i work in a factory with like 60% women, in my area specifically it's 100% women with the odd man from the office or higher ups coming onto the floor.
apparently, leggings and showing your ankles is too much. they came down randomly with a new dress code the other day.
if i had to hazard a guess i would say about 90% of women in the factory wear leggings. they're a lot safer than track suit bottoms(ive had track suit bottoms snag on a machine, was not fun) and a lot more comfortable to move around in for 8-10 hours a day.
there's a lot of sexism in the factory but ive never seen it so targeted or explicitly written down before. i see men in shorts(it's very hot inside) and loose trousers every day and yes we couldn't see their ankles but! we could see their underwear and the back of their knees so… the leggings thing seems to be super targeted towards women and when one of the H&S people came down to talk to us about it they had to back peddle so fast. nothing has been said about it since and everyone continues to wear their leggings.
for now it seems their focusing on the forced overtime but that's another story completely.