Why can't men wear shorts at work in the UK?

I don't know whether anyone else here has noticed, but for the last few weeks London hasn't been cold. Not much sign of ice on the Thames. No polar bears. In fact it's been HOT! Really really unpleasantly hot.


So - not for the first time - it's made me wonder why, when women can very sensibly wear floatey dresses or shorts and loose tops for office work, we are still wearing the same trousers-and-shirts that we would in the depth of winter. This was particularly brought home to me this summer, as after three weeks spending quite a bit of time in and around London I'm now back working at home and (clients please avert your eyes now) wearing t shirt, shorts and sandals. It is so much more comfortable for actually getting work done.


Notions of acceptable work wear can and do change, but usually only incrementally. There's the occasional apparently complete change  - as an example we have now got to the state where not wearing a tie is (mostly) completely acceptable, but even this was actually in incremental change. Not through wearing smaller and smaller ties, but rather through "dress down Fridays" spreading through the week. Unfortunately I think the shorts issue is a bit more of a quantum leap.


So thoughts I thought I'd throw out as a lunchtime teaser:

- Are other countries more pragmatic about this?

- Can this be changed in the UK? Has anyone worked in a company that managed it?

- Or is there a really, really good reason why not? (I'm looking forward to the answers to this one )


Cheers,


Andy