When Parini describes academic fashion, he seems to use different criteria for men than he does for women. Men who dress poorly “startled and excited him”, they were beyond “ petty, implicit dress codes”, and Parini suggests that the statement implied by a “disheveled” looked was “…fashion bores me. It is not for serious people.”
Parini only describes the fashion choices of 2 women; one he gives the title of “ the most poorly dressed academic I know”. This woman’s attire reminds him of a “bag-lady”, and uses words like “baggy”, “lopsided”, “odd”, and does not give her the benefit of being bored by fashion as he does the male academics. He describes another female academic who dresses similarly and makes references to her being unmarried; not once does he refer to male academics and their fashion choices in relation to their martial status. Then he opines that “a lot of female academics” dress this way.
This was from pages 69-76. What you think.
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