She hasn't toned down her look much since her junior-professor days. You should use everything you have to make people think. We use everything we've got, and costume is part of it. Yes, teaching is a performance art. It makes me want to throw up.
Mentors criticize everything from the studs in the job-seekers' ears to the shoes on their feet.
We focus on their clothing as if the perfect suit or haircut, or the toning down of extravagant styles, will guarantee them a job. Alas, she says, it won't. The deconstruction of dress weighs particularly heavily upon minority professors. There are prejudices against people who look too Jewish, too working-class, too Italian, too black, or too much of anything different. The stakes are high for blacks, Ms. Painter says, because nothing they do is neutral.