‘Women still being judged by their outfits, appearance’

It feels like women are constantly being told what to wear in order to make them look better, slimmer and more attractive because, believe it or not, in 2017 women are still being judged primarily by their looks. Yawn.

But now it has been claimed that wearing a short skirt, tight-fitting dress or low-cut top could mean you get taken more seriously. Dr Alfredo Gaitan from the University of Bedfordshire gathered 64 students with an average age of 21 and showed them two sets of images of the same woman. In the first, she wore a low-cut top, a mini skirt and a jacket, whereas in the other picture, she wore a longer skirt and a top that covered more of her skin. The participants were then asked to rank her in terms of faithfulness, job status, morality, personality, willingness to have sex, and intelligence.

Contrary to previous studies which claim revealing clothing makes women appear less intelligent, the results found that it was the ‘sexualised’ clothing which resulted in higher intelligence and faithfulness ratings. There was no significant change in the other factors based on what the woman was wearing.

“Have attitudes changed so much that people are not making negative judgments based on a woman’s dress?” Gaitan said. “We think there are still negative attitudes out there, but perhaps people are seeing the sexy look more positively.” So, it might just be time to whip out that mini skirt but we suggest doing so of your own accord. Want to dress sexily? Do it. And if you don’t, don’t. THE INDEPENDENT