Twenty years ago, my mum started a company making skydiving suits for women. She had been skydiving for a while and couldn’t believe women were expected to wear the one-size-fits-all giant baggy men’s suits.
Five years ago, when I was working as a chef in New York, I couldn’t believe that female chefs had no other option but to wear men’s chef’s trousers – hugely oversized, cheap polyester and with six turnups so we didn’t trip. Had nothing changed?
Sadly, this isn’t just the case in restaurants; there is a lack of uniforms for women across all industries, as proven this week when NASA had to cancel the much-hyped first ever all-female spacewalk because they only had one suit available in a small enough size and two women to wear it. And with a four-month lead time, a new suit could not be made on time.
I’m sure the smaller suits are a perfect fit for the female astronauts (when they’re available) but it still begs the question, why, in 2019, when we make up almost half of the UK’s labour force are we still having issues with work uniforms for women?
Many of the affected industries and hobbies have been traditionally male-dominated, so, until recently, female uniforms weren’t considered as a necessity. It was only in 2016 that Qantas – one of the biggest airlines in the world – redesigned their pilot uniform to include a version for women. Up until then, female pilots had been flying for the airline in men’s suits. For builders, set designers and artisans, overalls, gloves and dust masks are far too big, causing an unnecessary hazard in the workplace.
Times are changing and across all industries there is a need now, more than ever, for uniforms to be reconsidered and redesigned for women. The lack of availability of female uniforms for traditionally male-dominated workplaces is an example of, and in many ways continues to perpetuate, gender discrimination - it’s hard to recruit women to a workforce when there isn’t clothing available to fit them, or when they don’t feel comfortable in what they have to wear. If we are striving for a society of equal opportunities in the workplace, the supply of gender-appropriate workwear needs to step up.
Whilst women wearing male clothing was once a subversive means of challenging the norm – and a symbol of the female fight for equality - as we move closer to gender equality, women having to wear male workwear has become more of hindrance than a route to empowerment. Simply making women adopt male uniforms does not equate to equality, and entrenches the idea that those women are working in an environment where they do not belong. The physical setbacks to wearing an ill-fitting uniform are inevitable, and in roles where the skin is put at risk if it is exposed, the need for well-fitting uniforms is all the more necessary.
The hospitality industry, my area of expertise, is going through major changes and chefs are now being seen having become a part of the dining experience. The last five years have seen restaurant kitchens move from invisible dark spaces underground to the centrepiece of restaurants, with chefs now playing an integral part of the dining experience. Patrons now communicate, interact and observe the chefs and back-of-house staff, so it has become more and more important that the team are well presented.
Needless to say, the uniform gap is taking too long to fill, but there are a few of us trying to fix it. It’s one step at a time, and we’re getting there slowly, but we need big business to make bigger leaps – including not allowing a spacesuit sizing issue to ever stop a woman break boundaries (and records) in future.