Does Dress Affect Performance?
Dear Rose: The suits and ties — or lack thereof — of senators has drawn a lot of publicity lately. In my own family, the issue has caused arguments. The younger people argue that what a person wears has nothing to do with his performance. The older people say that dress affects performance and undermines respect for the company or organization. What do you think? — Dress Code Lady
Dear Dress Code: The flap you mention concerned Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat from Pennsylvania. He was wearing shorts and hoodies on the job, and the media picked it up. Well, the dress code-ers won. The Senate passed a resolution to require suits and ties (but not on the ladies, I hope). And Sen. Fetterman says he will comply.
Interestingly, a letter-writer to the Wall Street Journal suggested that Fetterman’s apparel might have had more to do with his disabilities after suffering a stroke than his liberal thinking. It’s difficult to button up starched shirts and tie ties if one side of the body is somewhat disabled.
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I happen to agree with the older people in your family. I don’t think cleanliness is next to Godliness, but I do think that neatness and conforming to an organization’s dress “code” promotes respect and better work habits. For example: Fifty years ago when I was still a young reporter and a raving liberal, I covered one of the first lawsuits involving dress codes. The principal of a high school had sent a sophomore girl home because she wore hot pink short shorts to school. The parents sued. And won! Even I was negative about the result. I remember telling my husband, “It’s all down from here.”
And I was right.
Thirty years later I found myself substituting in middle schools and high schools. I could not believe the way kids dress. The girls look like hookers in their low tops and short skirts. The boys look like bums in jeans that hang below their cracks. And both sexes wear t-shirts with weird sayings printed front and back. I wondered how boys could possibly concentrate when faced with all that jiggly. But most of them don’t even look. Jiggly has become passe’.
In the “olden days,” girls were required to wear skirts or dresses to school — not pants. If the temperature fell below a certain degree, they could wear pants UNDER their skirts or dresses. Boys were required to wear pants — not jeans — and clean, button-down shirts. Class size was usually 30 to 35 students, sitting in rows, facing front. Amazingly, the teachers were able to keep order, and the kids actually learned something. The dress code was only a small factor in this class discipline, but it was an ever-present signal of what teachers expected.
As you know, the House and Senate have not been sanctuaries of order lately. So it’s no surprise the dress code was the next thing to suffer. The vote to shore up appearance may reflect the desire of most Congress people to restore some order in national government. Wouldn’t that be nice?
