Beauty and the Job

Before I read this article in today's (Sunday's) edition of The Boston Globe about "Looks:  The next chapter in civil rights", I had seen a snippet at Instpundit

Meanwhile, looks matter more to men’s earnings than to women’s. All your stereotypes are backwards!

But, let us not get ahead of ourselves.

The thurst of the article in today's "Ideas" Section of The Boston Globe is how you look can impact your getting a job, getting a promotion or even holding a job.  The first paragraph:

Beauty may only be skin deep, but that’s plenty deep enough to cost you a job, a promotion, or the training to get one.  Marie Smith, a Hooters waitress, who was 5-feet 8-inches and 132 pounds, was placed on involuntary weight probation until she could fit into a company uniform: the only sizes available were small, extra small, and extra extra small.  Brenda Lewis was an Iowa hotel desk clerk who lost her job despite excellent performance ratings because she appeared “tomboyish,” and lacked the “pretty” “Midwestern girl look” that the operations manager thought appropriate.  Sharon Russell was expelled from a nursing school not because of her record but because of her weight and because administrators worried that she would provide a poor “role model [for] good health habits” when counseling patients.

One thing to note about these examples is that they are all women.

I don't doubt that there is discrimination based upon how one looks.  (Otherwise, I would be rich and famous.)  I also don't doubt that when there are egregious examples of discrimination based upon looks that one should be allowed to sue the discriminating.

However, the link given by the Instpundit is to his wife's blog (she is a forensic psychologist) where she talks about this issue of attractiveness and quotes:

Unattractive men, meanwhile, earned 15 percent less than their attractive coworkers in a London Guildhall University survey of 33-year-olds. Unattractive women earned 11 percent less.

Granted, it is the UK, but they are our (English) cousins.

Let us do right, but let us not get carried away by our stereotypes.

Incidentally, the author of the article in The Boston Globe is Deborah L. Rhode, who is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School.  The Globe tells us that she is the author of The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law” (Oxford University Press, 2010).

I do wonder if, in the future, we will be allowed to discriminate based upon looks with regard to dating and marriage.

Regards  —  Cliff