PETITION AGAINST THE OBLIGATION TO WEAR TIE AND SUIT

PETITION AGAINST THE OBLIGATION TO WEAR TIE AND SUIT

There are already different arguments against the obligation to wear tie and suit:

1) that they are a symbol of conformity
2) that there are risks of health problems caused by ties (entanglement, infection, vascular constriction)
3) that they are out of fashion
4) that they contribute to carbon dioxide emissions, because they require more air-conditioning during hot season

- Former Prime Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi discarded his tie and Japanese companies followed his example, significantly reducing the use of air-conditioning;
- Arizona State University passed a resolution in 2005 to have no discrimination based upon gender preferences, including cross-gender choices (especially tie);
- Casual Fridays (allowing workers to wear more casual dress) is a custom which began in US and Canada in the late 1950s and became widely popular in US in the 1970s, and afterwards during the Dot-Com hey-day of the late 1990s-early 2000s;
- Eric Crown, CEO of Insight Direct, which was beginning to effect substantial on-line sales via website, along with more than $1 billion yearly dollars telephone sales, announced one morning, in 1995, that none of its 800 telephone salesmen would any longer be required to wear a necktie.

More examples of anti-tie or anti-suit measures can be found, but what is yet to be cried out loud is that tie and suit are the last survivors of direct oppression. Western civilization is grounded on individual freedom, which includes freedom of expression. The anachronic tie and suit resist by themselves to this fundamental principle, and today billions of employees around the world are obliged to wear a tie and a suit in order to keep their job, the main argument being the respect to the clients, as if a stupid cloth around the neck or the form of your jacket could guarantee, even formally, the respect towards the others (more than other accessories or designs).
One last argument, implicit in the example of Arizona State University, is that obligation to wear tie and suit is also gender discrimination: while no accessory is imposed on female employees, the male ones not only have to strangle themselves in order to show respect, but they also have wear suits identical in form and having one of the four accepted colors (black, gray, blue, brown).

If you had enough of obeying your employer in such a primitive way or if you just feel that this is oppressive, discriminatory, and against your Constitution, sign the PETITION AGAINST THE OBLIGATION TO WEAR TIE AND SUIT!

Cristian Dragnea,
PhD candidate in Philosophy