Do you have information to add that we don’t know about? Did the gate agent yell loudly that these girls were dressed like whores and needed to change immediately? How were they shamed? They were forced to put on dresses? Or told they needed to change (and could have changed into shorts or pants if they chose to).
Are we raising a generation of weak women here, or what! Oh no honey, you don’t need to follow the rules, because it might hurt your tenders feelings if I tell you to. It’s not silly, it’s embarrassing to think so little of girls and teenagers to think their entire self worth is destroyed because they have to change their outfit to comply with company policy.
I am in the accounting profession and we along with Law firms occasionally receive flak with requiring woman to wear skits, nylons, and heeled shoes. Some firms have publicly backed away from this but if one really wants to succeed then you better not show up in pants.
The argument is usually the same thing. If you don’t want to adhere to the dress code, then go elsewhere.
I find the shaming of a little girl to be more offensive than telling a grown woman to wear a skirt or look for another job. She knew or should have known what is appropriate to wear in a law firm environment. This little girl dressed like she probably always does. What a kick in the stomach to be told you are dressed inappropriate and are offending other passengers or not projecting a “correct” and “proper” image.
I am a guy and am surprised by the attack on woman in the current environment to be astonishing. I can only image what woman are dealing with.
“nylons”? There’s a term I haven’t heard in decades!
Many kids get told by their parents to change, ususally with a rebuke like “you aren’t going out in that!!” It is unlikely to have ruined them for life. This situation is one where the parents SHOULD have overseen what the kids wore before they left the house. The parents are the ones at fault here. They should know the rules and follow them.
They were with an adult who presumably should know the rules and have addressed the issue before it ever got to the gate. I have flown nonrev - “don’t argue or harass airline employees,” “follow the dress code,” and “don’t tell passengers you are nonrev” are three things I am reminded of every single time by my employee relative.
Wow, really? As the wife, mother, mother-in-law, sister, and aunt of lawyers, I have never known of a firm that will not ‘permit’ women to wear pants. That is ridiculous and I’m amazed that the female lawyers at that firm would put up with such nonsense.
It’s written in the code. You don’t like the shorts policy? Wear pants or pay for your ticket. Pretty simple. If they had a separate policy explicitly for females or stating females had to wear dresses or skirts, I’d agree it is sexist. I don’t see this as sexist.
There a few facts we don’t know about this. The most important one, to me, is whether this dress code was typically enforced or ignored, especially with respect to the kids of the nonrev passengers. The fact that most of us have never heard of these dress codes before makes me wonder how strictly they’ve really been enforced.
But I have to say that in the age of social media, having a dumb rule like this can hurt a company. It’s obvious to anybody who travels frequently that the idea that these people would be harming United’s reputation because of their clothing is nonsense. The bad PR they’ve gotten from this single incident, in my opinion, outweighs the supposed reason for the rule for all time.
I think many HAVE heard of the nonrev dress code, @Hunt . From what I understand, and I defer to those in the industry to confirm this, it is up to the individual gate agent how firmly they do/do not want to enforce dress code rules.
@MassDaD68 - if you are in a position to change policy or implied policy at your firm, then that is a great place to start. It seems a tad ironic that a gentleman so outraged here is in a work environment where women are required (overtly or covertly) to meet certain standards and wear “nylons”. Gosh- I am in the south, which one might think was provincial when it comes to this stuff,but professional women wear slacks all the time. No judgment. Now where did I put that pesky garder belt??
You seem to have information that the rest of us don’t. Was the ten year old “shamed” publically, and told that she was "offending other passengers and not projecting a “correct” and “proper” image? Was she humiliated in a rude and public way, was this hyperbole from the overzealous blogger, or are you projecting what you think happened?
I am a lawyer who works with an outside employment law firm. One of the female partners recently told me that the female attorneys are “encouraged” to wear skirts at functions with clients. I was surprised. She said, “You are a client. You can wear whatever you want!” I did notice that the female partners did not all wear skirts. There are a few I’ve never seen in anything but pants.
My personal take is that United shouldn’t have said anything about the child. Geez- what difference does it make if a little kid is in leggings. I fully support the right to have a dress code for non-rev passengers, though. You are representing the company and it DOES come up in conversation occasionally that you are on a travel pass. I work at a relatively casual company, but our executives would never think of traveling in sweats or sloppy clothing.
^^I think most of us would, Tatin! Sometimes I do.
Airline policy used to be that men had to wear sports jackets and ties in order to non-rev, so policy has come a long way.
I am guessing that for every one United employee that thinks, “Yeah, that isn’t fair that women can’t wear legging to non-rev, right on,” there are 100 employees that are afraid they are going to lose their tenuous hold on non-rev travel passes.
While I may not agree with their policy, it is United’s policy and are within their right to enforce it. I may agree with other causes Shannon Watts is vocal about, but I think she overshot on this one.
Living a sheltered life has nothing to do with it. Kids don’t process things the same way an adult does. The issue with a 10 year old girl is that is a prime age where she is becoming very self-concious, developing and when self-esteem is extremely important. My daughter never had issues but had several and I repeat: several friends that developed eating disorders, anxiety and other things at that age. You do have to be careful what you say to kids because you don’t know where their heads are at. Sometimes they have very bad parents. Maybe for most kids, they won’t be embarrassed, but if they are, they won’t forget and it can affect their self esteem.
When I visit clients (across many different industries) I dress to how I usually see them dressed. If it’s a bank or law firm, I’ll wear a skirt suit, most other clients, a pant suits usually works and sometimes I’ll dress business casual for a more relaxed lunch meeting or something. Luckily, my office allows us to wear jeans everyday!
My kids couldn’t wear them to high school. Against the dress code. They could wear shorts, but the rest of the code was not that different from United’s non-rev dress code - no crop tops, no words on shirts, no ripped or dirty clothes.
Those who haven’t heard about the flight pass rules may have contacts who are not sharing the flight benefits with them. My friend explained how tight the privilege is and how employees have lost the benefit. The employees are personally responsible for the nonrev passengers and there is a limit to the number of people on one employee’s pass list. I never ask my friend to fly me since I know her sister and nieces wear her about about the passes.
Regarding skirts, etc., some judges still expect female attorneys to wear the most conservative skirt suits in court. Thank goodness, as a banker, I now wear conservative pants suits every day but my two female bosses never wear pants. It is skirt suits/tailored dress and hose, just like it was when I joined the profession 30+ yrs ago.
There were published rules. The rules applied if you were getting a special privilege. They didn’t follow the rules. There were consequences.
If they were ‘little girls’ then they have parental failures guiding them thru the real world.
If they were adult enough to get their spandex butts into a free seat - then they are adult enough to recognize consequences for their actions.
If they (parents) didn’t read the small print - then this is a good and cheap lesson to teach their young’us before they enter the world of mortgage contracts, car loans etc. Remember ladies…when we didn’t read the contract we ran into problems…
They are not victims…they were called to the carpet for not following rules.
And regretfully, that is something we seem to have not taught our our unique special crystalized water particles.
“The most important one, to me, is whether this dress code was typically enforced or ignored, especially with respect to the kids of the nonrev passengers. The fact that most of us have never heard of these dress codes before makes me wonder how strictly they’ve really been enforced.”
Yes, it is enforced more often than not. Most of you have no reason to really know about the dress codes because they don’t affect you. If you are not an employee of an airline nor someone traveling on that perk as a friend or family member of an employee, you don’t need to know the policy. This is typical of most internal corporate policies.
These policies aren’t new. They been around since before I was born and I’m no spring chicken. ~:>
The very worst critics of young girls are other young girls. The level of viciousness is brutal. It’s one thing to have to change your clothing because it’s not appropriate non-rev attire. Those are just the rules. Another thing if the gate agent said they were fat, looked sleazy, or something personal.
Those who haven’t heard about the flight pass rules may have contacts who are not sharing the flight benefits with them.