I've been reading a great deal about women and clothing lately. First, I picked up the book Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work by Deborah Tannen. Years earlier, I had read Tannen's book You Just Don't Understand: Men, Women and Conversation and found the differences between the ways men and women communicate fascinating. In this later book, she shifts the discussion to gender differences in the workplace. She discusses the idea that women are always "marked" in the workplace by their clothing choices. In other words, there is no standard style to which women can conform - other than to adop the men's style. For some women, wearing a grey, navy, or black business suit allows them to fit in with the men at their office. They crop their hair or pull it back into a bun. They look: "professional." Other women wrestle each day with clothing choices. Is my skirt too short? Is my outfit too "sexy" or "dowdy" o...