Scruffiness Privilege
By @edent
· meta privilege work · 6 comments · 500 words · read ~711 times.
When I was at school, we had to wear a uniform. Black trousers, white shirt, brown blazer, brown tie. Coincidentally, it was more-or-less the same uniform as the local supermarket.
On the last day of school, I ripped off my tie and vowed never to wear one again. And, aside from the occasional wedding and funeral, I've kept my promise.
Which leads me to this 100% true story.
I work with computers. It is an in-demand profession and I'm pretty good at it. So much so that I can turn up to work in jeans and a free hackathon t-shirt, sporting ridiculous facial hair, and still get paid. I've been told - several times - "you look like a real hacker! I wouldn't be able to wear that in the office! Hahaha!"
As the old meme goes: 
(Actually that's a journalist who wrote a book about not shaving.)
But, of course, not everyone can grow a beard as fabulous as mine. Some disadvantaged people can't grow any beard at all!!!
Some people dress-down and then get stopped by security when they try to enter the building. Or, worse, have authorities think they're a ne'er-do-well.
Some people in the computer industry need to dress for the job they have because, otherwise, no one takes them seriously.
As a kid, I used to argue that school uniforms were inhumane. Now I see that they do a very good job of erasing some of the sartorial choices that only the privileged have. Sure, there were rich kids and poor kids at my school. But money simply can't buy you a better class of crappy brown blazer.
Recently I argued that schools could at least do away with ties. No one wears a tie for work any more, right?! Turns out I was wrong. Lots of people have to make an effort to look smart for their job. Weird.
So what am I getting at? I'm not saying that scruffy devs should get a shave and a proper suit. Nor that there's a right or wrong way to dress for work.
You can computer in a Vera Wang dress just as well an old Nirvana t-shirt.
If you think that someone doesn't look like a real hacker because of the clothes they wear, or the colour of their hair, GTFO.
Phil Cowhig says:
Hi Terry. I once was given the same advice in similar circumstances. It was at a startup and I had got into scruffy habits but this guy was always in a suit and tie. And as he was in Sales, it was a bit flash and not to my taste. Anyway, he said “dress for the job you want”, etc, and I said “what, floor manager at Burtons?” He avoided me after that.
Charlie says:
I remember the crappy brown blazer well, hats off to you. Funny thing is I’m so used to wearing a shirt and tie for work I don’t feel engaged unless I’m wearing it. Should we have a dress down day I think you’d find me twiddling my thumbs, drinking coffee and helping myself to muffins. I also find a beard really really itchy and my kids give me grief if I have stubble. Dear GOD what have I become??
True story: My first tech job, my family went all-out helping me prepare. I got lots of free business attire, either handed down or bought as a gift. I had more than enough for my first ‘real’ job. Being someone who actually enjoys dresses and cute tops and blazers, I was in heaven.
Week two into the gig, I was pulled into my manager’s office. “You know you don’t need to dress so nice. You’re on the dev team.”
“It’s okay! I like wearing this stuff!”
“Yeah, but… you look like upper management.”
“…Okay?”
Finally, the truth came out: He wanted me to dress down because I looked like I was dressing ‘above’ my station. I was told to start wearing jeans and t-shirts.
I did so (again, first job), but these days I make a point of dressing up when I go to tech conferences.
Kay Sackey says:
Sadly, I’m the opposite. I also went to a uniform school but I liked it. Blazers are dress pants look nice, feel great, and have deep pockets to easily put all my things. Anytime I wear jeans and a t-shirt, I either have to leave things at home, or add a bag to my ensemble in order to carry them.
As a dev though, this means I’m mildly ostracized because I don’t look quite as scruffy as I’m supposed to.
Tony Hoyle says:
If I put on a suit I look like a scruffy guy in a suit. I look a bit ridiculous. I've tried.. weddings, funerals, but it just doesn't work.
A note with uniforms.. we absolutely knew who were the poorer pupils - the ones who could only afford one set which was washed once a week vs. the ones with a different shirt every day, the one wearing shoes that had seen better days.. Uniforms were eyewateringly expensive since the only way you could get one was the approved shop - so much so they had to make blazers optional due to the number that couldn't afford one - which also led to only rich kids having blazers.. I personally know of people that missed school because they didn't have anything to wear. As a result I'm 100% against uniforms.
Natalya D says:
I think scruffiness privilege also correlates with bodily and social characteristics such as gender (and conformity to gender roles for a specific area), ethnicity/nationality, perceived social class and disability and age. All of these can be actual, or perceived.
Then there's the social norms of the workplace itself. IT/tech being a very specific niche area where a certain scruffiness is normalised, valorised or just expected for white men. I would say historically academia was similar, male professors could be as scruffy as they liked, but women and other minorities could not be scruffy in the same way and be taken seriously.
I'm a cisgender, middle class, white woman, but I'm disabled. A lot of my impairments are not visible as "disability" at casual glance - I just 'look a bit weird' to the people who care about such things (some people don't notice often cos they don't judge by appearances so much). I have also failed the femininity expectation tests many times because I don't wear skirts, high heels, makeup or fashionable/femme clothing.
I always have to dress 1-2 levels up to be taken seriously in work. Even in business casual workplaces I'll wear a black trouser suit (trousers + jacket) and plain tee-shirt like top which is how I balance society/workplace femininity-expectations with what I can tolerate. At home I live in jeans and teeshirts/hoodies like many people regardless of gender who are in their 40s.
In one 90% female workplace other women (many who I otherwise liked) complained I wore too many identical outfits and my clothing was too monochrome. I bought and wore 5 identical coloured tops with the same black trousers/jackets and the moaning stopped. An excellent male colleague noticed this and commented that no one complained that he wore (the male equivalent) a white shirt and black trousers every day.
Until my mid-30s, older people (especially women) in the workplace assumed I was 21 or younger (even when the maths didn't add up) and therefore not experienced or competent. As these older people were often my managers, they had power over me and things like my appraisal ratings and opportunities. Despite being extremely good at one of my jobs, having the strongest relationships with others across team, highest positive feedback scores etc, I was undermined by ageism, sexism and disablism. I had to learn a lot of social-manipulation skills (the hard way) to get myself taken seriously - hence the dressing up, with enough colour not to trigger comments.
The people who noticed the scruffiness-policing in the workplace (without me having to explain or identify it) have always been working class and or people of colour or other disabled people. To be fair, I didn't realise about scruffiness-policing outside of work environments until friends who are people of colour described how their parents always ensured everyone in the household was extremely neat at all times. Not through snobbiness, but survival in a racist and sometimes dangerous world.
As for school uniforms, my view is similar to Tony Hoyle above, at my school (with a clear 1/3 very posh and 1/3 very poor demographic) we had no blazers but could tell the kids who wore dirty uniform cos they were poor (or wore sports uniform or trainers in class cos they had nothing else, which the shitty teachers never considered) vs the kids with clean uniforms and indeed smarter shoes within the dress code.