Thank You Wall Street Journal

Once upon a time, I started a job at which the dress code required women in the office to wear pantyhose, even with pants, even in 100 degree weather and in spite of the fact that the men in the office didn't have to wear ties. (Which apparently is the standard male equivalent. For the record, the guys also didn't have to wear pantyhose.) I didn't know about the pantyhose rule (because really, who wears pantyhose with pants?), so the first day I wore a skirt and got in trouble for my lack of hosiery. Because it was my first day, they let me slide, but they didn't tell me that not only was hosiery required with skirts and dresses, but also pants, so the next day, I wore pants (with closed toe shoes), and again I was reprimanded for my stocking-less feet. On the third day, I wore tight jeans and a t-shirt and quit that job. I felt that the dress code was discriminatory, outdated and just plain stupid. Just because a local politician has a thing for women in stockings, he doesn't have the right to require his employees to dress for his fetish.

Finally, someone else has encountered this problem and the Wall Street Journal, bible of the business world, has weighed in and said that stockings should be optional. I'm so tempted to call my ex-employer and say neener-neener-neener!! Or better yet, waltz into that office, bare-legged and stick my tongue out at him.

I've heard the argument that naked legs are too racy for a professional setting, and that may have been true in the 40s (remember how badly I did on the 1940s wife quiz...), but I tend to believe that the opposite is true now. Stockings have become a highly sexualized article of clothing. If you do a Google search for pantyhose, the first 5 pictures demonstrate this quite nicely, in fact, I couldn't find an appropriate picture to post with this blog. (I finally just posted a picture of my own legs.) I must admit that if I wore stockings to the office I'd feel pretty naughty, considering the types of activities that I'd normally don them for.I haven't been in contact with that old boss in years, but I'd be interested to know if an uprising in a small Kansas town big enough to make it to the Wall Street Journal has had any effect on that super oppressive office.