They/Them Job
What does professional look like?
Ashley Sudeta
Like almost every undergrad today, I have no shortage of reasons to worry about my career prospects. I’m a wishy-washy liberal arts major and recently killed off my law school dreams. On top of that, there’s the abysmal state of the job market, unsettling AI rumors, and all the student loan debt I’m graduating into. Even amid this, one of the things I find myself worrying about most is whether I’ll have to change my appearance in order to find a successful career.
Graduating from my Nebraska high school and moving to a university in a blue state felt like an opportunity for me to finally start “looking queer.” I cut my hair short and used the cold Minnesota winters as an excuse to stop shaving. Since making these changes, academic breaks haven’t been about raiding my family’s pantry and catching up with my little brother. Returning home bare-faced and hairy guarantees being told I’m unprofessional and unemployable. According to my mom, my armpit hair will make theoretical coworkers uncomfortable and my lack of makeup will be taken for a poor work ethic.
My mom tells me these aren’t her beliefs, it’s just how the world works. It hurts to know she’s right on some level. People have expectations of what workers “should” look like, and gender roles play a part in them. Corporate workers and highly educated professionals are expected to fit neatly inside the gender binary and conform to gender roles. Those with identities deemed unprofessional can end up pigeonholed into specific jobs.
Conceptions of professionalism encourage self-denial. For some people, compliance might be a mere nuisance, but for trans and gender nonconforming individuals it can be a painful act of self betrayal. No matter what I do after graduation, I would feel disheartened if I had to put on a costume each day to convince people of my qualifications. It will take a long time for the construct of professionalism to be broken, but when it is, there will be one less burden on workers’ shoulders.