In 2013 I accepted a full-time faculty position teaching human services and social science courses at Mentoring University, a unique public institution that specializes in adult learning. Professors are called mentors—experts in their field who work one-to-one with adults. We don’t call them students, they are adult learners. Mentors are there to advise on course selections, co-design their degree plans and serve as advocates. Up till then, I had taught occasionally in NYC universities, invited by faculty administrators familiar with my work, I was asked to develop courses in youth and music studies. And then behold, I was doing a new thing: I had a straight job, a salary, an office, a job title, I was officially middle class.
As I set about absorbing new technologies; the pedagogic, historical and philosophical underpinnings of mentorship and navigating our organizational structure, I had entered a new language game, learning through orientation, training, consultation and supervision. But something else was happening, I was immersed in a socialization process. Informally, serendipitously, through observation, imitation, interaction and hands-on experience I was becoming someone else. Socialization into any new community or subculture requires the newbie to observe, intuit, practice and eventually internalize the ways of the group. At some point, I understood that the norms, values, behaviors, linguistics, roles and rituals of the College’s mentoring culture would become part of me. But one thing continued to baffle me: What was I supposed to wear to work?
Situated somewhere between bohemia, the creative class and the professional-managerial class, traditional academe offers a mosh pit of sartorial reference points. When we imagine the professor-as-performer, a variety of social types (and stereotypes) will come to mind: tweedy bearded sage, post-punk intellectual, earth mother, urban-activist scholar, disheveled bookworm, post-feminist, queer-positive, corporate knowledge broker. This question of mentor-wear began gnawing at me at my job-talk presentation. I noted a wide range of styling.
Yes, I wore a dress, something I do only for weddings, funerals, or court appearances. I needed to look approachable and professional. But the community organizer or disaster relief worker will not dress anything like the hospital administrator or clinical social worker. Once I was hired at Mentor University I continued ruminating over my image. I knew I couldn’t be everything to everyone. On top of that, it was mid-July with very few students on site, everyone was dressed in casual summer wear. And still, I had no clue.
At the New Mentor Orientation my colleagues mixed it up with suits, ties, dresses, pumps, pearls, jeans, frocks and Dockers. One new mentor even wore a leather jacket, which I found comforting, given my New York rocker girl past. Now a Long Island water woman, I wore my traditional surfy summer regalia: a neatly tailored but boldly colored hand dyed sarong from Bali with a pressed cotton shirt and sandals. Hedging my bets, I dressed it all up with a little makeup and silver jewelry. Even in a 90-degree heat wave, I fretted, Should I have worn stockings?
As part of our orientation, we met with the college president, casually dressed in sandals, a simple summer skirt and top, neat and efficient. But I was no closer to resolving my existential crisis. On the surface, I feared my concerns could seem frivolous, ditzy, even a little narcissistic. I dared not discuss them with anyone. As I obsessed over my wardrobe options, I remembered the work of sociologist Erving Goffman--what we wear as social actors on the world stage is a serious scholarly question he tackled in 1959, in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Goffman argued the artifacts we select to represent us communicate who we are and what we care about. Our choices are loaded with coded meaning; they tell other people how we handle the raw materials of social existence. Our individual clothing styles, make-up, hair, amulets, scents or shoes – the artifacts of self-adornment – communicate our social truth. The presentation of self is a dialogical process; a conversation we hold with others.
To the critical imagination, the politics of presentation of self become even more crucial. Are we styling for conformity or for dissent? Does the presentation of self convey our embrace of dominant ideologies or symbolic resistance? What is our relationship to power, authority, to repressive or coercive regimes? Where do we situate ourselves in the societal landscape as knowledge workers – educators, scholars, intellectuals or activists? Whether we dress up or down, outward presentations of self underscore who we are – articulating our values and beliefs, as well as our position of class, race, sex, status and power. Covertly or overtly, we set our agenda upfront through the choices we make about what we show the world. We talk the talk and walk the walk. There is theory and there is practice. A sociological imagination will overthink these things until the head explodes.
In his 1979 study, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige examined British youth in punk regalia, situating late-1970s cultural rebellion in terms of economic inequality, class culture and generational disenfranchisement. In Teenage Wasteland, my study of a late 1980’s quadruple youth suicide, I examined how outcast working-class youth on the streets of an “upper poor” New Jersey town subverted the status hierarchy of their suburban high school. They fought back symbolically, by appropriating the very language games calculated to degrade and demean them. Much like disenfranchised African American (N word), Riot grrrls (C word) and LGBTQ youth (Q word), the “burnouts” of Bergenfield reclaimed their label for themselves, proclaiming themselves “burnt and proud.” They transformed a marginalizing and debasing social status into a source of empowerment, pride and defiance.
We recall the defiant seas of hoodies, as outraged Americans protested the 2012 killing of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin. Another youth of color profiled as a menace to society: male, black, just another gangsta in a hooded sweatshirt. We may also recall the shirtless feminist “slut” protest marches of young women outraged by charges that their “sexy” clothing choices – not the social relations of patriarchy – incited rape. Such cultural politics are played out on a daily basis on street corners and in high schools, where young people fight to be who they are visually and ideologically. Cultural politics also are played out in the workplace. Hippie, and later, pomo and punk professors have typically wore their politics on their sleeves, as did the 1980s corporate university zombie scholars of the Reagan era and female academics “presumed incompetent” demanding to be taken seriously – intellectually and economically.
Every occupation has a unique culture of its own, so I drew on my early experiences as a social worker in a street-based youth project using my car and the deli as my office; as a family service agency group worker organizing mothers of children at risk, often meeting with them on street corners. Investigating child maltreatment through the Child Protective Services unit of the Department of Social Services, and later as a program evaluator, I always dressed for the action--street, court, community center, home visit, shelter, jail, office.
But for most of my working life, I’ve been a writer—journalist, author, professor, consultant, and later, a holistic healer. So little time, so much to do, to learn, by the time I hit Mentor University, my nontraditional, interdisciplinary, “flexible psyche” was flooded with so many possibilities I was beginning to feel anomic. With such wide and often competing sets of ingrained professional ethics, norms, values, agendas and dress codes, I was totally confused. Paulo Freire has argued that without a sense of identity there can be no real struggle. We can’t win the day if we don’t know who we are, but who was I now?
I had now entered into what Alvin Gouldner described as a reflexive process. As a community activist, I’m dressed in comfortable, durable clothing that will stay clean no matter where the day goes. As a social worker in family court, or an expert witness in youth violence testifying in a death penalty trial, I’m aiming to look as “normal” as possible---a look my musician parents would have readily dismissed as “real square.” Clean-cut, non-descript, I’ll cover the tattoos, remove the multiple ear piercings, comb my hair straight back, soften the make-up – no distractions. Nothing to sabotage the mission at hand.
As a visiting professor teaching sociology of youth courses at Barnard, a women’s college of Columbia University, I always dressed for school, except on Youth Subcultures Day when we did a “show and tell” of our cultural affiliations. For this event, students wore everything from their sorority colors to sports gear; every music subculture from Goth to ballet was represented. It was 1996, I represented with a sacred Ramones T-shirt and a black leather Harley jacket, books and many amulets. Parents attended, and students brought dates. Beyond imparting a critical understanding of youth in society and the importance of subculture, I hoped to offer a pro-sex feminist statement of power and pleasure, of independent women sharing in social and economic equality, scholarly women who loved ideas and hoped to bring some light into the world. After class, students usually stayed late to discuss the finer points of Karl Mannheim, Erik Erikson or Margaret Mead. And then they’d shyly smile and say, “Dr. Gaines, I just love your eye make-up!!”
As a music writer, a street reporter investigating underground subcultures and scenes for the Village Voice, Spin or Rolling Stone, I opted to let it all hang out, with purpose: jeans, leather, scruffy boots and visible tattoos. Dressing in my “after-hours” clothes provided a smoother entrée into subterranean, deviant, even criminal settings. As I reflected on mentor-wear, I realized I’ve always dressed with an agenda, communicating the interconnectedness of self with society. What I decided to wear on any given day is part of the job. I trusted my instincts. Now my new job was challenging me to formulate a new professional identity, organically and intentionally.
As Goffman showed, “impression management” is calculated to communicate something to other people about who we are, where we come from and what matters to us. It can be purposeful, coercive, manipulative, patronizing, empowering, nurturing, condescending or respectful. I wondered too, if any of this really mattered to the adult learner – a parent, worker, a community member already established in a life world of their own. The certified addictions counselor, seasoned child welfare worker, church pastor, ocean activist, nurse’s aid, transportation operator, homemaker, police officer, youth outreach worker – adult learners already embrace a set of occupational and ideological values.
Adult learners may already be socialized into professional norms, workplace cultures, roles and rituals. Service to the greater good is altruistic, spiritual and practical – it’s all about we, not me. Unlike teaching formal sociology, or mentoring aspiring young writers in music journalism, or working with clients in my holistic healing practice, did I even want to wear my cultural politics on my sleeves or walls?
Fall term was looming, I had to go shopping! Desperate for closure, I began reaching out to my colleagues. “I dress to the standard of my wife letting me out the door,” said Ed, a mentor in business. The basic plan was to wear something to work that wouldn’t be embarrassing. OK, I could relate to that. I had lost most of my “nice” clothes in Hurricane Sandy. And I live in a surf community. But sweatshirts, jeans, T-shirts and neoprene wetsuits weren’t going to work---I had to wear something fairly normal.
Mentor Mindy, a poet found it interesting to think about her couture as “work clothes.” “What does one “wear” to ‘teach’?” she asked. “Being a mentor is so nuanced, much like the compilation of one’s self. If dress is an expression of one’s personal aesthetic, I’d say I choose clothes in the way I try to choose words and gestures – comfortable but respectful of my environment and associates, never too formal and occasionally accented in an eccentric way, apparel that connects to who I am, rather than who I should be.” Mindy’s mentoring wisdom suggested to me that in order to connect with students in a meaningful way, being myself was the key element. Mentorship is a co-creative collaboration based on mutual respect and positive regard. It gets deep, it has to be true and real.
Mentor Ann, an historian said “I observed a wide array of attitudes about how to conduct oneself and dress as a professor during my graduate school experiences and believe that a very casual attitude does not reflect a sense of authority or professionalism. During my time at M.U. I have tried to present and conduct myself as a professional and believe that doing so enhances my ability to relate to students and colleagues.” She added, “I never wear jeans to work!”
For two generations of academics, jeans had become shifting signifiers – anti-establishment (1960s), designer chic (1970s), anti-corporate (1980s), alternative, gender-flaked (1990s)—but what do they mean now? For Ann, jeans were a sign of disrespect, “While many industries and offices have moved toward more casual dress, I have made the decision not to wear jeans to work as a message to my students, colleagues and coworkers that they all matter! I believe that dressing professionally demonstrates a sense of care and concern, not just about my appearance, but also about my attitude and commitment to my work. I am at the office to teach and advise my students and present the face of Mentoring University to my community. I believe that my appearance reflects my job and responsibilities, and I always try to present myself as professionally as possible!”
I finally realized it didn’t really matter what I wore, as long as it wasn’t bad enough to upset Mentor Ed’s wife or feel like an out of body experience. As long as it showed respect for the school, the people who work here and our adult learners, I could wear whatever I wanted. I could rock the sarongs through the summer season, punk down for my music studies students, roll up my sleeves for community organizing, suit up with pumps and a blazer for the social work profession. As I imagined myself communing with my students, embracing social theory, mapping out intervention strategies, advocacy agendas and exploring counseling skills, I realized the choices for mentor-wear were as limitless as the curricula at Mentoring University. I could wear something different every day because every day was different. Ten years later, I’m still here.
Donna Gaines, 12/2022
An earlier version of this essay appeared in All About Mentoring, a publication of SUNY Empire State College, Issue 44, pp28
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