WORK APPROPRIATE

Hello Everyone.

The past few months or so topic of what is appropriate for work has been spreading all over social media with everyone indicating their own definition of what it means to be "appropriate". Internationally, a teacher being billed as the sexiest teacher in America is making headlines for what some see as "inappropriate garments". While, locally, a Colfire employee sparked social media outrage after he was given a letter because of his chosen hairstyle.

The main issue for concern is that what is appropriate is individualistic and is up to interpretation. I once had a manager who I will call "traditional". Females shouldn't wear makeup, only neutral colours garments, braids and natural hair in any form would not be tolerated. Mind you, these rules would only apply to certain groups of people. As far as he was concerned natural African textured hair was unkempt and untidy regardless of how it is kept. Any black woman working for his organization, would be expected to relax or flat iron her hair. He didn't care for weave either. There are other people who are more lenient. Braids, twists, weaves are perfectly fine, black hair must not be kept out. So then with these varying definitions of "appropriate" there needs to be clear definition of what is appropriate.