(a) stilettos
(b) pantyhose
(c) cleavage
(d) eyeliner

According to one lawyer, two will ruin a female attoyney's career, while two will send her on the partner track. Are career women held to a higher standard of dress than are men? Is business attire absurd all around? Or is the corporate uniform a valuable tool to help boys and girls get ahead? Reader theories—and the answers to your quiz—are after the jump:

whet moser says that the focus on low-cut blouses and too-high heels obscures the fact that in lawyerin', class issues cut both ways:

Yesterday, Feminist Law Professors drew my attention to the Miami Daily Business Review's "Rodent" column, a weekly anonymous rant written by various members of the legal community. The latest missive, "Lady Lawyers Should Dress the Part," warns female attorneys that they may be sabotaging their careers with overly sexy business attire. Actually, I think it's more likely that the conveniently anonymous Rodent, who spouts off platitudes like "women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls," is the force that's keeping women down in the workplace.

According to the Rodent, otherwise capable female lawyers are ruining their chances at being taken seriously by forgoing pantyhose, wearing heels, and revealing their cleavage:

Women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls. I know a lawyer who is in her mid-30s. She is stunning—tall, long blonde Lady Godiva hair and a body that would make a porn star jealous. This woman also happens to be a crackerjack lawyer. But she dresses to emphasize her looks, not her mind; as a result, her career seems to have stalled. Though she is an extremely bright woman, no one sees past the stilettos and low-cut blouses.

The vermin continues:

Clients tend not to hire women who look like hookers unless they hire them as hookers. Don’t show your “girls” at work unless you are looking for a one-night stand.

All right, let's hear one more:

I knew an associate who wore shoes that looked like she was a bridesmaid. She was a good lawyer, but there was a real disconnect between those gold sandals and the notion that she wanted to go the distance as a lawyer. She didn’t, and the shoes were a tip-off.

The Rodent's theories are convenient: The lawyer who looks like a porn star stumbled because her shoes are too high. The lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid is not serious about her job because her shoes are too strappy. The lawyer who looks like a hooker is not successful because her breasts are too prominent. Beyond the offensiveness of grouping female professionals into categories like Barbie, porn star, hooker, and bridesmaid, the Rodent appears to be going to great lengths to deny the obvious. Perhaps the lawyer who looks like a "porn star" is devalued because people think she's too attractive to be smart, not because she dresses like a Barbie. The lawyer who wears anything other than a turtleneck is devalued because she's got boobs, not because she dresses like a hooker. And the lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid, whose strappy shoes are a "tip-off" that she's not a serious lawyer? That sounds like a pretty insane explanation for a career misstep to me.

The Rodent, of course, is attempting to explain away a more offensive aspect of the legal profession: women are consistently partnered and paid less than men are. A commenter on Feminist Law Professors draws the obvious comparison between devaluing a woman's work based on her attire to outright sexual harassment. She writes that men have informed her of the harassment rule: “If she’s going to dress like trash, then she’s going to get treated like trash.”

Blaming a woman's clothing choices for her professional failure is simply a strategy for selectively discounting women without being called on your sexism. All you have to do is project your biases on to "her choices," and you can discriminate away.

This becomes clear when the Rodent gets specific about what aspects of a woman's appearance are unacceptable. Interestingly, several of the Rodent's tips are not specific to female lawyers. "A tattoo that shows is NEVER appropriate when you are a female attorney," the Rodent writes—as if face tattoos are generally accepted among lady litigators' male co-workers. The Rodent then offers up a weak defense for focusing on lady ink—women sag. "I promise you that once you are a woman of a certain age, your skin will lose elasticity, and that cute Asian saying . . . simply won’t look good when it’s sagging."

Many of the Rodent's recommendations are inconsistent. According to the Rodent, "Frumpy is the opposite end of the spectrum, and I see a lot of that these days, too. Looking like an unmade bed—wrinkled clothes, no makeup, dirty hair—doesn’t inspire much confidence either." Apparently, femininity-enhancing attire like heels are unacceptable, but makeup is required. The anonymous ranter also points to Condoleezza Rice as an acceptable style icon, even though Rice hardly shied away from figure-hugging, sexy-heeled outfits in her tenure as Secretary of State.

The lesson we can learn from this is that the standards regulating female appearance are largely arbitrary, and are designed that way to keep the door open for criticism. Men may either be labeled "sloppy" or "professional," but women must also navigate between being "frumpy," "professional," and "overly attractive." And since the "too sexy" meter can often be set off by simply looking like a woman, not dressing like one—having breasts, hips, legs, and a waist—hitting the right note can be a lot more difficult than learning to knot a neck-tie.

Feminist Law Professors' Bridget Crawford concurs with the Rodent on some points:

I myself am on record against visible toes in the office, so I am inclined to agree with the Rodent on this topic. . . . Displays of exaggerated female sexuality (cleavage, heels, etc.) are tools that some women attempt to use to their benefit. Kathleen Bergin explains this in her article Sexualized Advocacy and the Ascendant Feminist Backlash Against Female Lawyers . . . the Rodent reminds us that the same tools can be used against women, too.

I agree that this double standard—be attractive, but not too sexy—is used against women in the workplace. But I disagree with the Rodent's conclusion that the solution to workplace sexism is for women to modify their behavior by buttoning up and trashing the sandals. Apparently, no matter what a lady lawyer wears, there will be some vermin waiting on the sidelines to tell her it's not appropriate.

Photo by markusram, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This Week In Sexist History:

So, this "McFarland" guy was kind of pissed that his wife up and left him to become an actress and hang out with some "Richardson" dude. So he did what any husband would do: He fucking shot Richardson! To death. Thankfully, McFarland has got fancy olde-tyme defense lawyer John Graham on his side, who is like Atticus Finch meets Jack McCoy, except for jealous 1870's douchebags:

We laughed. We cried. We wanted to fuck him. In this four-hour grandstand, all Graham had to prove was that his client, McFarland, was insane when he shot his wife's lover point-blank. Graham gets preeeeeetty creative, and then—get this—ends the oration with "tears running down his [own] cheeks"(!) Let's see how Graham argues so hard for murdering adulterers that he makes himself cry:

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McFarland Is Crazy Because His Wife Thinks She's Too Good For Him:

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He's Crazy, But Even If He Wasn't Crazy, Other Dudes Your Wife Had Sex With Deserve to Die Anyway:

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He's Crazy, But He's Not A Fucking Coward!

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He's Crazy Because She Tried to Make A Life For Herself As An Actress, And She Sucked At It:

P.S.: She was an "abortion" on the stage? They had the sweetest insults in the 1870's!

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He's Crazy Because Only A Crazy Man Would Stand Idly By While His Wife Cuckolds Him. Wait, Doesn't That Mean That He's Not Crazy? Whatever:

WronglyAccused, though practiced in the art of subtlety, proved less versed in legalese. "The fiancee of one of my friends is accusing me of rape," he wrote. "I have no idea what my legal options are and his father is a high-powered NY attorney. What am I supposed to do in the situation?"

Reddit users responded sensibly, for once. The lead response, from youareretardedguy: "You don't need the advice of reddit, you need a lawyer you dumb motherfucker. Jesus Christ."

Perhaps Reddit was the best place to turn after all?

Sure, the hallway of domestic violence courtrooms at D.C. Superior Court sounds like a great place to pick up women. They're bored. They're probably on the rebound. And their ex-boyfriend is court-ordered to stay far, far away from your sweet moves. But somehow, the men I've witnessed hitting on chicks in Superior have not had much luck leering and hollering inside the courthouse.

Maybe it's because the woman who lands in domestic violence court is too busy reliving her own personal nightmare to think about starting a new one with you. Maybe it's because she's got a pretty finely-tuned bullshit meter at the moment. Maybe it's because she's kind of busy, and you're kind of a jerk. But for whatever reason, she's not biting at your pick-up lines. That doesn't stop you from trying.

The guy attempting to exploit the depressed, in the sign-up line for Petitioners and Respondents: "Baby, I've got a shoulder to cry on. Hello?"

The guy attempting to exploit the child-support set, outside the bathroom: "Hey I wanna give you my phone number take you out to lunch and out to dinner and then to the mall. Shopping spree. Credit card."

The guy attempting to exploit the high-heeled, leering over the elevator: "Sexy."

And finally, the guy attempting to exploit his own misfortune, right outside the courtroom: "Hey, are you a lawyer?"

Final tally: Women with legal trouble, 4; court-themed pick-up lines, zero. Okay, so there are no good pick-up lines to use in court. Lingering for her right outside the courthouse is also bad form.

But gentlemen, if you must mack, please: Confine your scene to the basement cafeteria. It's well-lit down there, it's a little bit more relaxed (they sell muffins), and you won't directly skeeze a woman out with your own personal problems immediately before it's her turn to tell the judge about hers.

Photo by bloomsberries