An interesting discussion on Metafilter today about Americanisms in general, and a few phrases in particular. Someone mentioned a phrase which has particularly rankled me for ages now: "Open the kimono," a noxious phrase which manages to be both racist AND sexist.
As someone is sure to point out (because this is the internet, and the internet is thick with pedants), kimonos were traditionally worn by both sexes. However, I can assure you that the people using the phrase "open the kimono" are unaware of this fact.
As a business-ism, "open the kimono" could best be described as "unfortunate." A quick survey indicates that it seems to be particularly endemic to the Silicon Valley power culture of finance and high-tech start-up companies.
This happens to be a culture which purports to be a meritocracy, while vigorously keeping the status quo in place. It is a culture which is frequently unfriendly to women, people of color, the disabled, homosexuals, the transgendered - basically everyone who isn't young, white, and male, from a privileged middle-class upbringing.
"Open the kimono" literally translates to "show off our secrets." The metaphor relies on the Western myth of the geisha: a perfectly demure, subservient sex slave, who masks her physical attributes with a big baggy kimono. It is superficially salacious, then, to invoke the geisha in a business context.
But a moment's reflection reveals that the phrase has many darker connotations. It is always the speaker who is in the position of opening the kimono, and he (the phrase is used almost exclusively by men) is always opening someone else's kimono. The speaker is never revealing his own nakedness, but acting to reveal the nakedness of someone else - and without their consent.
If consent were part of this fantasy, then the phrase would be "Let's ask whether the kimono can be opened" or "Can you open the kimono?" But the phrase is never issued as a request. It is always a command, and the command is issued at the discretion of the speaker.
This power structure is encoded directly into the metaphor, because that is (in their minds) the purpose of a geisha: to do as she is commanded. If consent, request, or equality were involved, the phrase would be "take down the pants" or even "lift the skirt."
Of course, I realize it's futile to protest a phrase being used by this particular subculture. The Silicon Valley culture - and the programming culture at large - has huge problems with misogyny, and "open the kimono" is hardly the start. It grates, though, like a Powerpoint presentation with naked ladies (which is a thing that keeps happening).
Just part of the tone-deaf Death of a Thousand Cuts that can sometimes feel like, to be a woman working in high tech.