I am not a woman, a person of colour or of fluid sexuality or identity, so disregard my comment if it so pleases you, but the older I get the more I seem to want the exact things you are looking for. A little formality seems like it might be a wonderful thing and I won't have to pretend I care about the owner's bitching new Tesla. I work in tech currently and tend to dress in shorts and a Tshirt, which is comfortable I grant you. It would be a small price to pay to havw to be overly cordial with only my team members amd not trip over scooters strewn about, if it meant I had to wear a button up and slacks. ... Christ I sound like a curmudgeon, but I do think some general personal bounderies would keep people's socio-political views from peeking out in an inappropriate arena, including my own. It sets a tone.
Formality of environment need not extend to dress code. Remember, dress codes are used against women (by men telling the woman how she should be dressing) far more often than they are men.
You can have a formal office without a formal dress code. Yesterday I wore jeans, a t-shirt, chucks and a blazer to work at a formal company. I only wear the blazer because I am physically small and look young, so I feel it enhances my professional image. But it's my choice what to wear; not my employer's.
It does help though. It doesn't need to be overly formal, but putting on nice slacks and a nice shirt with dress shoes helps you go "I am at work. This is different than when I wear my casual clothes. These people are my colleagues and not my friends/family." I'm not saying that it is solely down to the clothes, but that small bit of separation helps.
I do agree with you on a personal level (I wouldn't wear shorts or jeans with holes in them to work, but I do on my own time); but I feel strict company-enforced dress codes are unnecessary for this.
People tend to self-adjust to the norms of their workplace. More than once I have had a male colleague ask me how to address a female employee who wore clothing that they considered too provocative (too short of skirt / low cut shirt).
My response? Say nothing; it's usually a junior employee who is trying to figure out the norms of what to wear at work. Women's fashion is a lot more complicated than men's, and it can take some time to find a professional dress style that works for you. Mansplaining women's fashion to her isn't going to help.
Oh for sure. (I am a woman, btw.) I don't mean specific instances like that. I more mean business casual vs casual as a whole. I went from a business casual to a casual environment. In the winter especially, I wear the same sweaters just with different bottoms (jeans instead of slacks or skirts) and shoes (casual boots or sneakers vs dress boots or heels).
My larger point was that a dress code tends to establish those norms. In addition, a dress code tends to create a floor for what is acceptable. There is always that one person who pushes the minimum. Finally, to me, it helps create a differential mindset. Work is different than home. It is part of the reason I put on real clothes while working from home instead of my PJs.
Dress codes create hostile environments for transgender people, though.
Before transition, I went out of my way to wear baggy unisex clothes. Wearing anything that screamed "male" was a sure-fire way to induce dysphoria in me. That includes business casual clothing.
At my first job, we didn't have a dress code 90% of the time, but whenever we had a customer visit or a board meeting, the CEO would send out an email telling us that as long as the guests were there, we all had to wear light button-up shirts with dark slacks. The idea made me so dysphoric that most of those times, I fabricated an excuse to be sick. I'd smoke a cigarette from a three-year-old pack that I never went through because they were exceedingly rough even when they were new, and then I'd call my boss with an utterly horrendous cough. Then one time I had something to take care of that day, and I couldn't do it from home (it involved hardware), so I carefully studied the CEO's email and realized it said nothing about nails. So I came in dressed in the awful shirt and slacks that made me so dysphoric... and black nail polish on both hands. Just because it was something to take the edge off the dysphoria.
I'm also sure that my dysphoria affected my ability to interview, as well. Before transition, I was terrible at interviewing, and I once had a two-year spell of unemployment where I couldn't have an interview go well for the life of me. And it felt like the suit I wore to the interview was choking the life out of me. But after I transitioned, every single in-person interview I've had has resulted in me getting an offer. In fact, both my current job and my last job were the results of the first in-person interviews I had after I started sending my resume out each time.
Though there was the time when I tried to interview after I began medically transitioning but before I socially transitioned... not only did the suit make me dysphoric, but I spent the interview utterly paranoid that my blazer wasn't enough to hide my growing boobs. Of course, I didn't get the job. That was the last in-person interview I failed.
Maybe it is a generational or just personal thing.
I feel restricted / unnatural and generally unhappy if I have to wear those sort of clothes.
I've noticed a lot of people in the current generation wearing more formal clothes at work, I guess this is a cycle, and us 40ish year olds in T-shirts were doing the opposite of those who came before.
Honestly I find it weird to hear what seems like quite young guys on the train to work having a conversation about the best shoe polish.
Yeah, pretty much this. When I said formal I did not mean to exclude metal kid or force that kid to wear tie. It was not supposed to be about dress code.
I recently started a new gig after having been at a remote startup for several years. New gig is very formal from both process and business perspectives, yet I can still wear jeans and tshirts when I go into the office. I much prefer it over your typical startup experience.
