Don't forget gratuitous pseudo-intellectual Latin terms like "per se" as part of that success recipe! However, the idea of an afternoon tea sounds delightful so long as it's Long Island Iced Tea and perhaps Pizza Rolls aplenty instead of cucumber sandwiches.

Indeed, the proscriptions that the organizers of this "etiquette program" are teaching sound more like they are trying to teach women how to land a husband in the business world, rather than discuss actual business. It's important to know how to socialize at pre-meeting cocktail parties and eat lunch while watching a speaker give a PowerPoint presentation (which one encounters even in the non-profit research field!), but it really has nothing to do with being a "lady." Let's not define manners along this rigid gender binary.

This also makes me think of that Gilmore Girls episode from fall of last year in which Emily's latest task was to teach these very same manners to little girls - how to take tea, how to sit properly, what to say at the dinner table and when, etc. It seemed comical to me then, but it's ridiculous and ironic that such instruction is being resurrected and promoted in a different way - and in Connecticut too!

norbizness - I'm not calling you ghetto, per se, but the Long Island Ice Teas and pizza rolls does sound a little ghetto for the tea party world. Hahahaha.

I was reading the tea party article and extremely creeped out.

By the way, have tea parties become common place in the business world? I've yet to be invited to a business tea party damn it! I like tea! I like crumpets! I refuse to wear white gloves and a hat though... at least not before Easter. /sarcasm

Um, I'm apparently grammatically impaired today.

but the Long Island Ice Teas and pizza rolls does sound

nice. or they do sound even. ack.

Interestingly enough, I am attending an "Etiquette Dinner" hosted by my school's Career Center.

I think that it will be very valuable for me, as I will be expected to have business meetings and other work/social eating events when I start my job in June. I suspect that learning to eat properly (you know, not like I do it now -- eating directly from the plate with my face) will make an actual difference.

Had my career center offered a "Ladies Tea Etiquette Event", however, I would have been pretty upset.

Learning proper manners is good for everyone, but a tea party is ridiculous.

Cause proper business women don't have an appetite for anything more than cucumber sandwiches...

My husband has better table etiquette than I do. I feel like such a neandrathal eating meals with his family- they put the cutlery in particular positions in between bites and then different ones when they're done eating, etc.

I'm pretty sure that's not why he makes more money than me, though...

This is kinda like Crisis Pregnancy Centers for the business world.

I agree that everyone should have to learn dining etiquette. However, why don't men have to do this kind of thing, too? Why is it just the women who need to learn dining manners?

Now, I happen to like tea, and cucumber sandiwches for that matter. But I agree; learning how to sit around in huge hats and gloves and sit in elegant positions is missing the mark.

Learning how to eat sushi or artichokes without looking like an idiot = good. Learning how to nibble like a bird while dressed like one = bad.

However, if it was this kind of tea party, then I'm totally down.

I was once told never to cross my legs during an interview. Well, I just crossed my legs during one of the most important job interviews of my life, and I got the job.

Anything other than basic table manners is nonsense. The time that these women are going to be spending on obsessing about their posture and ankle placement is time that they're not going to be spending thinking about their work, and that's a shame.

wow, someone actually named there kid cartman.

I'm a big fan of etiquette, so I just can't get too offended by this. A lot of people have really atrocious table manners, and when those people go to a fancy restaurant (for a business meeting, or on a date), it can be an uncomfortable scene. Not only is it awkward for their clients/coworkers/dates, who have to try not to cringe as they slurp their soup or what have you, but it's also stressful and potentially humiliating for the person who doesn't know how to act (what's this fork for? what do I do with this napkin? panic!). So really, I don't think teaching teens or young adults proper table manners is a bad idea. Sure, a lot of what we call "etiquette" comes from the extremely repressed and sexist Victorian era, but I personally like it because it demonstrates consideration for those around you. I think our culture has a little too much of a "me" focus these days, so teaching people to show a little consideration for others is a good thing, in my mind.

That said, I thought the stress in the article on being "ladylike" was pretty sexist, but was somewhat mollified by the mention of the plan to include boys next year.

The lessons should be applied equally to both sexes!
After all, if one of the "ladies" from the article goes out to a fancy restaurant with her boyfriend, it won't matter how "tiny" her bites are or which of the "6 elegant sitting positions" she uses, if her bf is sitting across the table from her with his napkin tucked in his collar, belching out the alphabet and scratching his crotch...

I can't come down too hard on this. Aside from it being a pageant, this is Hartford High. Many if not most of the students are poor and black. If learning six proper sitting positions and how to take small bites can help them combat the image a lot of people in the business world have of young black women as loud, unserious and ghetto, then more power to them.

They're still going to run into a hell of a lot of prejudice, bias and outright discrimination based on what their employers and clients think they "must" act like, being poor black women from Hartford. Why not give them a few tools for giving themselves a greater chance of succeeding?

"I think that it will be very valuable for me, as I will be expected to have business meetings and other work/social eating events when I start my job in June. I suspect that learning to eat properly (you know, not like I do it now -- eating directly from the plate with my face) will make an actual difference."

Heck, I once had a job interview over lunch. I made sure to order an entrée normally eaten with knife and fork instead of a sandwich. I got the job. ;)

"Learning how to eat sushi or artichokes without looking like an idiot = good. Learning how to nibble like a bird while dressed like one = bad."

BTW, I heard that sushi is finger food in Japan and chopstick food in the US. Is this true?

Zuzu, while I grew up in Hartford myself and certainly see your point, I am leery of any program that teaches women to succeed in the business world by "be[ing] a lady and [wearing]makeup." I also think there's something telling in the fact that the program prioritized teaching ladylike behavior to girls over running a gender-balanced etiquette program. I wonder how many elegant sitting positions the boys will learn?

In my sophomore year at a Hartford-area high school, a boy hit me in the face with a fist-sized ball of crumpled paper from about a foot away. My teacher's response to my complaint? "Be a lady."

Can I jump in here and say that I don't think what is described in this story is 100% awful?

Two reasons. One: If women are able to get ahead in business partly through acting according to old-school "ladylike" rules of etiquette... should we really rush to say that the ends do not justify the means?

And secondly: I agree with what is said in this site 90% of the time, but I have to disagree with the viewpoint that "feminine" is a synonym for "weak." Saying that women must deny any desire to act "feminine" and act in a masculine or gender-neutral way in order to get ahead is close to self-defeating. There are plenty of strong women who have successful careers and yet, still *gasp* wear makeup and sit properly. Should we refuse to recognize them simply because they do not conform to the current feminist ideals?

(Either way though, I agree with the poster above who said that both genders should be equally taught manners if this ever catches on)

I see this more as a classism issue than a sexism issue (although clearly both are present). I think the bigger issue is that to "get ahead" in business, people need to know how to fit in at the country club and in the board room, and that's what events like this are teaching. Those social situations have historically been for the upper classes, and for the rest of us to break in, we need to know how to fit in. These forums teach people how to pass for the upper crust.
I think we should also be critiquing this for reinforcing the importance of class.

I work for a major professional services firm in the UK, the spiritual home of high tea. I have never heard of a "tea party" business meeting. Sounds to me like she's making a quick buck.

Well, class is a pretty important thing in business, I'd say... just like race/nationality is important at a heritage organization meeting.

"I work for a major professional services firm in the UK, the spiritual home of high tea. I have never heard of a 'tea party' business meeting. Sounds to me like she's making a quick buck."

I agree. Meanwhile, the article said nothing about one of the most important parts of business lunch interview etiquette: politeness to the server. If you're rude to the waitress or waiter, the interviewer may think you'd also be rude to your subordinates if and when you get promoted to manager...