About two months ago a man got sacked from his job for making ‘sexually-laden remarks’ about one of his female co-workers. I imagine that this happens every day, in every office, and mostly within the confinement of a few trustworthy colleagues. It’s probably less common for someone to send such remarks instantly to 1,200 colleagues by email – which is where things turned to custard for him. It was an accident, of course, but one that limited his career opportunities at his employer quite dramatically.

Apparently, in defending his actions before the firm’s partner-panel afterwards he declared that the woman to whom he referred in that fateful email typically dressed to provoke similar comments as he had made.

The sackable offence was not that he had made ‘sexually laden remarks’ but that those remarks had been transmitted, in writing, to just about any of his colleagues located in a 1,500 mile radius.

As it turned out, only three of twelve-hundred people had complained but this was nonetheless, according the partners, sufficient to cut the man’s career short immediately.

Their verdict rested on the principle that the firm was ‘an equal opportunity employer’ and that it ‘embraced equal-level peer relationships between female and male colleagues’.

Defending The Mistake

In his last email to the partners, the man asked them to explain why the average age of those female co-workers located on level eighteen was so much lower than anywhere else in the building, why skirts were worn generally much shorter than anywhere else in the firm, and why it was typical for some partners to ‘carefully select’ and ‘hand-pick’ from an almost standard number of female co-workers one, perhaps two, to accompany them to so-called ‘professional network events’.

‘This’ he pointed out apparently, among a few other salient points, ‘isn’t done anywhere else at the firm, which may just illustrate that those ‘equal employment opportunity’ principles are perhaps clearly understood by the firm – just not so much on level eighteen’ - which, as you may have guessed, is also referred to within the firm as ‘The Partner Floor’.

Dressed To The Point Of Being ‘Almost Naked’

To summarise this story to its ingredients, we see a man being sacked for transmitting his opinions on the dress sense of one of his colleagues. Accidentally. This colleague happens to be a female who, as at least one other voice tells, deliberately dressed to the point of being ‘almost naked.’ The man submits his opinions on this to an email, which is subsequently sent to an usergroup instead of one person. Curtains fall for him after three people complain. Man goes, woman remains, life goes on.

In all this were the firm’s intentions to develop ‘equal-level peer relationships between female and male colleagues’ truly as deep and sincere as the partners wanted the man to believe?

A Tongue-In-Cheek Picture

In context of this question I can imagine that women may be more at centre-stage than men, for women can – if they want to make they look ‘good’, ‘attractive’ or even ‘sexy’ - reach into more diverse and much deeper arsenals of ensembles and accessories than men. Obviously, just like women, men can also raise their attractiveness profiles by paying attention to their appearance, but the selection of means they have at their disposal for achieving this may not as extensive as that of women.

A man's most critical dress-related decisions come when he has to decide what tie to wear and whether or not to go for cuff-links. Some additional pondering may be expended to sock colouring but, really, that’s about as complex as it can get.

A Black Tie Event may occasionally allow him to emerge as dressed as he can be, which is ironic for such events typically limit his choices drastically and binds him to select either black and white, or white and black. There’s a reason for calling these events ‘Black Tie’ after all.

If ties are considered optional the most difficult decision that follows concerns the number of buttons he can undo to appear 'convivial' and 'comfortable', which usually means no more than one, two at best before becoming accused of being a Tom Selleck, Tom Jones or David Hasselhoff wanna-be. This would have been pretty cool fifteen years ago; now it’s a polite way for saying that we look like a bit of a loser.

In contrast, behold the magic a woman can do to herself with the variety of tools, attributes and attires she has at her disposal.

Sexy Weapon One: Cosmetics

For starters, the best part of what a multi-billion dollar market in cosmetics produces sits traditionally well outside the range of men, setting deodorant, shaving cream, anti-fungus foot powder, hair gel and perhaps moisturiser aside. No such thing as applying some five-minute magic to our faces to obscure the effects of those extra eight vodka's we actually didn't need last night.

In fact, applying a bit of 'lippy' to give the impression we slept eight rather than just two hours may just be the worst thing to do for a man, for it suggests that these two hours were not spent on sleeping either. It's probably an ok thing to do if your name is Bozo and must pretend to be ready to enter the ring again - but certainly not if you're just about to argue a multi-million dollar lawsuit in front of a High Court Judge.

Sexy Weapon Two: Underwear Versus Lingerie

Second, there's a gaping universe between the worlds called Underwear and Lingerie. It's not just choice we're talking about here, but choice 'what from'. The selection available to men doesn't reach much further than one item that in shape, form and type ranges from your grandfather's Y-front whities to something that stops a few inches short from Borat's Mankini - excuse the pun. And if we ever entertained the illusion that it’s cool to show a bit of undie from under our Armani’s it’s probably worthwhile to keep in mind that unless we are considered one of the bro's, are nose-deep emerged in ‘da’ local hip hop scene and understand how to wear baseball caps fashionably sideways, we probably shouldn’t avoid doing so when attending board meetings.

Women, on the other hand, can, if they wish, fill an entire wardrobe with stockings, knickers, bra's, babydolls, chemises, body shapers, briefs, panties, G-strings, camisoles, garters, gowns, robes, teddies and bodysuits. Although I can't imagine that any of these items can be worn comfortably from 9 'till 5, the array that can be chosen from to 'support' - so to speak - a woman's professional imago still outstrips the assortment that's available to men. Moreover, the higher the price of each of those items, the more they are designed to be seen – so I’ve been told.

Sexy Weapon Three: Footwear Versus Shoes

Then there's shoes. Any man who's taken even the slightest interest in women's footwear will know off-heart that there are more varieties of women's footwear than he can hit a golf ball with a #7 iron. Roughly, as I see it, men can add to their wardrobe floors a selection of slippers, sneakers, brogues, boots, flippers, slip-on's, tie-up's and slip-in's. That's where it just about ends - although if you're from Holland, add clogs to that if you wish.

Cataloguing men's shoes is child's play compared to classifying women's footwear, which doesn't just vary in terms of sizes, colours and materials but also in dimensions. Unless he's the president of France very few men will select a pair of Hush Puppies over Timberlands because of heel-height. Yet, women can elect to pay an extra $500 for that one extra inch of heel to get to a grand total of ten centimetres to balance on. They may not be comfortable but - hey - they cost a lot of money and they simply look stupendously fabulous.

Sexy Weapon Four: Bodies

Then, clearly, there are other aspects to consider - one of which obviously is a person's physical appearance. When it comes to body shapes we're simply not born equal - far from it, in fact.

The majority of men don't look like Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Robbie Williams. The highest many of us men can aspire to is to be a Jack Nicholls, Gene Hackman or Morgan Freeman look-alike - and we should consider ourselves bloody lucky if we can achieve even that.

Similarly, not all women can put the appearance of Angelina Jolie, Elle MacPherson and Claudia Schiffer to shame. When it comes to making ourselves look good, one simple truth holds invariably true for both men and women: We must row our canoes with the paddles we are given. Reality is that our lives are constantly pestered by receding hair lines, saggy bottoms, unsightly pimples and birds nest hair-do's. In real life we aren’t perfectly sized, graced with pearly-white smiles and blessed with physiques that hold no more than five percent body fat, tops. But in spite of all of that we still seem to be able to make ourselves look good - sexy even -- if some of us try hard enough.

And trying is what many of us do, each and every day, especially when we know that the corporate world beckons us. Making ourselves ‘look good’ literally is an integral part of the way we perform professionally. The question that comes to mind is how far ‘looking good’ can be taken before it becomes ‘sexy’ or ‘too sexy’.

Can We Be 'Too Sexy' For Work?

Whether you can be considered too sexy for work depends, of course, very much on the traditions and conventions of the industry in which you work. Working as a professional pole dancer will give allowances others will not have. Almost certainly; unless you are about to deliver a strip-o-gram, arriving for work at an engineering company scarcely clad in a G-string will almost certainly raise eyebrows - to say the least – especially if you’re a male. Conversely, taking-on a pole-dancing performance whilst remaining fully dressed in a boiler suit may not cut the mustard either.

Where does taking care of our appearance to 'fit' the bill professionally shift into being too sexy? When it comes to promoting ourselves - to make ourselves noticed - does 'sex[iness] still sell? Where does 'looking professional' start and - moreover - stop?

And, moreover, when, if ever, should, could or must ‘looking good’, professional or just plain attractive become a disciplinary issue - a sackable offence even?

Your Thinking on Can We Be 'Too Sexy' For Work?

I suspect you'll have some opinions on this topic. You may feel that the answer to this question is either 'Yes' or 'No' - or perhaps you are not sure. I'd love you to share your thinking on this with us and other Facebook Friends here at GBLCG.com.

Go here to our August 2011 - Can We Be 'Too Sexy' For Work? poll to cast your vote, which will take you less than 15 seconds.

I'll keep voters in the loop on how we're going with the responses...

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