Image consultant Susan Bixler tells of a female who was vying with several male colleagues for a top job in a prestigious Midwestern corporation. As qualified as the men with whom she was competing, the woman believed her chances were good.
”But every month, she not only changed her hairstyle, she changed the color of her hair,” Bixler said. ”She was first perceived as insecure, then as a flake.”
She didn`t get the promotion.
Alas. What`s good for Madonna is not necessarily good for the rest of her sex.
Although the case of the colored coif is an extreme, it illustrates a point that Bixler and numerous professional women believe is true: Image-how a person dresses, walks, talks, eats, drinks and swears (or doesn`t)-indeed has an influence on a person`s success in the workplace.
And if said person is a woman, image plays an even greater part than if said person is a man; and if said profession is one of the somber and serious ones-law, banking or accounting, for example-it can play a leading role. Indeed, images suitable for an athlete, entertainer or journalist could be professional hemlock for a banker.
Last week`s Supreme Court ruling in the case of Ann B. Hopkins against Price Waterhouse, one of the nation`s largest accounting firms, brought not only sex bias but the whole indeterminate world of image to the forefront once again. Not since the days of John T. Molloy`s ”Dress for Success” books and women`s ”power suits” worn with floppy ties have a woman`s executive suite wardrobe, makeup and briefcase been as vigorously discussed as last week, when they figured in a story that hit the front pages of major newspapers.
Locally, women in legal, accounting and architectural firms interviewed for this story said that they had followed the case closely and that the issues were central in their own professional lives.
Many strongly shared the belief that when it comes to making impressions, women tend to be judged more critically than men. ”The range of acceptable behavior is a little narrower for women,” said a female partner in a law firm.
”It is much more important for women not to make mistakes. It is just understood that they have to conduct themselves and their business lives with greater care,” she said.
In the case, U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell ordered Price Waterhouse to give a partnership to Hopkins, who said she was denied the partnership in 1983 because of negative sexual stereotypes. (Hopkins, not incidentally, brought in more business than any of the 87 male candidates for partnerships.)
What made the case precedent-setting was the order to award a partnership in a professional firm as a remedy for discrimination based on sex or race.
Significant in the case was evidence presented by Hopkins` attorneys:
Partners at Price Waterhouse had referred to her as overbearing, macho and abrasive. She carried a briefcase instead of a purse. ”It is a matter of public record,” Hopkins said in an interview from her office in Washington, where she is a management consultant at the World Bank, ”that I was advised to walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, style my hair, wear makeup and wear jewelry.”
Hopkins admits to not wearing makeup-she has an allergy-though she does wear jewelry: a college ring, a circle pin with sapphires and diamonds that was a gift from her grandmother, a gold necklace that her mother gave to her on the birth of her son, the sort of jewelry that a Lake Forest matron might cherish.
Hopkins, 46, calls herself ”a very conventional, very appropriately attired woman. I`m not 6 foot 4 and I`m not 580 pounds. I do not wear tennis shoes and Bermudas to business meetings. I wear conventional business suits. I am a conventional height, 5 foot 7.” It would be called the classic tailored look.
”There is nothing outrageous about my appearance, so I don`t think that the way I dress should have had anything to do with the matter.”
But there had also been some complaints that she acted like one of the boys: She cursed, drank beer at lunch and could have used a course ”at a charm school.”
Bixler, a corporate image consultant with offices in Atlanta and Seattle and the author of ”The Professional Image,” asserts that such ”visual communication”-including demeanor and clothing-makes an enormous difference in the business world.
”Psychological studies show that we make 80 percent of our decisions based on visual information-dress, etiquette, body language and protocol. They`re more important than what we say,” according to Bixler, currently writing ”Professional Presence,” to be published by Putnam next spring. ”Of course Mrs. Hopkins` image was important.”
Local women said they could not comment specifically on the Hopkins case because their information was not firsthand. However, many willingly discussed the issue of image in the workplace.
”A member of a minority always gets a harder look,” said Susan Getzendanner, partner in the law firm of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and a former U.S. District Court judge.
Getzendanner says she was the first woman partner at Mayer Brown & Platt, in 1974. ”Image was more important then. You didn`t want to be too sexy or too loud. And, you didn`t want to be too bland either. You didn`t want to do anything to attract a negative vote. You wanted to be mainstream. You didn`t have to work twice as hard as a man, but, yes, you had to work a little harder.”
Things have changed somewhat in the legal profession, she says. ”There are all types of women, from frilly to severe. But the bottom line is the same, whether it`s law or accounting. You have to be able to handle the client. You have to know your business and be good for your business. That`s first. Then, if collateral things, like image, take away from business, sure they matter.”
Attorney Jeanne Boxer, the only female partner specializing in tax and international law at McDermott Will & Emery, says, ”People will choose other people for service whom they respect and get along with. Clients have certain expectations that you look and be capable, successful, authoritative. Clothes enter in because they can help you look both successful and authoritative.
”A man must be well-kept, his shirts should look good, he should look good. But for women, there`s a premium placed on being stylish-more conservative than flashy-but stylish.”
As director of the Fifth Avenue Club at Saks Fifth Avenue, Rita Johnston heads a staff of six shopping consultants who help choose wardrobes for women in a large variety of professions and careers. ”I have yet to hear `My company makes me dress a certain way,` ” Johnston said. ”Women who are in important positions know there`s a certain credibility in the clothes they wear and in their particular style.”
Johnston says that successful women today ”want to look the part in their jobs. Why should they be counterproductive to their careers?”
She and others acknowledge that even within specific fields-and even within the same firms-there are different ways to dress and different levels of acceptance of certain types of clothes.
”I don`t look like somebody from an advertising firm, but I`m different from what people expect a banker to look like,” says Wilma Smelcer, senior vice president and managing director at Continental Bank. ”A lot of people have stereotypes about bankers, but I don`t dress that way. I buy a lot of Escada, Gloria Sachs and Anne Klein and I only get positive comments. We market financial services. I go to huge meetings. It`s important for me to be noticed and not just be another person in the crowd.”
Johnston says that women ”buy according to lifestyles, they define themselves by their fields. They might say they work in a conservative firm. Those in advertising and public relations have more flexibility, and others who own their own businesses dress for the appropriateness of the client. They are savvy enough to know they will be remembered most for their brainpower, but they are also sensitive to the guidelines of their particular workplace.
”At the entry level, they follow their peers. When they`re an officer or partner, they are very secure and can be more adventuresome.”
Men, on the other hand, tend to have it easier in the clothing department, simply because most wear what amounts to a uniform. While women have an elaborate-almost bewildering-range of choices for specific careers, the standard male attire tends to be a suit.
Bixler says men get off easier also when it comes to judging behavior.
”There`s definitely a double standard. I tell my female clients that they`re naive if they they think otherwise. It`s wrong-unfair-but they`d better know it. They have to learn basic things. Like, if a man gets drunk at the company party, there`s joking on Monday morning about the way Joe tied one on. If a woman drinks too much, she`s simply never forgiven. It`s a case of one black mark for a man, two black marks or even a strikeout for a woman.”
”Men also make excuses for each other,” says Rosaire M. Nottage, who gave up her partnership at Bell Boyd & Lloyd to start her own law firm with Eunice Ward.
”We`ve heard men say, `He`s a slob, but he`s brilliant.` They play squash together, go to lunch at the Union League together. But, when it comes to women, they tend to classify them as a group. There were always `the lawyers and the girls.` And `the girls` were always the secretaries and the clerical help.”
Because she was among the first women to become a partner, Nottage said she learned to dress to separate herself from ”the girls.”
”I paid hefty amounts for my clothes,” she says. ”There weren`t too many role models then, in the `70s, and I didn`t want to dress like a man. Each woman had to create her own image of a competent, strong, decisive woman. The power suit didn`t work-it was simply aping men.”
The Hopkins case is not over. Price Waterhouse ”is in the process of studying the court`s decision in order to determine the appropriate response,” according to a statement issued by the New York headquarters.
”Price Waterhouse staff are judged solely on the basis of relevant and nondiscriminatory business and professional criteria and we continue to believe that this was true in Ms. Hopkins` case,” read the complete statement.
Locally, Barbara Pope, the only female among 48 Price Waterhouse partners in Chicago, would not comment on Hopkins specifically.
But she did say this: ”A partner once subtly suggested that I might look good with a Dorothy Hamill haircut. That was in the `70s and I had long hair and I probably looked more collegiate than professional. The suggestion really helped. It`s the kind of thing any of us might do for each other.”
