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Edited by Kitten is an 80s rocker at 10/22/09 10:39 AM
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@Kitten is an 80s rocker: The Monopoly man and Mr. Peanut wear top hats, not mortarboards. Plus, they probably have their MBA's, so they wore those weird grad student caps. #madeleinealbright
@haus_frau: i had some pretty frumpy female professors. lots of roomy cardis and ill-fitting skirts. i'm imagining that's what she means by "professor clothes" #madeleinealbright
@haus_frau: I had a professor once deliver his economics lecture in black jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt, with the hood up. It was kind of great. #madeleinealbright
@legs benedict: I went to class one day dressed for a job interview, and my professor and I were wearing the exact same pants and fairly similar shirts. It was excruciating. #madeleinealbright
@lermanzo: That was my thought, too -- just enough above jeans and a t-shirt to not be casual, but not so much on the stylishness or proper fit. #madeleinealbright
@theKP: Pretty much anyone, man or woman, would be well-advised to ditch the professor look. Academics are the worst dressers in the whole wide world.
I went to Georgetown (where Albright taught) and there were a lot of bad dressers on the faculty. It wasn't so much that the women dressed too staid, but just a lot of ill-fitting stuff and specious "matching" of things in the same color that didn't really go. Professors aren't really trying to project power and confidence in the way that a diplomat needs to.
I am currently a sportswriter, and I would still say they dress better than academics. Believe me, that is a damning criticism.
Unrelated: I generally regard the Secret Service agent stationed outside Albright's house during the Clinton years as the One Who Got Away. We'd make eye contact and say hi everyone morning and once I turned around and peeked back and he was totally watching me walk away! Le sigh. #madeleinealbright
@haus_frau: Ah, interesting. I was reading Albright's response about looking masculine as being about rejecting her professor clothes, but now that you say that, I can see the other reading. There's no dress code when we teach the way there is in the corporate world, but most of us own professional clothes that we wear at conferences. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I don't know of any female professors my age who don't own suits, which is why I was confused, since we already wear them. We just can't afford very many or to have them dry cleaned often. But the older generation of female profs came along before Banana Republic had perfected the female pantsuit, so maybe that's the difference.
It doesn't give me much hope for my ability to convince my graduate students not to worry about trying to afford a special teaching wardrobe on their meager stipends when even women as kick-ass as Albright have to get a new wardrobe as part of her job description. I know, I know, all people in the national spotlight have to be presentable and blah, blah fishcakes, but most instructors don't have that kind of money and really, the quantity of fretting that goes into dressing intellectual women is a huge emotional suck. I'm a hypocrite, and I do it to myself. I spent eight years getting an MA and a PhD, and what do I usually spend the night before my first classes fretting about: the syllabus? my lecture? whether I'm up on the latest research? Nope, whether I'll look professional enough in whatever outfit I've picked out. And what does it get me? At best a comment on an evaluation that I have cute skirts. Thanks? #madeleinealbright
@ucelluccia: plus, if your the UN ambassador, you gotta look like a total badass ESPECIALLY as a woman. also, it shows respect for the office to dress for it, IMO #madeleinealbright
Actually, I'm now pretty convinced that this is a generational thing. If someone describes "dressing like a professor," I think of a woman in a black skirt suit with knee-high boots. The outfit is professional, but the boots make it just a little off from what would pass in the corporate or political world. Well, pre-Sarah Palin, that is. She wears knee-high boots. Dear God, I'm pretty sure Sarah Palin dresses like my idea of what it means to dress "like a professor." I'm going off now to throw out my boots. #madeleinealbright
Um, is this in reference to the fact that she wore pins specific to the occasion while Secretary of State? I mean, I agree with her, but it seems like kind of strange statement from someone who just published a book about her work-related accessories. #madelinealbright
She should get her own version of Katherine Graham's gold boob pendant, but as a pin. It would be less abstract than the glass ceiling pin, but just as awesome.
I'm in a sorority, so I'm a big fan of pins. I'm trying to think of a job where I can wear my pin somedays, because it is FLIPPIN' SWEET. It is held in place by a tiny gold trident. A FREAKIN' TRIDENT. I can rule a very small ocean with that thing!
@AmericanSplendor: I'm reading a Dan Brown book right now, and so I can tell you with complete authority: Symbologon Oceanography, with an emphasis on Microlon Noetics.
@Leah Marie: I think there is a difference between talking about the length of her hemline and her pins. Her book shows a woman's appearance is about more than sexuality.
How does one properly wear a pin, anyway? I've tried but I always feel like I've got a parasite hanging off of me. Is there a way to do it right that I haven't mastered yet, or do you just suck it up and hope nobody notices that you keep thinking that a beetle landed on you?
@Zombie Ms. Skittles: You wear it on a lapel, but it can't be wider than the lapel, or else you wear it in the spot you would wear a pin-on nametag if you had one. Or you can wear one with a scarf. I love 'em but I only have like two so I don't wear them much.
@Zombie Ms. Skittles: If my top is a little flimsy for a heavy pin or I don't want it flopping around, I will pin it through my bra strap for extra support.
@Yaffle: A brooch is a type of pin. The pin that bluebears posted above you would not be a brooch. Nor would campaign pins, or pins with funny sayings or lapel pins. I would say all the pins pictured in the post are brooches.
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It sounds more like the suits were more masculine feeling to Albright than the professor clothes. #madeleinealbright
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I went to Georgetown (where Albright taught) and there were a lot of bad dressers on the faculty. It wasn't so much that the women dressed too staid, but just a lot of ill-fitting stuff and specious "matching" of things in the same color that didn't really go. Professors aren't really trying to project power and confidence in the way that a diplomat needs to.
I am currently a sportswriter, and I would still say they dress better than academics. Believe me, that is a damning criticism.
Unrelated: I generally regard the Secret Service agent stationed outside Albright's house during the Clinton years as the One Who Got Away. We'd make eye contact and say hi everyone morning and once I turned around and peeked back and he was totally watching me walk away! Le sigh. #madeleinealbright
10/22/09
It doesn't give me much hope for my ability to convince my graduate students not to worry about trying to afford a special teaching wardrobe on their meager stipends when even women as kick-ass as Albright have to get a new wardrobe as part of her job description. I know, I know, all people in the national spotlight have to be presentable and blah, blah fishcakes, but most instructors don't have that kind of money and really, the quantity of fretting that goes into dressing intellectual women is a huge emotional suck. I'm a hypocrite, and I do it to myself. I spent eight years getting an MA and a PhD, and what do I usually spend the night before my first classes fretting about: the syllabus? my lecture? whether I'm up on the latest research? Nope, whether I'll look professional enough in whatever outfit I've picked out. And what does it get me? At best a comment on an evaluation that I have cute skirts. Thanks? #madeleinealbright
10/22/09
10/22/09
Actually, I'm now pretty convinced that this is a generational thing. If someone describes "dressing like a professor," I think of a woman in a black skirt suit with knee-high boots. The outfit is professional, but the boots make it just a little off from what would pass in the corporate or political world. Well, pre-Sarah Palin, that is. She wears knee-high boots. Dear God, I'm pretty sure Sarah Palin dresses like my idea of what it means to dress "like a professor." I'm going off now to throw out my boots. #madeleinealbright
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09/29/09
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Headband: Following the rules, but on my own terms.
Sparkly hairpin: I'm holding back this hair, but that doesn't mean I'll hold back in this meeting!
Hair beads: I'm stoned.
Scrunchie: FUCK YOU.
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That glass ceiling pin is effing badass, though...
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The pin Hillary should wear when dealing with the French ambassadors request to release Polanski.
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(No punchline here, just curious)
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