Past Marlen Komar

In the early on 1970s, a group of Boston secretaries came together to improve the working conditions in their offices. Tired of low pay, lack of advancement opportunities, and constant sexual harassment, they created the group 9to5, which would eventually abound into a nationwide revolution that would alter the American workplace for women.  9to5: The Story of a Motility captures this previously untold story of the feminist movement that solely focused on opening opportunities for working women—both in boardrooms and in their closets. Every bit women demanded regular bacon reviews, written chore descriptions, equal access to promotion opportunities, and benefits equal to men in similar task categories (women fabricated 59 cents to every dollar,) some women as well demanded liberty in their function wardrobes.

Feminists recognized that fashion was (is!) political for many women, and even more then in the male person-dominated workplace, where women were expected to play a passive and supportive role. While most women wore feminine dresses and pantyhose, or fashionable pantsuits with womanly accents to work, feminists had a different thought of what would get women alee in their corporate climb. Let's explore what those wardrobe staples would take looked similar, versus what women were really required to wear.

From Minis to Midis to Moving On

In the early 1970s, women were gaining command of their personhood one step at a time—and that included in their closets. The '70s marked the starting time time in history when women could cull their own styles, and not be dictated to past Paris or New York. Before, when designers came up with new trends, entire wardrobes had to exist thrown out or modified in lodge to stay in fashion. That all changed in 1968, when the midi skirt was introduced with the intention of replacing the mini.

The thing was, women merely endured a vi-year campaign consisting of magazine manufactures, editorials, track shows, and ads convincing them to replace their knee-length skirts with minis, and the abrupt change riled them.  Women refused to wearable the '40s-inspired longettes, and no amount of ads, mode shows, or articles convinced them otherwise.

"Decrees issued from the inner sanctums of the world's most prestigious fashion houses aren't clicking. Women aren't paying attention to sweeping generalizations in fashion. They are budgeted mode subjectively. They're wearing clothes that suit them, not designers…For once, women are captains of their own ships and designers are riding the crest of the trend," The Santa Maria Times wrote in 1969.

Men Dictacting Women'south Style

Simply that sense of individuality didn't extend into the male-run workplace. Women largely dressed in the manner they were expected to, the rules of which were laid down by men. And information technology's easy to see why they felt the need to dress inside these confines: sexism was rampant.

In 1978, when the leaders of the education division of the U.s. Section of Health Educational activity and Welfare were asked why all of their top staff members were male, 1 high official told UPI , "The jobs are very demanding. We often need people who tin can put in an 80-60 minutes week and nosotros practice not want to require this of a mother."

He besides remarked he would exist extremely reluctant to have a female special assistant working long hours with him considering that might encourage gossip.

In gild to work side by side with men in the workplace, women had to stay camouflaged. Merely men too wanted to hold onto their status and control, and and then women had to be "othered" in their clothes. Which was why women's workwear was largely feminine. Looking different gave employers an excuse to not give women equal opportunities in hiring and advancement.

What women wore to the office in the late '60s (via Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Partitioning of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Drove, The New York Public Library)

If there weren't severe workplace consequences for breaking wearing apparel codes—similar being sent dwelling to modify, or being fired—feminists in the beginning half of the '70s would take encouraged women to dress as the men did. They would accept encouraged the three "P's": pants, pinstripes, and pockets, blurring the line between the sexes in order to become alee.  That is what feminist workplace fashion could have looked similar, merely instead, the majority of women wore skirt suits, pussycat-bow blouses, or feminine pants.

"All women look terrible in pants"—1974 male reader of Honey Abby It was easy to dismiss women when they dressed feminine, which was why seeing them in pants made society and so uncomfortable.  "I've had several job interviews where people told me that if I were a man I could take the chore," a woman interviewed in the 1970s mentions in 9to5: The Story of a Motion. There were examples of that discomfort everywhere.

In 1971, a woman reporter for The Spokesman Review arrived for a meeting with acclaimed designer Donald Brooks in New York'southward hottest restaurant Cote Basque, when the maitre d' stopped her at the door, pointing at her pantsuit. "The hat-cheque girl ushered me into the ladies' room, straight pins in manus, suggesting that the pants be 'pinned' up nether my midi coat which was not to exist removed," she reported.

One male reader wrote into a Dear Abby cavalcade in 1974 lamenting women in trousers, challenge "that all women wait terrible in pants" and that women should get back into skirts "because that really arouses a homo." Fifty-fifty the President hated to see women in pants. "Every time I run into a girl in slacks," Richard Nixon told White House reporter Helen Thomas in 1973 , "information technology reminds me of China. Exercise they cost less than gowns?" When Helen replied, "No," he grinned, "Then change."

Indeed, women in Congress weren't able to wear pants until 1993.

"Dress for Success"

If feminists had their manner, women would arrive to work in masculine pantsuits—with vests, ties, and pocket squares and all—because society wanted the opposite. Instead, most office workers showed up in skirt suits and pantyhose. And if women employees did habiliment pants, information technology was with feminine tops, or in hyper-feminine prints and colors.

From "9to5": Working women protesting wages in the 1970s

John Molloy, the writer of 1977's The Adult female'due south Dress for Success Book , warned women that dressing as well masculine was akin to "a small boy who dresses upwards in his father's clothing . He is cute, non administrative." Information technology came across as a woman pretending to be a man. Or more than specifically, pretending to concord the power and say-so of a man, which would never be hers. "My research indicates that a 3-piece pinstripe suit not just does not add to a woman'due south authority, information technology destroys it. It makes her look like an 'imitation human being,'" Molloy concluded. He recommended wearing brim suits instead.

Reading Molloy'due south Dress For Success volume, Ann Rinaldi, a Trenton, NJ newspaper columnist, found the whole thing absurd. "Briefly, it occurred to me that nobody had ever written a 'Homo's Dress For Success Book,' merely then, minutes into it, information technology all roughshod into place for me. I am a failure because I don't wearing apparel right," she wrote cheekily. "I don't package myself correctly."

But so she thought briefly, "How much have we women improved if, merely when we've learned to stop packaging ourselves as sex activity objects, nosotros now allow ourselves to be talked into packing ourselves as authority figures?"

Molloy interviewed hundreds of peak-level officials and executives to gather data for his book, but the majority of them were predominantly male. That meant his findings reflected what men wanted, and how they expected their women employees to dress —which further encouraged women to play by men's rules. The pinstripe and iii-piece suits would have straight gone confronting their wishes.

"The pinstripe suit on a woman is negative—for 1 reason. It is high-status for men, and y'all threaten men if you lot wear it," Public Opinion wrote in 1979. The "no-nonsense, we-can-practice-anything-you lot-tin can-practice pantsuits" the Knight News observed, were "a protest against being shoved around in whatever direction."

Feminist Fashion

But as the 9to5 movement began to secure rights for women, and women became respected players in the workforce, the need for a masculine power suit waned.

That'due south why if feminists were in charge of workplace clothes codes, they would have switched tracks in the second half of the '70s.  Instead of pushing masculine pieces on women, feminist fashions would accept encouraged women to wear what they themselves thought best. The get-go half of the decade was most etching out space for women where there was none. The 2d half was about occupying that space on their own terms.

And that meant ditching what was "expected" to be worn, and instead trusting women to choose wardrobes that fit their industry, office, and ain comfort. This would include wearing hyper-feminine chevron dresses, sleek pantsuits, high-fashion slit skirts, comfortable chunky-knit sweaters, or anything else women would come across fit.

Unfortunately, this was far from the reality of that time. Many women nonetheless had strict workplace apparel codes, depending on which manufacture they worked for.

They were policed, no matter what they wore. Wearing dresses instead of suits made them frivolous; wearing suits instead of dresses made them imitation men; and wearing anything else in between fabricated them superficial or united nations-serious.

Vincel ad for women's work wear, 1970s, with tag "Stay cool you've got it made in Vincel"Women were tired of hearing they had to look a certain manner in gild to control respect or take up infinite.  In 1978, The Guardian in the U.Thou. interviewed a group of feminists on their relationship with clothing, and ane feminist on the panel pointed out that, "Women have so ofttimes felt pressured into looking as others want them to expect."

Taking Back Fashion in the Workplace

The feminists explained to The Guardian, "Feminists feel that people should exist able to look as they themselves desire to look, article of clothing clothes in which they experience happy and comfy. Simply this should permit a adult female to apparel upwards every bit well equally dress down, if that is how she feels at whatsoever particular fourth dimension."

"We should feel like full members of society at any given moment of time—whether we're at work, at play or out to dinner…,"  Elizabeth Pull a fast one on-Genovese, American historian and a self-proclaimed feminist told a Rochester (NY) newspaper in 1980. "For women, it [way] should reflect what they feel—not what men or a confused society wait them to experience." That means that a woman should exist gratuitous to choose whatever workwear she feels nigh confident and comfortable in, male-created wearing apparel codes be damned.

In the early '70s, feminist women shed their hyper-feminine pieces equally a mode to reject antipathetic fashion norms and "othering" in the workplace. But in the late '70s, there was a flow of "taking back," where women embraced individuality and made their own decisions—whether that was wearing a no-nonsense ability adapt, or a pink chevron dress.

Nowadays, women are still hounded by workplace dress codes, at least in non-pandemic times, which are disguised as "workplace culture" only mainly aim to "other" them. In 2017, a receptionist at a corporate finance company claimed she was sent dwelling house after refusing to habiliment loftier heels . The Cannes Moving-picture show Festival is infamous for reportedly denying access to premieres to women who don't vesture heels , and there are nonetheless plenty of corporations that openly admit they adopt women to wear skirts and pantyhose to work .

The deviation is that today these dress codes are met with public outcry and pushback. Thank you to the women of 9to5, limiting women has consequences. True liberation is beingness able to choose.

Marlen Komar is a mode history writer based out of Chicago. Her work has appeared in TIME, CNN Style , and Vox among other publications.