Parental WhatsApp groups, while mostly a lost-uniform SwapShop, can occasionally be a hotbed of gossip and speculation. A couple of years ago, I assumed the chat around an Employability Skills questionnaire issued only to the year 12 girls was exactly that. When I later saw the questionnaire, which asked girls to mark themselves out of ten for points such as, “Is my blouse buttoned up and my cleavage hidden?” “Do I have on clean and unholy underwear?” “Am I wearing a nice smile?” I assumed instead the document wasn’t hearsay but parody. This was 2023. Surely the only guidance all students needed about dressing for an interview was: have a wash and wear something industry-appropriate.
It turns out that the questionnaire was not a parody. Nor was it, as I’d naively hoped, an ancient document retrieved from the archives to spark conversation about how attitudes towards women in the workplace have changed. What it was, the Head of the time insisted, was advice that “may have appeared sexist.” Italics my own.
