Comment by sophacles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sophacles | Hacker News Reader

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Actually there is one big one I can think of: women's fashions vs mens fashions. The fashions and hairdos and whatnot for women just plain require a lot of work to look right. Combined with makeup, it is a big deal. To look decent, most women need to spend 30-60 minutes a day on that stuff. This really adds up, imagine an hour of your day on nothing but preening.

You could argue that "they don't need to" and I call bullshit. Go down to the nearest college and pay attention to the comments made about the female grad students who do eschew the preening hour vs the comments about those who don't. It is absurd. A man who doesn't bother to do his hair right is "eccentric" or "a bit of a slob" but this trangression is quickly overlooked (a fact many geeks take great advantage of). A woman doing the same will forever be looked down on as 'that frumpy chick' or 'she could really be something if she took care of herself'. Do you see the difference in how the value judgement plays out?

But that goes both ways: a woman can wear almost whatever she likes in a situation where a man can't.

True story, a few years ago I was working for a very traditional financial services firm, and the word came down from On High, people were to wear shirts or polo shirts, not t-shirts, in the office (as opposed to, out visiting clients, which you'd wear a suit for). The girls kept on wearing t-shirts. Someone mentioned it and was informed that they weren't t-shirts, they were "women's tops".

Incidentally, women dress up to impress other women. Men simply don't notice eyelashes or nail varnish or whatever.

> a woman can wear almost whatever she likes in a situation where a man can't

I'm not sure that's true. There's a lot more diversity in women's clothing. I think that probably makes it more difficult to dress for the occasion as opposed to less. For instance, a man can wear slacks and a dress shirt to work and then throw on a tie and jacket for a formal dinner. Most any single woman's outfit would be out of place in one environment or the other.

(In fact, men can get by in almost any situation with a pair of dress pants and a button down shirt.)

> Incidentally, women dress up to impress other women. Men simply don't notice eyelashes or nail varnish or whatever.

Agreed. That has been my observation as well. I think there may have even been scientific studies on this point.

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