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[southern_outlier]

is a lovely young woman who wears the most inappropriate clothing. At least I think she does. Very tight t-shirts and pants - waaaay to casual. Short dresses with too much skin. She's smart, seems to be good with students but is struggling to get respect.

I am her 'senior' colleague and don't know how to talk with her about this. And, I'm not a prude, just want her to be taken seriously. Any suggestions?

[carebearstare]

Are you male or female? In this case, that makes a huge difference.

[southern_outlier]

I'm female.

TT colleague and I have spent enough time together that I know her clothing is not indicative of her personality. She doesn't seem to notice she dresses 'differently'.

I think I've tried almost every indirect way and now other (male) senior colleagues have noticed. Not good.

[scampster]

Maybe you could address it from the perspective of it being too casual for your department? That way you don't need to have any awkward talks about too-tight or too-short. If someone were to kindly tell me that my idea of professional dress was a little too casual for a particular department that I am new too, I would be far less embarrassed than if someone said to me (even kindly) "Your skirts are too short and people are noticing (and not in a good way)."

[msparticularity]

I have seen truly enormous regional differences in "professional" attire, coming from the West Coast back to the Midwest. If this is what is up with her, it's possible she hasn't yet noticed that her attire is out of step with her new setting. It's always dicey to try to talk to someone about attire. However, if you do decide you need to talk to her about it, you might couch it in terms of the expectations at your institution being on the conservative side, and you don't want to see her get dismissed as unprofessional by the older faculty and administration.

On preview: I see Scampster and I are thinking along similar lines here. :)

[ucprof]

 Actually even the females
will find the situation awkward.  I once criticized a job candidate for inappropriate dress in an internet photo
(I am female) and got slammed by one of my senior male colleagues for this comment.  That said, I still think someone is going to do her a favor by getting this point across.  Likely she has no clue.  There is a huge generation gap between the young folks - fresh from PhD and the older folks.  I'm not that old but some of the stuff I see 20-somethings wearing would be considered inappropriate when I was a fresh PhD.  CNN recently had an article about this very issue - including things like new hires wearing flip flops and shorts to work.

Let me suggest the following story - when I was young one of my young colleagues said to me - about
a visitor who they thought was dressed inappropriately - who does hu think hu is?  When I told the young colleague that the visitor was a full prof at a top school, the response was - OK hu can dress any way hu wants.

The point being that your young colleague is NOT a full prof and unfortunately does have to worry about credibility.  Perhaps when she has tenure or full prof stature and some other things on her cv then she will have more clout and more freedom to dress as she wants because people will know her for her work rather than her clothes.  Until then she needs to consider dressing the part.  Moreover she's not a student anymore so she needs to stop dressing like a student.  I have made that point to young colleagues - not so much in regards to clothes, but in regards to other things like showing up on the first day of work because they now have a job rather than
being a student.  So the dress code thing could fall into this category as well. 

Not sure who is the best person to bring this up with her - it's going to be awkward no matter what but SOMEONE should do it.  If it were my dept I'd be willing to take on the task so hopefully someone there is.  If you are at a loss then go talk to someone in a counselor type role because this faculty member NEEDS to hear this from someone.......you all do her no favors by talking about her behind her back and letting her continue with business as usual.  Feel free to copy this anonymous post from the chronicle - you can at least attribute it to someone with tenure in the university of california, based on my handle.  Presumably since you all hired her you want her to succeed so help her as best as you can with appropriate advice - if she is taken more seriously by senior people it will only boost her confidence level and help her in both teaching and research.

Another point to make is that a lot of students have no clue what is appropriate for professional attire.  I sometimes get students coming to me asking for advice on this matter and I happily give it.  I'm not even one to dress all that well myself, but perhaps they feel more comfortable asking me.  I wish more of them would ask - both male and female.  I suspect a lot of them want to know but are too shy to ask.  Another piece of advice I give PhD students, regarding teaching, is that if they are uncomfortable about it - pretend they are acting in a play as the role of professor.  They can even write out a script if they are really uncomfortable.  But that said, they need the correct costume - hence the dress issue.  It's hard to come across as a prof while being dressed as e.g. Micky Mouse (to pick a harmless costume - probably not what your colleague is wearing - but you get the idea).

Best of luck to you - I say she is lucky that someone has taken notice and wants to do the right thing.  Another thought I had was that if she is foreign there may also be cultural issues here.  There are some countries where the kind of clothing you describe is more acceptable for young women than in other countries.  Anyway regardless of all this she is working at your place not in one of these other countries so she has to deal with the local culture whether she likes it or not.

[larryc]

Could you invite her to go shopping?

[southern_outlier]

Thank you all for the advice.

larryc : I did invite her to go shopping and even kindly suggested she might look nice in this.. or that. No go.
so far. I think she might have some size issues. Maybe she has gained or lost weight and doesn't know what fits.

Wonder what would happen if I complemented her on the day she does wear something appropriate. You know, lots of positive reinforcement when that happens?

[carebearstare]

I think there could be a lot of things going on. Perhaps weight gain or loss, as you mention, but maybe more likely is that she's new and she's still "playing dress up"--maybe hasn't had the time or money to invest in appropriate clothing yet. She might be just as embarrassed and feel as awkward as you do about the whole thing. As a new TT person, I've  had some issues myself about "growing up" my wardrobe.

It's possible that with time she'll adjust; maybe the holiday season will bring gifts from friends or family that include new clothes. If you feel it can't wait, though, I would ask her out to lunch one day and bring it politely and but in a "woman to woman" kind of fashion. Something that confers your own experience in some way, and maybe couched in age issues.

"You know, Sally, it can be especially hard for young, female faculty around here to get respect. How have you been feeling about this? One thing I tried when I was coming up was trying to dress a little more formally. It really helped me because..." 

Good luck!

[der_gadfly]

We had a couple of younger faculty routinely wear rather tight/short skirts. They faced problems with their younger students who showed little respect in general. Of course, on observation, we also discovered that their classes were more often populated by male students of the athlete-pursuasion and that they had very high attendance in almost every class.

go figger.

[zuzu_]

This is a tough issue. As a younger female faculty member with slightly funky tastes in clothes, I can tell you that I would be highly offended to receive any sort of "talking to," even if it was done with the best of intentions. I would pretend to take the advice cheerfully and thankfully, but I would secretly hate resent you. Maybe, if you were correct, I would be sincerely grateful after some years had passed.

I do think it is entirely possible she is dressing like ridiculous tart and perhaps your "talk" will help.

But on the other had, perhaps (just perhaps) you have frumpy tastes and you are not as in touch with everyone else's perceptions as much as you think you are.

She's smart, seems to be good with students but is struggling to get respect.

This is something that many young faculty struggle with, regardless of wardrobe.

We had a couple of younger faculty routinely wear rather tight/short skirts. They faced problems with their younger students who showed little respect in general. Of course, on observation, we also discovered that their classes were more often populated by male students of the athlete-pursuasion and that they had very high attendance in almost every class.

go figger.

How can you possibly quantify this effect? I am guessing that your opinions about her wardrobe cloud the way you perceive her class enrollment. The use of "we" implies that this is a subject of gossip. (Not that I am above a little gossip now and then, but I would nonetheless try not to make solid conclusions based on what I hear.)


And anyway, perhaps I am wrong, but I just wanted to give you another perspective to consider. You should also be prepared that a "talk" might irreparably damage your relationship with this woman, and you should be OK with that risk.

[scampster]

This is a tough issue. As a younger female faculty member with slightly funky tastes in clothes, I can tell you that I would be highly offended to receive any sort of "talking to," even if it was done with the best of intentions. I would pretend to take the advice cheerfully and thankfully, but I would secretly hate resent you. Maybe, if you were correct, I would be sincerely grateful after some years had passed.

Really? I can see if it seemed as if she were saying "You dress like a tart, but I'm going to pretend to tell you it is just that we are a more formal department." But as msp said, office appropriate attire is different everywhere and senior people have been correcting the young 'uns about dress for a long time. My old roommate (who is in her 20s) had to correct new grads who worked under her all the time.

I might be resentful and defensive for a moment, but I'd get over it. But since the OP has reservations about the dress besides from more than a professional standpoint, she does need to be cautious that she doesn't come off as just being stodgy.

[inthelab]

What's wrong with leaving her alone and letting her take the conseuqences for her actions?  She is a grown-up, no?

[macaroon]

"You know, Sally, it can be especially hard for young, female faculty around here to get respect. How have you been feeling about this? One thing I tried when I was coming up was trying to dress a little more formally. It really helped me because..." 

This is a good approach!  You ask about her feelings and then share your own experiences.
Without a slide show of her versus the other faculty in your department, we really can't help you make the call about how inappropriate her wardrobe is.

Over the course of my career, I've gotten a lot of comments on my wardrobe.  MOST of them have been positive, and I'm often pointed to as an example of "How you should dress at meetings" or "How to update your wardrobe to be more professional".  I've had grad students sent to me to borrow clothing for postdoc interviews when they are strapped for cash.  ALL of my skirts go below the knee and nothing is low cut ever.  It is almost exclusively bought from the more conservative items at Ann Taylor Loft.  

HOWEVER, I have occasionally gotten the same negative comment from senior women.  They tell me I dress too sexy.  I am NOT appreciative of that comment at all and in any setting professionally, because it isn't the clothes' fault.   What I hear is "Hot chicks have no place in science."    I think they are being catty, jealous, snots.  Try to avoid that ;-).

[ruralguy]

I dress more informally that most in my dept.  I have since I got here.

I have pretty much told anyone who comments on this to go jump in the lake.  I didn't become a scientist just to be "a suit".

My point is that she may just say the same, or think it, more or less.

I would be very careful in addressing this.

If you are more than 10 yrs. her senior, it might work. If you are senior as in tenured, but actually a couple of years younger, I have the feeling it will be a useless conversation.