THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 17, 1995 TAG: 9505170059
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
On cable TV, a segment dealt with whether women should wear skirts or slacks at work.
They should wear anything they please: dresses, suits or sackcloth and ashes.
More than that, they should be able to do anything they want.
Sigmund Freud, apparently driven out of his noodle by something a woman had done, asked, ``What do women want?''
With that question he revealed he was something of a male chauvinist.
What women want, and deserve, is equality with men in every phase of life.
My fervor on the issue stems in part to gratitude for women pulling me out of one mess after another.
Why, not long ago in traffic court - but let's not go down that wilderness trail just now. It would take the rest of this column to explore; but I am grateful to that astute young officer for clarifying what I had told her at the scene about the out-of-date license plate.
Anyway, I applaud today's diverse dress, especially on newspapers, where tasks are many and varied. Our hall is a fashion runway.
Just now a young woman strolled by in what can only be described as a granny sack.
It knotted at the neck, fell to her shoe tops and billowed about her as she walked. Lovely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vale and hill.
It looked cool, in both meanings of that word.
Slacks are cut in ways that would not have been deemed possible a decade ago, every bit as fancy as a dress and often well nigh indistinguishable from one.
On the TV show, some women favoring slacks also said that on occasions, at a board meeting or a conference with a strait-laced client, they were more at ease in a skirt, a sort of dress suit, or a dress. Well, that makes sense.
On the job, my nondescript apparel blends in with the surroundings, enabling me to drift by security guards at political conventions.
The idea is to look innocuous. In an interview, wear nothing conspicuous - sandals or a midriff-bare tank top or a beanie with a whirligig on top - that will turn the subject to asking questions about you instead of answering yours.
Unobtrusive attire would also prove handy if, by some set of circumstances too incredible to imagine here, I ever found myself holding up a bank. And having to make a getaway on a scooter parked outside, the sort that, building up speed, requires one to pump the handle bars as one's foot kicks the ground.
Some readers will recall my defending a dress code for teachers.
Yes, because they are, inescapably, a model for youngsters who otherwise won't have any notion of what to wear in applying for a job or how to conduct themselves in life beyond the streets.
When families fall apart, teachers may be the only key to stability. We owe them. So much. by CNB