In The Beauty Suit: How My Year of Modesty Made Me a Better Feminist, how differently is Shields treated when she wears modest clothes than when she...

In The Beauty Suit,
Lauren
Shields describes the heavily made-up, exquisitely coiffed, fashionably
tailored
grown-up suit in which she used to present herself for work every
morning. After studying
various religious traditions which advocate modest
dress as a form of spiritual practice, she
decided to adopt a different
style. This involved wearing no make-up or nail polish; covering
her hair,
knees, and shoulders; and always wearing loose clothing.

Shields
divides the responses she received into two types. She says
that people who think you have to
look a certain way to be worth their time
(men and women) would ignore her completely. She would
feel invisible until
she opened her mouth. However, the people who mattered to her would not

ignore her or treat her as invisible. These include her fianc©, women who admitted they
felt
trapped by the beauty ideal, and men who said that they were actually
less inclined to take
women seriously when they were wearing a grown-up
suit.