The Communication Power of Looks

“LOOKISM” is the preferential treatment given to those who conform to social standards of beauty. It is gender-neutral affecting both men and women alike. It tells us that we tend to perceive those judged physically attractive as more competent and socially graceful that those not so endowed. Because of that, people perceived as "good looking" tend to acquire more friends and have more sex, and more money. According to one economic study, being in the top third in the looks department delivers a 5 percent bonus while being in the bottom 9 percent delivers a 7 to 9 percent penalty.

            Interestingly, a dental assistant  was fired by her dentist boss some years back simply because he judged her to be too attractive, too tempting to pass unnoticed, and he was worried that if he didn’t fire her, he would end up having an affair with her.

            The dental assistant sued the dentist for sex discrimination. The district court in Iowa dismissed the case, contending that the dental assistant was fired not because of her gender but because she was a threat to the dentist’s marriage. The dental assistant appealed, only to have the Iowa Supreme Court uphold the lower court’s decision, maintaining that an employee can be lawfully terminated if the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction.

Point: Discrimination based on beauty is rooted in the same sexist principle as discrimination against the ugly. Both lie in the power of the male gaze—the fact that men’s estimation of beauty is the defining feature of the category. Lookism may be gender neutral; the workplace, however, may not be. In too many workplaces, the glass ceiling is being reinforced by a "looking glass".  Think of those model-thin pharmaceutical sales reps for example, whose job is to persuade physicians to prescribe their products. It seems that in contemporary society we face the Goldilocks dilemma: you can’t be too cold or too hot—You have to be “just right.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in the workplace, the beholder is endowed with a “Y” chromosome.

         How do you suggest we remedy this?

(For background, see Michael Kimmel, “Fired for Being Beautiful,” The New York Times, July 17, 2013, p. A25)