From Penelope Stanford
Rebecca Wiseman has missed some subtleties in the status signals given by
work coats
(16 June, p 53).
Lab coats come (or came) in different colours, and some of them do (or did) come
in female shape.
White, high-status, male shape (though my science teacher Miss Perriman had a
waisted version): brown, artisan-status, male shape (for storemen, janitors, and
so on) and green, low-status, female shape (for cleaners and those performing
similar menial tasks).
When I needed a lab coat for my Open University studies, I wore the old green
cleaner’s version that I used for art at school. I liked the idea of subverting
the image of the low-status coat with high-status acid burns and reagent
stains.
Greenhithe, Kent
