold a large binder over our breasts. Foiled, he'd eventually look at us while we talked business.

Call me old-fashioned, but I didn't much like being leered at in a workplace that had very few women where the men used to stand in a row to loudly rate the young female reporters (0 to 10) as we self-consciously slouched by; where I was partnered with an older male mentor who requested a "pretty young thing for the summer;" where one boss faithfully displayed the Playmate of the Month on the wall by his desk; and where we were more likely to be sent for coffee than on assignment.

When I started my career I was one of only two women among a general assignment pool of 22 reporters. One male colleague joked that I had the number of the Ontario Human Rights Commission etched on my desk for quick reference. Admittedly, I was frequently humourless.

I didn't want my appearance to be an issue even though my gender was, so I hacked off my hair, kept buttoned up, and tried to do the best job possible. But at least I had scored a job.

All was well, more or less, until the Britney Spears generation showed up to work a while back in various states of undress, from see-through slip dresses, to thongs sprouting out of their pubic-bone riding jeans, to plunging necklines and prosti-tops.

Two decades later, I've become the breast starer.

Jiggling, firm, round, translucent, veiny, tanned, huge, flat, fake ... I'm surrounded, at work and at play -- whether the office, an interview, being intercepted by a PR hottie or a brassy bureaucrat.

I'm not leering or sneering. I'm just perplexed.

My male friends think this is a most excellent development. But I'm not so sure.

I realize that even to wonder about a dress code makes me sound prudish and pruny. And when there are societies that find women's bodies so offensive they have to cover themselves from head-to-toe, I'm loathe to suggest that tube tops and a hint of thong aren't appropriate business attire.

Besides, who wants to be one of those women who criticizes other women? Shouldn't we all just wear what we want? Maybe it's OK to have your cleavage pillowing out while you're interviewing a cabinet minister. Maybe your scoop neck will get your a scoop.

In part, I envy these young women's innocence.

In the '80s, before sexual harassment policies were in place, it was not uncommon to be lunged at by an older male colleague when the elevator doors slid shut (at least that happened to me), or be asked for late-night cocktails to discuss one's stories (ditto), or to have an editor offer to drive you home, but instead kidnap you because he wanted to show you his new sound system.

The '80s power suit, with the big shoulder pads, high-necked blouses and manly briefcases, wasn't just an attempt to blend in with our male colleagues, it was a suit of protective armour.

But the Paris Hilton disciples have waltzed into the workplace, semi-clad and semi-conscious. All the hard-won battles of earlier generations have earned them the right to be oblivious. Two decades after we fought to keep sex out of the workplace, they are overseeing its "pornification."

It's happening in workplaces throughout North America. And a backlash is building.

Experts in corporate etiquette are publishing lists of appropriate office attire that declare even open-toed sandals and bare arms inappropriate. Wimbledon has changed its dress code to rein in the outfits of female tennis players. Oprah's O magazine for June carries an eight-page spread exploring the "New Naked," asking "How Bare is Too Bare?" They interviewed 14 experts on this phenomenon, and most women came down on the trend, while the men interviewed were all for it.

Jaqui Lividini, former senior vice president at Saks Fifth Avenue, said she'd send a woman home who came to work too uncovered. "This is about work, not flirting in a sexy dress," says Maria Bartiromo, host and managing editor of CNBC's The Wall Street Journal Report. But Robert Verdi, host of the Style Network's Fashion Police, said that dressing sexy isn't an attempt to be "provocative or vulgar ... today we use fashion to tell the world who we want to be."

I would normally bristle at these attempts to make young women cover up, but still wonder why they're undressing in the first place. Is it liberation or are they shackled by inane and overly sexualized pop culture role models? I suspect it's the latter.

The best explanation comes from author Ariel Levy, who last year published Female Chauvinist Pigs, Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. She says popular culture has embraced a model of female sexuality that comes straight from pornography and strip clubs, a sexuality in which the woman's role is to excite, titillate and perform for men. Women mistakenly equate sexual power with power. By embracing this cartoonish form of sexuality they have adopted a perverted form of feminism.

Levy has written, "There is a widespread assumption that simply because my generation of women has the good fortune to live in a world touched by the feminist movement, that means everything we do is magically imbued with its agenda. But it doesn't work that way. 'Raunchy' and 'liberated' are not synonyms. It is worth asking ourselves if this bawdy world we have resurrected reflects how far we've come, or how far we have left to go."

Let's face it, if you're standing in your workplace in a state of semi-undress, you don't have any real power over your probably-male boss because he isn't paying attention to what you're saying. You can say that if he's not listening, it's his problem, but it actually ends up being our problem.

Levy also writes, "Without a doubt there are some women who feel their most sexual with their vaginas waxed, their labia trimmed, their breasts enlarged, and their garments flossy and scant. I am happy for them. I wish them many blissful and lubricious loops around the pole. But there are many other women (and, yes, men) who feel constrained in this environment, who would be happier and feel hotter -- more empowered, more sexually liberated, and all the rest of it -- if they explored other avenues of expression and entertainment."

As long as we make our appearance the issue, that is what we will be judged on.

And as Levy says, if we actually believed we were competent, witty, smart and, yes, sexy, then we wouldn't have to dress like strippers, or act like men or anyone other than ourselves.

The rewards would be what many young women desire and deserve: freedom and power.

Shelley Page's column appears every two weeks. She can be reached at spage@thecitizen.canwest.com