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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

The dress story vs jeans, would apply equally to a guy in a suit and tie vs a hoodie.

I don't think that's true. You might get disregarded as a "business guy" if you show up to a meetup in a suit. But it's just as likely that people will just assume you're in financials. One of the better Python speakers I know of shows up everywhere in a suit. But women consistently report not being taken seriously when wearing dresses.

The key takeaway is, as soon as she dressed as a member of "the tribe" everything was fine. So that tells me it's something other than a gender issue.

Yeah, either that or "the tribe" is the gender issue.

I don't think a woman in a dress is analogous to a man in a suit.

Here is a woman in a dress, something she might wear to convention about programming if she wanted to wear a dress: http://dressforweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Korean-ver...

It's fairly modest and not loudly styled. This is not the same style of dress as a man wearing a suit. The equivalent for a woman would be this:

http://www.acrdepos.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/06...

or this, if you wanted a dress:

http://juegoskizi2.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/skirt-suit...

I do not thing most women would have an issue about assuming they aren't a programmer (any more than a man in a suit) wearing either of those two last things I linked.

This is the author at a programming conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6071MRIzCA

You might say that it's loudly styled, but somehow this guy never has people doubting his programming cred: https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1...

Which one can't program? Suit or hoodie? I often wear a suit or dress shirt and people don't assume I'm clueless to know about IT.

Suit and tie. You will be viewed with mistrust as a business type until you prove otherwise.

There was a story here a while ago, about a guy who got rejected at an interview because he went dressed in a suit and tie, and was deemed "not a good culture fit".

We actually had to let go the only person to have come to our interview in a suit and tie that we actually hired...there is not a good track record.

Where is your company, and what industry is it in?

I was taught (and coached) that no matter what kind of job you're interviewing for, you should show up in a suit and tie. Not because you ever expect to wear that while working, but because it is considered a show of respect to the interviewers.

There is also someone either at YC or some other accelerator/vc that recently wrote in their blog that as soon as you go to an interview with a suit he will automatically pass as he doesn't believe you can be a techie. Having a hard time finding the post, but it was posted here on HN.

Wait, are you saying the dress is too formal, or not formal enough?

Too formal. It's pretty well known that dev/nerd culture is very pro-casual and anti-formal. The reason for this, in my opinion, is because we are very much a "function over form" culture. People who might be trying to compensate for lackluster ability by impressing with their overly nice dress are usually initially viewed with mistrust.

You're making the mistake of thinking that dresses are formal attire. I'm not a woman, but I don't think that's a valid assumption.

Less formal than a ballgown sure, but definitely more formal than jeans.

That really depends on the dress. Dresses can range anywhere from the peak of formality (equivalent to white tie attire for men) to somewhere in the neighborhood to nearly the level of informality as athletic or sleepwear, and anywhere in between.

Either way, out of sync with whatever everyone else was wearing, and when she changed her clothes but not her gender she was accepted by the others.

Eh. "Accepted" is probably a relative term here. As in, she was probably not "accepted" the way a man would be in casual attire. She just had slightly fewer hurdles to jump.

In any case, the point here is that men's reactions to women in dresses often cause distress and make women feel uncomfortable in technical settings. That's frankly ridiculous, since (as far as I understand) many women like to wear dresses and don't feel that they're formal. Maybe it's due to a misunderstanding? Men labor under the misapprehension that dresses are formal attire when they're not, and that causes the disconnect, etc. etc. Doesn't mean we should just accept it -- let's correct the misunderstanding. :)

FWIW (and I know I'm beating a dead horse), I did an informal survey on Facebook about this. The question was, simply, "Are dresses formal attire?" The universal consensus is "no." Dresses can be easier than pants, comfortable like pajamas, etc. So I think there's a good chance that many men simply have the wrong idea about dresses and they're the equivalent of jeans & hoodies.

Anyway. Maybe it's worth asking the women you know.

Rather, wrong/non-ideal image. There is more than one dimension, especially when it comes to women's clothes.

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