The Slovenly Academic

A recent Smart Set column by Robert Watts dedicated itself to the denigration of Humanities graduate students and professors for dressing "ugly."

...wasn’t this the real reason students didn’t respect the humanities — not because of the material seemed irrelevant but because the people teaching it looked like hopelessly irrelevant, misfit slobs?

I have a lot of issues with this blog post. While I, personally, often choose to dress up when I'm going to campus (otherwise why would I have this fashion blog?), I think the expectation of beauty is a dangerous one to place upon educators or anyone. Watts sarcastically suggests that the sheer ugliness of his graduate instructors caused his GPA to drop. This is problematic for many reasons, the first being who determines what is fashionable and beautiful? Usually when such determinations are made, it is conventionally attractive, slim, heterosexual, able-bodied, cissexual white people who are deemed handsome/beautiful. What about the rest of us, the queer folks, the trans folks, the disabled and fat folks, those of us who don't fit into dominant beauty standards, who are considered ugly by many?

The absent-minded professor with food in his beard and a button falling off his cardigan is a stereotype for a reason; when you live a life of the mind, tunnel vision occurs frequently, and it takes effort to notice and care about your external appearance when you are trying to write a lesson plan that conforms to the departmental standards, get another article published to get a better chance at tenure, and deal with the daily demands of living. As a person with a disability and two comorbid chronic diseases that involve chronic pain, dressing "nicely" is not always possible for me. One of my challenges this upcoming year is to find pieces in my wardrobe that look professional while still being comfortable enough that I am not further debilitated by the pain of a garment.

Fashion is often seen as frivolous in academia, and Watts point that female academics are often better-dressed than their male counterparts is interesting and worth discussing. In my second graduate university, we were told during our TA orientation that men could get away with wearing anything they wanted and still have their students' respect, but women had to dress up, or the students at our southern state university wouldn't see them as authority figures. Gendered expectations on appearance are a topic I'd like to address in further posts, because there is so much to be said, but for now, I'll just point out how sexist this is.

There are also serious class issues at play in this article (and, of course, in academia in general). Criticizing grad students for their so-called "careless, frumpy, and just plain hard to look at" style of dress smacks of classism. Graduate students in the Humanities are usually only paid small stipends (I've gotten $10,000 and $12,000 a year at various universities). We can't afford fancy clothes. I remember my first semester of teaching (though this was high school). I was fresh out of college, and couldn't afford a new teaching wardrobe. My pants were too short, and I was self-conscious about it. Imagine my humiliation when my students not only noticed, but pointed it out as well.

Watts ends his piece with this report on his year of wearing expensive suits to teach:

Perhaps the best aspect of wearing suits is the pickup I get on those days when my mood isn’t so great. It is hard to don a nicely tailored suit with a stylish tie and nice shoes and show up someplace without experiencing a bit of a lift.

More than anything, I have felt a kind of relief in my new uniform. The paradox is that wearing a suit allows me to not think about how I look. I can’t help but feel that my students can better appreciate me — and what I teach — when the.y see a guy who looks like he could be a member of the Medallion Fund at the front of the classroom.

I do think he has a point about how what we wear influences how we feel about ourselves. One of the major reasons I choose to dress up for teaching is because it feels like putting on a uniform in the best sense; this is my "teacher outfit" and when I put it on, I become Teacher, as opposed to Student, or other identities. (Not that I think we must abandon other identities at the classroom door, but it helps me more further embody the role) But there again is that classism: students want to be taught by rich Hedge Fund members? That pretty much leaves out anyone who's not a white straight cis-male, then, doesn't it?

What did you think of Watts's article? Do you agree? Disagree?