Pants. In Mary Kay.
Written by Parsons Green
At this year’s Leadership Conference for Mary Kay Sales Directors, several female employees of Mary Kay Corporate wore PANTS during their presentations. The outcry from the sales force was great enough that Ryan Rogers posted this to InTouch.
Ryan admits that requiring skirts and dresses is an obstacle to attracting sales force members to the company and that he believes his grandmother would have thought so too.
The reaction was swift.
Carol Mouradian mentions that updated guidelines have not yet been posted.
Gail Scott praises this decision.
Donna Scott agrees.
Carolyn Thompson states that professional attire can be flexible. Gail Scott agrees.
Adrienne Keeler is tearing up. Several consultants then gave views on both sides.
Ava Oja will continue to honor Mary Kay’s wishes.
Maureen O’Brien Hooker framed a letter from Mary Kay herself about this issue and she will continue to wear dresses.
Meara Gilchrest Buck wants everyone to dress as if Mary Kay were the one answering the door.
Consultants state that the company is changing. Gail asks if Ryan would really make a decision his grandmother would disagree with.
Jacque Schumacher will continue to wear a skirt or dress.
Jenni Tjelle will ALWAYS wear dresses and so will her unit.
Since consultants are independent contractors, the company cannot require a dress code. So, ultimately it is up to the consultant what professional attire looks like for her.
Ryan admits that the culture requiring dresses is not attracting new consultants to the business. If consultants aren’t joining the company, they aren’t buying inventory packages.
So at the end of the day, Ryan’s primary focus is like his grandmother’s. Making money for the family – however they can.
Visit the
Listen too our founder, don’t disrespect her legacy, honor our founder, dress distinctly like she said…Sounds like a cult to me.
You’d think pink pant-clad thugs are going to be bursting into houses and forcing the bifurcated outfit onto unwilling legs not offering an alternative choice if an individual wishes.
It does leave it open to interpretation as to what “profesional attire” might be. Today is “workout Wednesday” at my school, but I call it slob day. We resemble a bunch of hobos in our activewear. But, what would a “professional” workout ensemble look like? Why is it such a big deal?
It’s interesting to me how the appearance of experiences/events/reality is much more important than the actual truth of the matter. This is not just in MK. As long as everything looks great, what goes on under the surface is seemingly irrelevant.
Ava Oja A businessman told me he travels alot (sic) and sees many different business people in hotels but he can always tell when they are Mary Kay because Mary Kay women are always dressed professional compared to other companies!
How often are we told that random businessmen, airport staff, stewardesses, hotel staff et c. can immediately tell MKBots from other professional women because of how they dress? It seems to be one of those hive-mind stories pulled out to allegedly impress the unbee-LIE-vers.
I’ll take “Things That Didn’t Happen” for $600, Alex.
Too bad these ladies don’t have this same energy and passion for actually selling product and providing real, cost free training on how to do so. Instead, the focus is on “playing businesswomen” and manipulating consultants to order more unnecessary and unsellable inventory.
Hmm. Context is everything. I worked in IT for over 3 decades. Halfway through my carreer I was still required to wear a tie. My company purchased a dotcom startup and I was assigned to oversee technical integration into our company.
Even though I had a temporary office at the dotcom, I was required to wear a tie every day. It took me weeks to months to earn the respect of my new colleagues…they simply could not take me seriously in my over-dressed, stuffy corporate attire.
Mary Kay reps should look at how the sales folks dress at Sephora, Alta or dept store beauty counters. That is what beauty products consumers are expecting. Over-dressing can send the wrong message and become a turnoff, especially to the young adults. You are selling make-up out of your home, for crying out loud. Dress accordingly.
Way back in the late 1970’s an actual study was done, they sent women around to various places doing common business things at the time (sales calls, for one) in different outfits and looked at how far they got, and they sent surveys afterwards. At the time they learned that a woman in a well tailored skirted suit was perceived as a professional whereas the women who wore a dress or a blouse and skirt were classed as secretaries or similar in people’s perception.
Fifty years later we need to redo the study, I think we’ll find that a woman in a well tailored pantsuit will be seen as equally or more professional than the woman in the skirted suit.
Also note that the study indicated that the best received skirt length was just below the knee. Not 2/3 the way down the calf and not a miniskirt either. That’s one thing I’ll bet will not have changed.
Some sociology grad student should really redo the studies underpinning the “Women’s Dress for Success book! And it should be redone every 20 years or so. Science for the win!
Meara Gilchrist Buck we have to realise that Ryan Rogers can only make suggestions/recommendations that preserve our company’s ability to remain neutral in our hyper-litigious society,
Bonnie Farrell-Hawkins I think he is caving to the pressure from the corporate staff. You know people are law-suit happy in the work place these days.
I guess this an yet another example of how out of touch the average MKBot is. Lawsuits are expensive and often the very last attempt to achieve something not thrown around at random over petty issues.
Not that I think clothing decisions are a petty issue. There was a discrimination case back in the 1980’s in the UK over whether a male employee should be punished for having long hair. The union successfully argued in arbitration that the company’s dress code stated words to the effect of “women with long hair should keep it clean, well-brushed and off the face via a bun, pony-tail or braid”. There was nothing in the dress code for male hair.
The employee was keeping to the same standards as his colleagues and should not be punished for it.
Ryan implies he can change the cult guidelines, as the head of the cult, he can. However, Jenni then says she will continue on the previous path, essentially forcing everyone under her to do the same. “Enriching Women’s Lives,” indeed.
“several female employees of Mary Kay Corporate wore PANTS”
They probably wore pants because it was pretty cold in San Antonio.
The woman in the photo is a MK Sales Director. I wonder if she, too, felt some type of backlash.
Jenni Tjell I have a predominately YOUNG unit & they completely disagree with the “young want it” stereotype.
Some-one needs to inform Ms. Tjelle that anecdote does not equal data and personal preferences are just that, personal.
Historically the voices of women, especially young women have been ignored in the workplace. I have to wonder if her down-line actually think that or are trying not to make waves and hiding their own thoughts.
Meanwhile, their InTouch system glitches in more extraordinary ways every day. Customer service is basically nonexistent or 🤷♀️ Their hot new product, the Dynamic Wrinkle Limiter, was a flop. They can’t get recruits, they’re in debt up to the roof, and other MLM companies are folding one after another.
Nice to know they’re focused on what’s REALLY important 😑
sThere’s not alot of research, but there have been some. These two article sum up a bit of recent research:
https://community.thriveglobal.com/heres-why-dressing-for-success-actually-works/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dress-for-success-how-clothes-influence-our-performance/
What I found interesting was that none of it asked about pants. It was more about the quality of clothes, the color, and that you look successful.