LEARNING IN THE NEWS IX - (For Beginners and Pre-Intermediate Business Students)

Women in Power: Finding Balance In the Wardrobe
The Wall Street Jounal - By CHRISTINA BINKLEY January 24, 2008

Say the word "pantsuit" these days, and everyone knows whom you are talking about.















Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton celebrated her victory on Tuesday night
in a crowded ballroom in Davie, Fla. None of the Democratic candidates
had actively campaigned in Florida.


Never has fashion been so prominent in a presidential election. The reason, of course, is that one of the pants-wearing candidates is female.
Women in positions of authority, from Washington to Wall Street, face fashion scrutiny that's so intense it can border on comical -- though it's serious business to the women, their organizations and, it turns out, lots of working women.
Female politicians in particular are becoming sartorial role models. Nowadays, women who want to be taken seriously look to Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Condoleezza Rice for style cues, much the way young women have long followed the lead of the celebrity set.
At the St. John fall 2008 runway show this week, a publicist for the iconic power-woman design house gushed that the U.S. Secretary of State "loves St. John." The publicist, who also touted the fact that Mrs. Clinton has worn St. John in the past, noted with regret that designers can't give clothes to political candidates as they bestow gowns and bags on actresses because the candidates would have to report them as political gifts. Just imagine Oscars-style gifting suites in our nation's capital: Alpha-woman designers like Armani, Akris, Oscar de la Renta and jeweler David Yurman would do a big business.
Enough women are paying attention to what female politicians wear that it has affected sales of at least one signature style. Kirsten Wolff, executive vice president of the Web retailer Pearl Paradise.com, told me recently that sales of pearl jewelry rise when Ms. Pelosi and other woman politicos wear it on C-Span: People actually call up and ask for duplicate pieces.
Female business leaders may play to a smaller audience, but the examination they face can be just as rigorous. According to unwritten rules, their appearance at work should be attractive but not alluring, feminine but not girly, strong but not severe. In both politics and the executive suite, they face hazier, harder-to-meet style standards than men. "We are looked at and dissected very differently than men are," says Joyce Newman, founder of the Newman Group consulting organization in New York. "That's unfair."
"I know I'm being assessed for my clothing and what I wear," says Kathryn Marinello, chairman and chief executive of Ceridian Corp., who took the human-resources company private in a $5 billion deal last November. She is a veteran executive of General Electric Co. and the banking industry. Yet like many female chief executives, she tends to keep her attention to style under wraps. "You hate even talking about it because it's such a woman thing," she says.
High-ranking women on Wall Street in particular are a thinly traded commodity, and they quickly learn to keep their fashion issues in the closet. In fact, most don't like the word "fashion."
Instead, many women focus on practicality. Michaela Jedinak, a London-based stylist who advises executives on communications and style, says women need "hard-wearing" clothing that won't look sloppy and wrinkled by late afternoon. Don't wear make-up that has to be reapplied, she suggests, because it will make you too "self-conscious."
The attention brought to clothing is a two-edged sword for authoritative women everywhere. A style misstep can be career-limiting. Yet paying too much attention to one's appearance, risks accusations of frivolity -- which is equally career-limiting.
Carly Fiorina writes in her memoir, "Tough Choices," of being questioned by a BusinessWeek editor during her first week as chief executive of technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co. in 1999. There was a technological revolution going on in Silicon Valley, but the first question lobbed her way was: "Is that an Armani suit you're wearing?" Ms. Fiorina, who discusses her frustration with style scrutiny in her book, declined a request for an interview for this column.
Hollywood offers few helpful ideals. In two new power-women shows, ABC's "Cashmere Mafia" and NBC's "Lipstick Jungle," the characters lounge around in gowns and display cleavage to their belly buttons. Amanda Ross, stylist for "Lipstick Jungle," notes people look to Hollywood "for wish fulfillment -- a little bit of daringness."
Ms. Ross, who has also worked with real women as a style consultant, notes that in real life, unlike in Hollywood, dressing powerful women means choosing designers for how their clothes fit rather than for their fashion quotient.
Oddly enough, several communications consultants told me it's mostly male executives who hire them for advice on grooming and attire. Women, by contrast, "don't understand that the things that shouldn't matter count as much as they do," says Dee Soder, a psychologist and founder of the executive-coaching firm CEO Perspective Group in New York.
Helpful feedback rarely reaches female executives' ears, because people are loath to discuss work attire directly with the wearer. Dr. Soder says she is often hired just to deliver a fashion message for an executive who quails from the duty. She once was hired to tell a company president that he needed new shirts, preferably with French cuffs. Another time, she was hired to tell a female advertising executive to wear less perfume.
Ms. Newman of the Newman Group says she was once hired by a male executive to help a female executive whom he found "too masculine because in meetings she put her feet on chairs and didn't wear lipstick."
Perhaps the focus on style reflects people's difficulty coming to terms with women in positions of real authority. Hence, Mrs. Clinton's now famous "humanizing moment," on the verge of tears in New Hampshire, may have balanced her oft-criticized regime of pantsuits in the eyes of some
voters.

One of the first things Ms. Marinello did when she took the top job at Ceridian in 2006 was to hire Ms. Newman to advise her on her wardrobe, grooming and presentation skills. They spent a day on hair and makeup and went shopping for clothes at St. John's and Saks, where they focused on practical clothes, like suits and jackets that travel well. ("Think knit," says Ms. Newman.)
This was no girl-talk afternoon -- they also discussed how to present quarterly financial results to shareholders. With authority comes responsibility. Ms. Marinello was keenly aware that Ceridian's future rested on her lapels.
"If you're asking someone to lend you $3 billion, you'd better look good," she says.

Powerful women who draw fashion scrutiny include: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (top); Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi (bottom).

VOCABULARY:

Wardrobe: a collection of wearing apparel (as of one person or for one activity) – (o mesmo que seu guarda-roupa não o móvel mas sim sua coleção de roupas)
Pantsuit: a woman's ensemble consisting usually of a long jacket and pants of the same material – (ou terno feminino consistindo de calça comprida e jaleco)
Scrutiny: a searching study, inquiry, or inspection
Sartorial: adj. Formal - relating to the making of clothes, usually men's clothes, or to a way of dressing
role models: a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others
Nowadays: at the present time
Cue (s): something serving a comparable purpose: hint
Gushed: verb past simple tense of to gush - to say or write effusively
Touted: to make much of: promote, talk up
Bestow: to convey as a gift —usually used with on or upon
Gowns: a woman's dress: dressing gown, nightgown
Pearl jewelry: jóias de pérolas
C-Span: TV a “Cabo” de Notícias Americano (mas falado em Espanhol)
Unwritten: not written (não escrito)
Alluring: to entice by charm or attraction (atrativo ou que chame a atenção)
Girly: having the characteristics of a girl (adj. mulher usando roupas de adolescentes….)
Hazier: vague, indefinite, uncertain
High-ranking women: Mulheres em altos postos de trabalho
Thinly: adv. of thin - few in number
Sloppy: careless (neste artigo tem o sentido de desengonçado, desajeitado)
Wrinkled: amassado
Two-edged sword: (expressão Americana equivalente à Faca de Dois Gumes)
Misstep: a mistake in judgment or action, a wrong step
Tough Choices: Decisões difíceis
Cleavage: the depression between a woman's breasts especially when made visible by a low-cut neckline
Belly buttons: the human navel (umbigo)
Daringness: venturesomely bold in action or thought, adventurous
Quotient: the numerical ratio usually multiplied by 100 between a test score and a standard value
Oddly enough: curiously, peculiarly (neste: caso estranhamente o suficiente..)
Grooming: the activity of getting dressed; putting on clothes
Attire: clothing of a distinctive style or for a particular occasion; "formal attire"; "battle dress"
Feedback: the process in which part of the output of a system is returned to its input in order to regulate its further output
Loath: antipathetic, averse, reluctant
Quails: to make fearful
Cuffs: something (as a part of a sleeve or glove) encircling the wrist (neste artigo: os punhos de uma camisa de manga larga)
On the verge of tears: expression (quase chorando)
Suits: a set of garments: as an ensemble of two or more usually matching outer garments (as a jacket, vest, and trousers)
Quarterly: every three months (trimestral)
Shareholders: one that holds or owns a share in property; especially: stockholder
Keenly: enthusiastic, eager
Aware: conscious of
Lapels: the part of a garment that is turned back; specifically : the fold of the front of a coat that is usually a continuation of the collar (lapelas)