There’s a definition of “professional” most of us never got to vote on.
It was already decided before we walked in: neutral hair, neutral voice, dress like the room you’re trying to get taken seriously in. And that room, more often than not, was built around one look. One way of speaking. One way of showing up.
We call it “professionalism.” What it actually is, is a proximity test. How close can you get to looking and acting like the person who already has the office?
I’ve watched women I work with, especially Black women, absorb that test and comply with it. Straighten what’s naturally curly. Soften what’s naturally direct. Round every edge until there’s nothing left to comment on.
Here’s what almost nobody says out loud: passing that test rarely feels like success. It feels like editing yourself down to something smaller.
It’s the question at the center of the second episode of the Worthy of Being Seen series.
A few years ago I met a woman at a legal networking event. Partner at her firm. Over twenty years in practice. Waist-length dreadlocks. Early in her career, well-meaning colleagues told her, gently, the way these things always get said gently, that she should reconsider the hair. Look more polished. More professional.
I’m not going to tell you what she decided. That’s in the video.
What I will tell you is that the decision she made in her twenties ended up changing the career of a woman she’d never even met.
If you’ve ever adjusted yourself to fit someone else’s definition of professional: was that actually about the work? Or was it about looking like someone who’d already been let in?
Either way, that permission was never the room’s to give. It was always yours to claim.
Yours in Style, Shopping & Soul,
Morgan
P.S. If years of dressing for someone else’s definition of professional have left your closet full of things that check a box but don’t feel like you, that’s the exact gap the Style, Shopping & Soul Guide is built to close.
