HR 101: A brief history of office dress codes for women

Welcome to HR 101. Class is now in session. Today’s discussion will be about the history of office dress codes, specifically those for women.

The history. You know those photos of your grandmother heading to work in a long A-line skirt, collared blouse, cute little pumps, and a strand of pearls? She wasn’t wearing that outfit just to be chic—anything else would likely have been considered inappropriate for the office.

Some US workplaces imposed restrictions on how women should dress in the office as far back as the 1800s. Certain municipalities even made it illegal for women to wear, for example, pants in public. “If any person shall appear in a public place in a state of nudity, or in a dress not belonging to his or her sex, he should be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction, shall…pay a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars,” read a San Francisco law passed in 1863, according to the Washington Post.

Indeed, it wasn’t until 1973 that the highest office in the land, the White House, relaxed its dress code and allowed female staff to wear pants to work. (President Nixon, reportedly, wasn’t a fan of this change, and “chided Helen Thomas, White House reporter for UnitedPress-International, for wearing slacks, saying he preferred dresses,” according to the New York Times.) Congress didn’t allow women to wear pants to work until the mid-1990s, according to PBS.

Fast-forward. Rules regarding women’s office attire still exist today, found a 2019 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, and are rooted in patriarchy, according to human rights organization Breakthrough Trust.

As flexibility and other benefits promoting work-life integration have become more commonplace over the last few years, employers may want to consider ditching dress codes to help attract and retain talent—especially female talent.

Dress codes that seem discriminatory can result in high turnover rates, HR professional Michele Brenner shared on the SHRM Connect message board in 2019, as well as low productivity and company morale. Similarly, a 2021 Columbia University study found that wearing comfortable clothing at work can lead to “increased authenticity and engagement,” HR Brew reported last year.

Have a subject you want to see covered in HR 101? Reach out to Amanda Schiavo ([email protected]) with your ideas!