You may or may not have noticed some recent wardrobe decisions among some of your favourite Global News anchors and hosts.
Ahead of Groundhog Day, Sophie Lui, Chris Gailus, Sonia Sunger, Jason Pires, Katelin Owsianski and Kristi Gordon, all decided to wear the same outfit for one-week straight.
“Chris and I would wear the same suit, shirt, tie, everything for a week straight and then it would be your turn (Sonia and Sophie), including Katelin and Kristi,” Pires said.
During the week when Gailus and Pires wore the same outfit, there were no messages to the station about their clothing.
When Lui, Sunger, Owsianski and Gordon wore the same outfit, many emails and messages came in about why they were wearing the same outfit.
Most of the comments expressed curiosity about the change.
The hosts documented the experiment for a social media video:
Kendra Strauss, a geographer and feminist political economist at Simon Fraser University, said the results of the clothing experiment were not particularly surprising.
“I think we know all of the ways generally that women are judged on appearance in ways that are different and that are more extreme than men,” she said.
Strauss said the issue of cost is an interesting one when it comes to maintaining a professional work wardrobe.
“The requirement to look a particular way to be taken seriously at work has costs both in terms of one’s ability to impress in one’s job but it’s a huge financial pressure as well.”
Strauss said everyone is socialized to believe women should look a certain way to be taken seriously.
“That needs to be changed as well,” she said. “In a sense, it’s a societal issue, not just about women and men. It’s really about gender norms.”