Both. The entire concept of "professionalism" is based around the idea that certain people should be dishonest about themselves in public, for the sake of others' comfort.
If a coworker can't handle a woman wearing pants instead of a skirt, can't handle a black person wearing their hair in a way that's comfortable, or can't handle a queer coworker dressing in queer ways... They're the problem. Not the person who's "unconventional".
All of those things have been called "unprofessional" as a way to oppress minorities.
Covertly flirting with your female colleague in ambiguous ways after she asked you not to and then pretending you didn't do anything, asking your black colleague if he "knows any rappers", and wearing a dress to a company dress-up party when you are in no way trans then claiming to be "trans until tomorrow" and laughing loudly are also all unprofessional.
How is any of that related to the issues I raised? I never argued that any of that was acceptable.
I'm not arguing that anyone should be able to do anything in the workplace, and that is a bad-faith reading of what I said.
People are assholes. And assholes need to be dealt with. But the term "professional" is consistently abused as a tool to oppress people.
I am arguing that the general (American) expectations of "professionalism" are deeply influenced by hateful people, and we should question those standards.
My point was that general expectations are exactly what professionalism is and they reflect the broader society you're in, and there's nothing wrong with professionalism as a concept that isn't also wrong with everything else. We shouldn't question professionalism in isolation because there's no point to doing so: it's just a convenient mirror of broader society used to beat on workplaces for doing what everyone else is also doing.
That last one may well be professional enough to win you business awards, if you do it boldly enough - as in the case of Credit Suisse director Pips Bunce:
Yes, but the topic above was social filtering -- things people say and do -- not identity or minority status. When I say 'professionalism' in the context of social filtering, I am talking about the things people say and do to each other in the workplace.
I started the topic, and you chose to respond to it. The topic and contest is "the concept of professionalism is used as a tool to oppress people" (although I phrased it gentler). I said nothing about social filtering.
You chose to respond with something that just didn't address the issues I raised.
For you now to claim that I'm going "off topic" when you just ignored the original prompt, is absurd.
The first comment in this thread is about selecting images in FedEx's personality test, the second is surmising about what they are really testing for, the third is about whether dishonestly selecting those images constitutes lying, and the fourth is my question:
"Does social filtering constitute dishonesty or professionalism?"
Your highest comment is the fifth in depth, and everyone seemed to be confused about what you were getting at, because we were all talking about selecting images in a personality test during an interview, not talking about people's personal identity.
I entirely disagree with that being what the concept of "professionalism" is based on, but I'm also not entirely sure what you're alluding to here, so grain of salt.
Primarily, I'm alluding to it being considered "unprofessional" for queer people to be themselves in the workplace, as that is the particular thorn I've been pricked with.
But there are other fun ways "professionalism" has been used to oppress people - from the way Women are expected to dress, to Black hair being treated as unacceptable.
OK, so you aren't really talking about professionalism. You're talking about people using a phony excuse to enable outright discrimination -- which is itself very unprofessional behavior.
