For a surprisingly long time, we were just supposed to accept it whenever someone told us we were dressing inappropriately.
Considering how insistent some people were with that claim, it was easy to assume that there's some objective standard for what's appropriate and we accidentally found ourselves on the wrong side of it.
But the more we see and experience, the clearer it becomes that the standards others seek to impose on us are just based on what they do and don't want to see. And while we understand that we can't go walking around without any clothes on, it's easy to take some of the weight out of the word 'inappropriate' when we see some folks' idea of that concept.
But as one woman's upsetting encounter illustrates, the clothes aren't the only things that can be inappropriate in a dress code situation.