Female anchors face a laundry list of wardrobe requirements

A California weather woman was handed a sweater live on the air as viewers apparently flooded the station with emails, saying she looked inappropriate.

Meteorologist Liberté Chan was doing a live weather report in a beaded black dress with spaghetti straps when KTLA anchor Chris Burrous handed her a sweater, saying the station had been getting “a lot of emails” about her outfit.

It was an awkward moment that many are criticizing as sexist.

Chan said in a blog post that her station did not order her to put on the sweater and that there was no controversy at the station.

“I was simply playing along with my co-anchor’s joke, and if you’ve ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time,” Chan wrote.

But it only differs from typical treatment of female broadcasters because it was done so publicly.

A dress made headlines in 2015 because it seemed every female broadcaster was wearing it.

And while the $23 price tag contributed to that, women also said it hit all the broadcast dress code requirements for women. And there are a lot.

Patterns are considered too busy, so women have to wear solid, bright colors. They can’t wear green or they’ll clash with the green screen. Some stations tell women to avoid black or white as well.

Some stations tell women to keep their shoulders covered, while others are OK with bare arms. Dresses can’t be too long, but they also can’t be too short. Women should avoid showing cleavage. And some stations have told women they’re not allowed to wear pants on air.

And even when women follow these standards, they can still get flack from viewers.

Kiran Chetry, a former CNN and Fox News anchor, told Brian Stelter on Reliable Sources in July 2014 that she had several viewer complaints about her appearance over the years, including that she needed to buy a wig because her hair was too thin.

“Don’t wear taupe, dye your hair blonde, wear your skirts shorter, wear your skirts longer, don’t wear pantsuits. They said get Botox, because when you report and the sun is on you, you look angry, and nobody likes angry women on television,” Chetry said. “It’s harder because you’re trying really hard as a woman to show that you know as much, and that you deserve to be informing people about what is going on. And then you have to worry about lip gloss and eyelashes and high heels and all of that stuff on top of it.”

Chetry said bare arms weren’t OK until First Lady Michelle Obama popularized the trend.

The standards are made more difficult by policies to avoid repeated outfits within a certain time limit. CBS This Morning, for example, requires that women not repeat an outfit within a 30-day period.

Meanwhile, Australian newscaster Karl Stefanovic revealed in November 2014 that he wore the same suit every day for a year and no one noticed.

This story was originally published May 16, 2016 at 9:25 AM with the headline "Female anchors face a laundry list of wardrobe requirements."