What? I feel like I’m missing something here, because I really don’t see a difference between owning six button-down shirts in different colors/patterns and owning six different tops.

I have never, in this conversation, referred to a man wearing shirts that are all visually identical. I have been very clear that I was discussing the SAME shirt in DIFFERENT colours. If you’ve ever looked at men’s clothing (and sometimes women’s, but to a lesser extent), the same shirt will often come in several different colours. It is possible to go, try a shirt on, and then buy the exact same shirt in several different colours. And even if it was possible to get the same shirt in different colours for a woman (I don’t think I’ve been to a store that has work shirts in more than 3-4 colours per style), it would be considered odd, in the same way that the guy who wears the same shirts in the same colours all the time is considered odd.

If you aren’t worried about promotions when it comes to creating a favourable impression, what is it that you’re worried about? And if you feel that you can’t get promoted, no matter what you do, why do you feel that you would be in a position to judge if demonstrating a willingness to conform to the arbitrary standards that society sets is going to have an effect? Sure, they’re not going to say “she looks funny, she can’t get promoted”, but it doesn’t help cement the image of me as a competent person, which is a prerequisite to an image of me as a competent professional. It’s like uptalking. You can claim that only a “13 year old middle school [bully]” would let that be a factor, but there must be a rash of them as supervisors, or else that isn’t the sort of thing that so many warnings would be given about in school.

You yourself say that if the shirts are visibly different enough to not arouse suspicion of actually wearing the same one outfit, for both genders, there will be not notable social consequences, but there might be if there were several identical shirts. This pretty directly contradicts your initial statement that a man could wear identical shirts, but a woman can’t, then amending it to saying a man can wear SIMILAR shirts, but a woman can’t.

I have never worked in a place where my supervisor’s perception of me didn’t affect my job (though lol the fuq at you for thinking that PROMOTION is what I’d worry about, or what I was talking about. You sound like one lucky ducky). Neither have you, neither has anyone. I will say that I have never worked, nor do I ever think I ever will work, someplace where wearing a white button down long sleeved shirt from Brand X on Monday and a red button down long sleeved shirt in the same style from Brand X on Tuesday will in any way affect my job. Because I never have, nor do I ever intend to, work someplace where my superiors will be comprised of 13 year old middle school bullies.

I agree that if you’re in a job where you can wear a suit it’s a lot easier to dress. But I fail to see how suits, or otherwise what you wear when you meet clients, are relevant to a discussion of what you wear to your job on a day-to-day basis.

If what you’re trying to say is that the social penalty (i.e. the extra amount of willingness to conform to societal norms that I would then have to show in other areas) for a man who has all of his shirts the same colour (which does get noticed as odd) wouldn’t be any higher than if I had all the same shirt, you’re probably right. In fact, I suspect that if I had all the same shirt AND they were all the same colour, I probably wouldn’t be any worse off than a man who did the same.

I’m curious as to what fields you’ve worked in where how your supervisor perceives you doesn’t affect your chances at promotion. I’ve never worked anywhere where there is any metric strong enough that subconsious bias won’t play a part.

Also, good point regarding the women’s suit. It is not inherently any more ridiculous or fussy than the men’s suit, it’s just cut slightly different. I think it’s a very common attitude on this blog, and similar ones, for people (bizarrely enough, usually other women) to condemn the idea of a woman wearing anything but a potato sack. Even when she’s wearing the exact same thing as a man. I guess it kind of goes hand in hand with the idea that basic day-to-day makeup takes the average woman who wears it hours in the mirror. Everything conventionally feminine is fussy, a patriarchal bargain, an attempt to look sexy, and on top of it all, ridiculously time consuming and expensive and stressful. I have a lot of clothes and wear makeup daily, yet it takes me 25 minutes to get ready on average, from stepping into the shower to being ready to walk out the door. Plus, it’s really popular to do these “I dressed modestly for 3 months” or “I didn’t wear makeup for a year” as if these are somehow subversive, edgy eperiments, and 99% of women are walking around in sexy outfits and full faces daily. The expectation for a woman to be sexually appealing and fully made-up at all times is, like the expectation that women will wear an expensive dress once, a very, very class based idea that excludes the majority of women. Maybe all the housewives of Manhattan and sorority girls on West Coast colleges are spending six hours in the mirror, but not the rest of us.