MSN’s UnderWire (gak, I don’t think I like that name!) has an article on women in high tech and how they dress. The “no duh” conclusion is that female programmers are treated more as equals by their male counterparts when they dress as casually as they do. Heck, male engineers probably would be too. A guy in a suit doesn’t get much respect if he hasn’t proven himself to be competent. But it probably would take a nicely dressed female longer to earn that same respect. Someone I worked with at a previous company was sent to Apple as a consultant and she got little or no help from the male techies there who were supposed to help integrate her project. She finally decided to start wearing jeans and t-shirts to work and was suddenly taken a lot more seriously. It’s too bad that how someone looks gets in the way of certain people’s assessment of their abilities. I’m sure I do it too, because tech people do fall into stereotypical categories more often than not. But it is nice that I don’t have to be dressed up to be taken seriously in this industry.