Another dress code issue!

scottorr

We have three position that do the exact same thing. All of which have customer contact. There are females in two of the positions and a male in the third. I noticed the male today was wearing a collarless shirt but often so do the females in this position. Our dress code requires a collared shirt for the male but not the females. When I mentioned this to the male ee he said to me that his female counter part wears the exact same shirt every week (it is a males shirts) which is correct. My question is this, would this be discrimination based on sex to ask the male to change his shirt?

mwild31

Short answer, in my opinion, no. It would be hard to prove discrimination in terms of Title VII protections and such based simply on requiring the male to wear a collared shirt. Also, companies can set the dress code. Styles do change however, so you may want to look into why the requirement is necessary.

rad

Honestly, I do not see how. Male bankers, for example, are required to wear a tie, female bankers are not. Would you exempt your male bankers from wearing ties on this basis? Gender typically dictates the dress code.

ray a

Acceptable business dress may be different for men and women. If the women wear skirts and dresses, will he too? It would be discriminatory if a dress code was enforced for one gender and not the other.

Crout

No. Tell your guy that if I can't wear sandals to my office in the summer he can't wear a shirt without a collar...end of story.

ray a

Hey Crout, you can wear sandals here. Changed the policy to allow it earlier this year. Even ee's on the mfg. floor can wear them.

Hunter1

Wow, Ray, what are you manufacturing? Helium filled balloons? No safety shoe requirement? No heavy pallets?

ray a

Amazing, huh? We are an electronics manufacturer building circuit boards and other electronic parts. Doesn't make sense to me, but the rules were relaxed because the facility that houses the corporate offices could not enforce the rules.

System

Remember too that there are dress codes requiring panty hose/stockings for the women but not the men. I don't think it's discriminatory either way.

scottorr

Thanks everyone for all the great feedback. My gut instinct said this was not discrimination but thought I would check with my fellow Forumaniacs.

Don D

It is obviously discimination by virtue of the definition of the word; however, it seems a general consensus that it's 'ok' discrimination. Ray, send photo of you in panty hose and sandals. I won't share it. Promise.

ray a

OK Don, should I include the leather mini-skirt?x}>

Dictionary definition: "To make a clear distinction... differentiate... To perceive the distinguishing features...." Unisex uniforms is the way to go to avoid any problems.

Rockie

The only time I have seen anything like this successfully argued and defended was the requirement that men were not allowed to wear earrings at work. Since a lot of men wear earrings these days, the company had to allow the men to wear the rings or tell women they were not allowed to wear them either.

Note that this did not apply to visible body piercings. These were not allowed for either sex.