Clothes and sexism

As discussed previously, I'm evil and sexist.  Accepting that, I'm going to point out a few things about fashion.  Don't worry, this will be short.

First, the easy stuff that's not surprising to anyone.  Women's clothing is horrific and sexist.  No functional pockets and sizes being wildly different by company are just two ways in which this is the case.

That said, and here's the stuff I'll get flack for and proves further how I'm evil and sexist, expectations from men and women are different and have undertones of sexism too.  Professional clothing.  For a long time, women's professional fashion tended toward the showing of skin.  This is obvious sexism as it treated women as sex objects.  As time has gone by, offices have become more accepting of women wearing a much larger variety of clothes, including many that disregard the earlier sex-object fashion sense.  Men's professional fashion, on the other hand, while also changing, has not changed nearly as much.  Men are expected to wear pants.  Not shorts, pants.  In business casual environments we're allowed to wear t-shirts, but to be truly professional, we have to wear long-sleeve shirts, preferably button-down dress shirts.

I've heard more than a little discussion about how offices keep temperatures lower than women would like and that some of the reason for this is that men wear suits and therefore the office temperature is set to make them comfortable.  Here's some quick, highly unscientific observation on my part: women prefer much higher temperatures than men.  There is a constant complaint in my office of the building being too cold and as constant that complaint is, the men don't feel cold at all, ever, in any room, period... and we're not wearing suits.  We're wearing long sleeve shirts and pants, yes, but no jacket.  The top button of our dress shirts (or indeed sometimes the top 2, depending on the guy) are open.  And now we're back to that point I was making in the third paragraph.  Would the men wear shorts if we were permitted?  Probably.  I'd certainly be more comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt, but that's not considered professional.  I'm limited to long pants, whether it be "smart" jeans or long dress pants.  If I could, I'd wear "smart" jean shorts or dress shorts.  I'd still be perfectly fine with the temperature by the way, I'd just be slightly less likely to be sweating on any given day.

"So, what's the problem?" you might ask.  Well, it's 2-fold.  First, there's a hidden double-standard that nobody talks about.  Women have professional clothing that is a lot lighter and airy and doesn't have to cover as much of the body... but the range permits heavier clothing that covers just as much as men are required to wear.  The second part of the problem isn't a sexist problem at all, it's an environmental one.  By forcing men to wear heavier clothes, by forcing us to be warmer, offices need to be cooler, which requires much more energy in the summer.  In the winter, everybody wears heavier clothing because, well, it's colder outside.  But in the summer, when we should all be wearing lighter clothing so we're not as hot outside, men aren't permitted to.  Yes, we would still need air conditioning even if everyone were allowed to wear lighter clothing, but we would need less of it.

So, there's my rant on clothing.  Yes, I know, I'm a man and can't possibly understand the hardships of women and the demands on them from fashion.  Yes, I know, clearly these hardships of men are nothing in comparison to those of women (even though professional clothing for women now is far more diverse than men's clothing and includes clothing that is virtually the same, if not identical, to men's).  But you know what?  You already pointed out that I'm a sexist by simply being a man, so, why shouldn't I prove it a bit by speaking my sexist mind.