Curated by CLAI
POWER SUIT: Want to project power? Your clothes have to fit you. To be a power dresser, it has to look like you command the clothes, not that the clothes are commanding or wearing you.
- The 1980s was the reign of the floppy bow tie and the suit. And that was the look most women wore in their 20s and 30s when they started in the workplace.
- By the ’90s, women began to hang up their broad-shouldered jackets to favor the softer, more luxurious fabrics used by designers like Donna Karan.

The movie Working Girl, which prominently featured the beloved power suit. (NPR)
GOOD JOB MOST IMPORTANT IN A HUSBAND: What ever-married women want in a spouse, more than anything else, is someone with a good job. 78% of women said steady employment was important to them in a partner, more than the 70% who wanted someone with similar ideas about raising children, or the 38% who cared about sharing moral or religious views.
There are no gender differences between the spousal personality traits that helped a woman’s career and the ones that helped a man’s. In both cases, having a conscientious partner is the only trait that had any measurable correlation. What allows someone to lean in is a conscientious partner. It’s something both sexes should think about in their careers.