Professor Karen Pine, along with her team from the University of Hertfordshire in England, has published the results of a study in the Herts.as.uk website the group conducted to find out what impact there is on women in the workforce when they wear skirts as opposed to pants. She found that on average, women who wore skirts received better pay and got more promotions than did women who wore pants.
In its report, the team writes that 300 random business people were asked to view random pictures of women in a business environment and then asked to fill out a survey where they rated the women in eight categories: confidence, success, trustworthiness, salary and flexibility. The team reports that the women in the skirts received more positive reviews than did the women in trousers.
The results of this study which are also found in Paula Joye’s Life and Style column in the Sydney Morning Herald contradicts conventional wisdom that indicates that women need to dress more like men in order to get ahead in business, i.e. to compete with their male colleagues in getting promotions.
The author of the study makes clear that she and her team are not talking about short skirts or plunging necklines. They’re talking about business skirts that highlight femininity without flaunting their assets in vulgar ways.
Lynn Davidson in Mail Online states that Pine adds in the report that it’s important for women to understand just how quickly first impressions are created. She said in their study that as part of the questionnaire, volunteers were asked how long it took them to decide who was “professional” looking and who wasn’t and found the average to be about three seconds. Unfortunately, first impressions tend to stick, even as things change in the environment. Thus, if a woman is seen as professional looking at an interview and is then hired, her chances of success with a company are far greater than if she is not viewed has highly professional at the outset but develops over time.
The results of this study are certain to come under increased scrutiny, particularly due to the way it was carried out. The team has used findings from a study of volunteers looking at pictures to make assertions about real world conditions, something that may not hold true once real world studies are done. Also, there is the issue of whether using an asset such as a skirt to get ahead in business is an ethical thing to do. For some women, the very idea causes discomfort and thus, the argument leads to discussions of what is right or wrong, versus what is best for a person’s career.