Let people wear what they want

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]All right, let me crack my knuckles here because I got distracted and I'd love to take this. Um, Alan McDonald says, "Miss Gilmore, you would pres pre present more professional if you would not play with your face and hair while you are on air and wear a proper blouse."

[00:00:19]Alan, thank you for your feedback. Um, I play with my hair probably actually a bit too much. I do sometimes get annoyed by that when I when I check myself and um when I when I watch like clips and stuff, but it's just because it gets in my [ __ ] face because I have too much of it. Um but also I'm not too worried about professionalism on here because it's my stream. And uh yeah, I'll wear whatever the [ __ ] I want. And uh if you can't see past what I'm wearing and you know how often I touch my hair to hear the actual words that I'm saying and listen to my journalism, then I don't have a professionalism problem. You have a misogyny problem.

[00:01:01]So, thank you for your feedback. But, um I'm going to keep wearing tube tops. And uh the amount of times I say [ __ ] and you know have my tattoos out and uh you know criticize a lot of uh my peers is probably sufficient uh to absolutely condemn my professionalism in the eyes of the same people who would uh insist on us wearing blouses to be on air. So anyway, um anyway, but I also I feel kind of bad because I'm picturing like some, you know, older dude who means well who's like I don't know like it's like grandpa misogyny, you know, where it's like it comes from a good place even though it comes from an awful place which is misogyny. Yeah, I just I I don't like making anyone feel bad unless they really deserve it. But he kind of does deserve it. You see me grappling with this.

[00:02:05]Um for cheesy 10 bucks, thank you. Super chat towards wearing what I want. I do.

[00:02:12]I actually do. Do you know what's interest? So, I actually made a really conscious choice not to dress and come across the way that traditional like journalistic anchors do. Um, in part because this is just like how I dress and behave normally and I'm trying to just be authentic and you know, be true to myself. But, um, you know, I can also tell you that a large part of that is because there it's me. It's part of my interrogation of the ludicrous things that we prioritize in mainstream news. I mean, one thing that I have encountered consistently through my career is a lot of ridiculous emphasis on appearance and superficial perception-based things over the actual content that we are attempting to um you know convey. And uh you know like one of the first things that I heard when I suggested to a CTV news executive that I was interested while I was doing producing and writing work for them in you know filing some stuff for on air. Uh she that one of the first things this woman said to me was you probably need to cut your hair. It's too long. Like can we just take a second with that?

[00:03:28]The first thing before talking about any editorial content, any uh you know approach to my work, any approach to um my story choices, my uh the voice that I use like in terms of like writing voice and in you know how I phrase things um in terms of like the grammar, the the actual workbased stuff. The first thing that was said was my [ __ ] hair. And that to me is just such a symbol. Like on another day, the same day that Lisa Laflam herself came like sent me an email because she um thought a profile I wrote on Maxine Bernier was so good that and like she read it and she was like this was really helpful, really interesting. Um so I was on like a career high in that moment. I was in my early 20s. I couldn't believe it. And uh that by the end of the day I got called into my boss's office because there had been a complaint that my skirts were too short.

[00:04:31]And uh for the record before that job um and you know I had a six-month stint uh as a full-time reporter at another spot.

[00:04:41]But uh you know prior to that I was having to waitress on the weekends to supplement my income so I could pay my rent. And you know, when you go from a waitressing job to the workforce, you don't exactly have a massive new budget to buy a bunch of new professional clothes. And uh CTV was playing paying me less than 50k a year at that point.

[00:05:06]So, sorry, but I couldn't exactly buy a whole new wardrobe. And also, I didn't think the length of my skirt had anything to do with my ability to do my [ __ ] job while I sat at my desk all day. And I just think that those things are so absolutely ridiculous to focus on when what we really should be focusing on with our scarce time, scarce energy, and scarce budgets in media is the actual output of the work. Like we should actually be focusing on doing good journalism. And like, yeah, if I had my tits out, maybe that would be a bit distracting. But the fact that I had a two short skirt on as a 6' tall female who like a lot of things that fit other people normally look really short on me.

[00:05:52]Um, I'm sorry that my great legs distracted you from my ability to do my [ __ ] work. But anyway, uh I just get So Peter Yobel says, "Take my man money and [ __ ] the patriarchy."

[00:06:12]Thank you for that super chat, Peter.

[00:06:14]That's really [ __ ] funny.

[00:06:16]I appreciate it. Um Oh, man. Also, um Mr. Shelby Kilpatrick says, "Rock on."

[00:06:25]Man, I should rant more often. You guys are so nice. That's so nice. Thank you for the super chats. And Medic Bird says, "I'll say it. Get bent. Alan Rachel kills it being a journalist with integrity." You guys, you're so nice.

[00:06:38]Yeah, but I feel like that's kind of I don't know. I mean, I under Okay, this is a way that maybe I'm maybe this is like a a weird hill to die on, but like I genuinely [ __ ] hate dress codes and like all of those professional sort of um those markers of professionalism that to me are more indicative of your ability to blindly follow arbitrary rules and also that disproportionately apply to women and our ability to be comfortable existing.

[00:07:09]staying in a workspace and you know like even in school when I was in high school I'd wear like tube tops and like crop tops and stuff and uh you know technically all that was against dress code but I [ __ ] dared anyone to come up to me and say that and sometimes they did but you know it's like why the [ __ ] does it matter if I'm wearing spaghetti straps instead of tank like a proper you know three finger tank top why does it matter if I you know you can see my my clavicle Oh. Oh, no. Like, why does that matter for your ability to do math or your ability to listen in science class?

[00:07:47]You know, if you're too [ __ ] horned up that you can't see a woman's shoulder and still do your biology homework, that's not my problem. That sounds like something you have to work on. So, the fact that teachers would enforce that in high school was ludicrous to me. And I think that the way that we have that um continuation of that kind of thinking as we enter the professional world is ludicrous. Like and again I'm not saying like obviously I understand that there is like professional dress versus you know like there are certain things that you probably wouldn't wear to the workspace because it wouldn't really make sense. But I just think that uh that line should be extremely extremely like loose. like let people wear what they want as long as they're doing their jobs. And um yeah, I don't know. I uh I also think that like um Urkin Wald says, "Who else here has had to pick up the slack of someone dressed perfectly professional at work?"

[00:08:48]Exactly. Like your the way you dress has nothing to do with um your ability to do your work. Um, it maybe reflects uh your deference to authority and like how blindly you're willing to follow things that you're being asked. But I actually think that if you want a successful workforce, you should have a workforce that asks not just how to do something or like when you want something by, but also why it's being done. Because if they understand and feel good about why it's being done, they're going to be more effective at it. And I don't know, I mean, whatever, maybe that's idealistic of me. Um, but it's one of those silly little battles that I can uh I can wage um because I'm independent and I enjoy waging it. These are norms I want to change. Like I don't know, wear what you want. Who cares? And it's also a reason why um I I actually found it to be a bit of a red flag. Like people have had concerns about uh Mark Carney's attitudes towards women. And one of the things that I found to be a red flag in that was his like really rigorous um adherence to a professional dress code for his staff. Like because those always disproportionately impact women. It like they always do. Oh, it's funny. Rocket reindeer just had the where Vulcan mind melding right now. Apparently Carne expects a dress code. I have to say it gives his MPs a restrained formality that feels a bit off. Yeah. Like just wear what you want. And also like I don't know. Oh, I feel like having our MPs be in these like fancy suits all the time, doesn't it feel like you know a little less about them, you know, like when you have to wear like a costume all the all the time?

[00:10:27]I don't know. All I'm saying is it's it's another way that we pretend to be something we're not in a way that distracts from the work that we're doing. So, um Uh, thank you, Benu. [ __ ] conformity stifles innovation. I agree. I agree.

[00:10:51]So, I don't know. Um, yeah, like there's a lot of people there were like uh Tik Tok office outfit trends and a bunch of like people would uh chime in when girls were like showing off like slightly risque outfits being like, "Good luck with that. I'd send you home." Like, shut the [ __ ] up. Like you'd send her home for what she's wearing. You'd send her home for what she's wearing, not her ability to do her work, not her, you know, how she conducts herself relative to her co-workers. You send her home because that skirt's a little too short for you.

[00:11:27]You know, like, come on. Anyway, I was about to make up a name and then I was like, I don't want to like anyone to catch a stray here.

[00:11:39]I'm Rachel Gilmore, your least favorite person's least favorite journalist. If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing on YouTube, Patreon, Substack, or wherever you like to listen. You can also find me on Tik Tok, Instagram, Twitch, and Blue Sky. Thank you, and I'll see you next time.