He was the kind of man who genuinely and visibly champions women in leadership. So when he said it, nobody in the room flinched, including me. The alarm only finds you later, when the quiet of the early morning finally gives the thought enough space to breathe.
This man was celebrating women, and he meant every word of it. He spoke with conviction about the value of diverse perspectives, emotional intelligence, and the distinct qualities women bring into the leadership spaces that have spent decades constructing walls to keep them out. His argument was sound, his delivery was compelling, and the room received him well. But then, in the same breath that encouraged women, he advised them on what to wear. He suggested they avoid showing up in a pantsuit and a white shirt, as it might give the impression that they were trying too hard to fit into male-dominated spaces. Instead, he urged them to embrace their femininity and seek a sense of belonging as women in the workplace. Interesting.
Dress matters. What you wear communicates intention, context, and even perceived ability before you say a single word. Dress is a tool; using it purposefully gives you an advantage in rooms that count.
But a pantsuit and a white shirt are not a borrowed identity. It is not a woman’s attempt to fit into a space that was not designed for her. It is a deliberate choice of utility, authority, and ease, which is the reason men have worn it for decades without anyone reading psychological meaning into the decision. The moment we interpret a woman making that same choice as an attempt to shed her femininity, we reveal a belief worth examining.
What most women know too well is that the editing starts long before the first meeting of the day. Is this too formal, too casual, too much, too little, too sharp, too soft? The calculation runs automatically and has run for so long that many women no longer experience it as a choice at all. It has become background noise, the low hum of a belief so deeply seated that it no longer announces itself.
That belief did not arrive fully formed. It was built incrementally, by rooms that shifted when a woman walked in, by feedback that circled everything except the quality of the work, and by well-meaning men who believe they are advocating for women while quietly handing them a new set of instructions. The belief says that your credibility has a dress code, that your authority needs a version of femininity to remain palatable, and that the room will receive you better if you remember, clearly, consistently, and in what you wear, that you are a woman navigating a leadership space rather than a leader who happens to be a woman.
The pantsuit was never the problem. The belief that a woman wearing one has forgotten something important about herself is the stake in the ground. And it is long past time to pull it out.
Dress with intention; choose with awareness
Clothes communicate, so use them strategically and deliberately. Before an engagement, ask yourself if what you are wearing serves your intention or is working against it. That question is yours to answer, and the answer belongs entirely to you. What is not yours to carry is someone else’s conviction about what your competence should look like, or what your authority needs to wear to be taken seriously. Professionalism has no gender uniform, and leadership does not require femininity to be performed or masculinity to be borrowed. The most powerful thing you bring into any room is the knowledge that you chose, on your own terms, everything about how you showed up.
Usha Maharaj CA(SA)
Passionate about women’s empowerment and human potential
