Dress to Repress: Exploring How Dress Codes & Norms Harm Black Women in the Workplace

Abstract

Dress codes were originally based on safety practices but have evolved into standards around perceived professionalism that uphold White masculine norms in the workplace. At the crossroads of White male standards is Black women’s hairstyling habits. While some Black women may engage in impression management and straighten their hair to fit in more, others may not feel authentic with straightened hair and could choose to deliberately express their identity through their hairstyle. Across two studies, I examine whether dress codes and norms targeting natural Black hairstyling habits lead to threats to authenticity and identity safety, in turn leading to negative organizational outcomes. A measure of one’s desire to deliberately express identity (general and Black) through hair was included to examine potential moderation. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of three hypothetical dress code conditions – a restrictive dress code, inclusive dress code, or a control of general company values with no dress information. Hypotheses were almost fully supported in Study 1, with restrictive dress codes having the lowest identity safety and authenticity outcomes and inclusive having the highest. The contrast between restrictive vs inclusive dress codes and the subsequent authenticity outcome was moderated by both Hair Identity & Hair Expression Importance. Hair Expression Importance also moderated the relationship between restrictive vs inclusive dress codes and identity threat. Lower feelings of authenticity and identity safety both led to lower feelings of organizational attraction (for all moderator models). In Study 2, participants all saw the same inclusive dress code for the company and were then randomly assigned to one of three dress norms – unaccepting, accepting, or an unknown norms control. Unaccepting dress norms led to the lowest feelings of authenticity and identity safety and accepting dress norms led to the highest. Unlike in Study 1, neither hair scale moderated the relationship between the dress norms contrasts and authenticity. Unexpectedly, Hair Expression Importance partially moderated the relationship between dress norms and identity threat. Lower feelings of authenticity once again led to lower organizational attraction, but identity safety did not act as a significant predictor (for all moderator models).