The company that does ours has all the women wear a black drape and pearls and the men wear a shirt and tie. If you know me even a little, you know I got my panties in a wad about this. As WOMEN in the PROFESSION of nursing we're wearing a black drape? You may typically recognize this outfit from sorority pictures. I have nothing against sororities, but nursing is NOT a sorority. [I feel very emphatic, hence all my capital letters.]
So, as a kick-off into this professional activity in the picture I will use for my license verification online your expectation is for me to wear a piece of fabric that sits on the very edge of my shoulders--almost ready to fall off--and a string of pearls around my neck? I'm not a super-conservative dresser. I don't have a need to cover my body from my manubrium [that's the bone just below the hollow at the base of your neck] to my toes.
BUT, but, this just feels so sexualized when I want the profession I'm joining to be, well, professional. Respected. Important. Valued.
So I wore my drape nearly to my manubrium. Basically as high as possible.
"Yeah, I'm not going to do that."
"But you'll look different than everyone else."
"Yup."
". . ." *sigh* [I'm sorry I'm making your job more difficult, Photographer. It's not about you.]
Definitely my better angle, amiright?
Obviously I still needed to be a part of the composite AND I needed to document publicly my disagreement to the standard of dress.
Obviously.
Later in the day I called my mom and I'm telling her all about how I stood up for my profession! I was a woman with standards!
And you know what she said to me?
"Amy. Can't you just do what you're asked for once?"
That's what the woman who raised me said. Like she hasn't known since I was two.
Sassy pants: all day every day.
