The men wear traditional, professional business clothes but the women wear outfits that would be more appropriate for a party or an evening at a night club. Why are they not allowed to dress professionally like their male counterparts?

There seems to be a requirement that women newscasters must wear tight and revealing clothing.

As a side note, I used to work in a job where my manager’s manager, who was in her late 40’s, wore cocktail dresses to work.

Demanding a certain haircut is part of the demand for a certain look, and that look includes attire.

sleeveless low cut, lots of leg showing. men are in suits. why arent the women in female business attire

It drives me nuts. The men look professional, whereas the women look like they are going to a cocktail party. Watching them, I figure either the men are roasting to death or the women are freezing.

The news caster's appearance should be understated and not distract from the story. If I'm noticing what someone is wearing or their hairstyle, the odds are I'm not hearing what they are saying.

...(or mostly men) were working in offices and newsbuildings, and men wore suits.

I kind of figured that and in the meantime, it is probably male viewers who want to see women in skimpy outfits delivering the news.

from the story. The only ones riveted by a glimpse should be repressed Muslim males fresh in from very different societies. Same for hair and makeup.

That hackneyed Barbie doll hair worn as a don't-take-me-too-seriously offset to intelligence and gravitas, and especially by women it really doesn't suit, does offend me. This has putdown stamped all over it. I'm not the audience demanding this, and I don't believe people who do dominate, even if this Stepford style has come to be expected.

They broke the 40 barrier, but are still fighting the 50 and 60. Look at this one. She's a woman with an intelligent and distinctive face doing a job that requires intelligence and that should benefit from dignity and distinction. She is also 57 years old and unfortunately has to try to look far younger and less like a serious woman with all this Miss U.S.A. "I really do want world peace!" hair.

Being able to look like serious, mature women, allowing anchors who wish to offload pounds of demeaning and high-maintenance hair, still requires more sexist and ageist barriers to be smashed.

on the news because of agitation over bare arms are a very small minority. Of course, there are still some enraged by seeing women in good jobs at all. Wonder if wearing grocery bags over their upper halves would help at all with those?

“That ideal look “is stereotypically heteronormative, not overly sexy, and predictable.”


Liz Cho is ridiculously sexy...though I never watch the news on TV...I did walk past tv news in the gym and did a double take.

She looks very well dressed and on the conservative side.

I said she was ridiculously sexy.

Anchor for local ABC news in NYC.

for most US newscasters. Women wear sleeveless dresses in the middle of winter. Men wear jackets and ties in the middle of summer. All the men have the same haircut as do all the women. The difference is "how comfortable are they?". Women have been complaining for years that the men who run the shows do for the most part have air conditioned sets so they don't sweat through their lined jackets while the women have blankets and shawls by their feet to grab the second they go to commercial since they freeze in winter and summer.

Make-up with false eyelashes is the norm, no matter how uncomfortable while men aren't encouraged to grow mustaches and other types of modern facial hair. It is about trying to be middle of the road and modern yet not offensive. I think the anchors on the morning shows look slightly different than the afternoon and evening shows. Fux Ruse on the other hand looks like their own little island of long haired blonds with lots of leg...appeals to their audience which is white and older.

I'm usually more interested in what is being reported on than what the reporter looks like. Having said that, there have been instances when a reporter stands out because what he or she is wearing seems out of place on the program.

and dressed the mannequins and did visual displays at Macy's as my first and second careers before I became a teacher. I am naturally a very visual person and can tell the year of an older movie by the hair, clothes and cars. I usually am correct within 3 years of the actual date. Sometimes I wish I didn't notice a lot since so much is pretty unappealing and distracts me.

the one female news host who doesn't play by these rules is Rachel Maddow and she blows all the others away.

I often thought that the women in their skimpy outfits and short sleeves must be freezing, while their male counterparts look very comfortable with long sleeve shirts, suit jackets, and ties. It is not a fashion show, it is the NEWS and I don't tune in to see what someone is wearing.

the hair, makeup or clothing styles of female newscasters or talk show hosts unless I am sure they are forced to wear them.

She fits the OP - not blond (but it says slightly under half are blond), but smooth, short or medium, not grey, and anyway "a bit wavy is OK" ). So that's the 'standard'.

she fits the "standard"

She may well wear jeans; she rarely stands up. As a matter of fact, men sitting down may wear jeans with a suit jacket.

in the last few weeks. (But maybe we are.) Not hair exactly, but I think it's in the same domain.

(And her makeup changes quite a bit from show to show. What's up w/ that?)

Either that, or there are different makeup people on different days of the week? It would be interesting to find out how much input Rachel gives them or if she just lets them try out new ideas.

Intelligent, interesting, well grounded in their subject matter.

Fashion-wise, I have particularly noted the wide variety of hairstyles among the African American women on MSNBC in the past couple of years. I was surprised at first because as the OP notes, TV news shows equal uniformity of appearance. However, I think they look great in all their variety.

...she wears no makeup, and heavy-rimmed glasses instead of contact lenses. Her hair is not just short, it is boyishly short, and when I have seen her on things like Steven Colbert's show, it is combed to emphasize it. In the newsroom, it is a bit more fluffed out.

As a condition of her employment, iirc, she agreed to be feminized for the camera, and to that end she submits to a makeup artist and wears contacts. The makeup artist is probably who fluffs out her hair as well. She does not and will not wear dresses or blouses. She has a self-chosen uniform that she keeps in her office: a selection of women's dark suit-jackets worn with (again, iirc) a selection of tank tops, over blue jeans. Nowhere else does she wear those jackets.

She's an out lesbian and frequently (by tv newsroom standards) and casually mentions her wife Susan.

I never heard her on the radio, where she got her start, but I have followed her career at MSNBC with interest, and read a few in-depth bios of her early on. I like bright people with inquiring minds and depth to their knowledge, and she is all of those. She is exceedingly bright, and neither flaunts it nor hides it.

I find her very unusual in that world.

It sounds like she too goes for the "not too young, no grey, business-like" appearance the article says is the norm when anchoring.

Maybe you're mistaking her personality and work for what the article is about - hair.

she looks nothing like the average female anchor. In my market (Philadelphia), anyway. No hairstyle that looks lacquered, no sleeveless low cut bosom-enhancing sheath, no blonde... I’ve noticed that in smaller markets the anchor females tend to look less like figures from the wax museum.

Yes, it says nearly half of those looked at are blonde; but that means slightly more than half aren't. So Rachel fits the bill.

It's about a 22 year old reporter who was getting ignored until the station manager told her to cut her hair so she would look 'older'. And that's the thing: female anchors need to be 'older' but not 'too old'. They need to look 'good' but not 'too sexy'. Compare Rachel to Lawrence. Lawrence doesn't have to dye his hair, but I bet Rachel dyes hers. It's the slight differences that add up to the constraints on women anchors that do not apply to men.

She's worn the same $10 jackets for years. Refreshing. And btw--the eyelashes are fake. I'd say one more thing her makeup artist insisted on, and they look good on her.

I do see Joy and Andrea are almost always sleeveless, Joy often with a bit of cleavage showing.

the outfits, the % blondes, the leg shows, the names.