Case Study : Pretty Faces Get Jobs

“We all know that appearance matters, but the price of prejudice can be steeper than we often assume” (Washington1.) Published originally in the Washington Post on May 23,2010 by Deborah L. Rhode. Rhode the Professor of law and legal director at Stanford University in her essay “Why Looks Are The Last Bastion Of Discrimination,” argues that an individual's physical appearance is one of the few qualities of their personal identity that other people are legally within their rights to discriminate against. Rhode states her thesis clearly explaining the forthcoming reasons she will offer to uphold her position. Rhode believes that discriminating against individuals based on their appearance is wrong, and is often overlooked in many environments such as the workforce. Many think it is crucial that discrimination on looks is banned in workplaces, schools, and most other organizations.

Deborah L. Rhode, a law professor at Stanford University and author, has written or co-written over twenty-seven books in the genre of “professional responsibility, leadership, and gender,” and published editorials in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Slate. On May 23, 2010, an editorial by Rhode titled, “Why Looks are the Last Bastion of Discrimination,” was published in the Washington Post. This article argues for the need of stricter anti-discrimination laws after proving that the United States’ bias towards more attractive people severely impacts one’s ability to obtain jobs and other opportunities. Rhode follows Toulmin’s model of argument which states that an argument must incorporate data, a claim, warrants, qualifiers,

Why women are discounted by employers and not men is interesting. Men have judged women based on their looks for years even in the workplace. This is a form of sexual objectification and undervaluing women according to Caroline Heldman, (2013). One would think that due to The Equal Pay Act that positive business acumen would be practiced for the greatest good based on skill and not using discriminatory practices based on sex and looks. The utilitarian theory will be evaluated to identify the greatest good for the greatest number as it pertains to women being discounted and

Cohen is correct in that hiring for image is essential for good business. It must be effective since all businesses pursue to do so. Hiring for image leads to the increased prices of product, increased sales of products, and can give the impression of authenticity which eventually leads to what businesses want, profit. It also is an important aspect in attracting the teenager group which is a large portion of consumers; Teens are well known for wanting to have a good image due to peer pressure and to be popular at school. The claim that businesses are discriminating are unreasonable; they may only be hiring certain types of people , but that is uncontrollable in pursuing to satisfy their customers ' wants and needs. They are only trying to do what they think will generate the most profit. If most people ask themselves, they would rather choose a place with good looking people than without. However, although it is beneficial for companies, the question of whether is

Today’s jobseeker has tough competition. In our text book readings “Judging by the Cover” (657-658), Bonny Gainley begins the argument of the paper by stating that job seekers must be careful when they make personal choices that initially will affect their chances of entering the workplace. People have a need to be accepted by others just the way they are, in the same way people continue to say, “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, yet people do based solely on their personal appearances. That goes for businesses as well, “[t]he bottom line is that businesses exist to make money. Whether it seems fair or not, most employers do care about the personal appearances of the people they hire because those people represent the business to its customers”.

While it does not seem right, employers do care about our appearance. Jobs exist to make money and right now there is a tough job market. With a lot of people out there looking for jobs, employers can afford to be picky. This is not about human rights and freedom, but about free enterprise.

The company Abercrombie and Fitch has been sued countless times because of the rules the government has imposed on hiring and firing people. Abercrombie is trying to target attractive looking people to their line of cloths. During an interview Salon Jeffries the CEO of Abercrombie stated… his business was built around sex appeal… “He believes that good-looking people attract other good-looking people”… If a clothing line

When working at Wal-Mart in Minneapolis, Ehrenreich, and her co-workers, have a very strict dress code. “No nose or other facial jewelry, we learn; earrings must be small and discreet, not dangling; no blue jeans except on Friday, and then you have to pay $1 for the privilege of wearing them” (145). Uniformity is clearly happening here. Employees are forced to look presentable in Wal-Mart’s opinion of presentable.

As I was reading The Beauty Bias, by Deborah L. Rhodes, I came across a statistic that perplexed me, saying the total “annual global investment in grooming” comes to $115 billion (Rhodes, pg. 32). This shocking fact provokes a worrisome question: Why do we, humans, spend so much time, money, and thought on our appearance? As a complex question, there are several equally complex answers. However, the simple answer is that everyone else invests their time and thought into your outer shell, eliciting effort from you to improve what they study - your external image. The concern placed on one’s fashion choice or natural features by society takes away from larger, more pressing issues such as the declining economy, or feeding third-world countries.

The stores attracted customers with “physical attractiveness” of the store employees and quite clearly there is an argument of unconscious bias in the practice of hiring employees based on physical attractiveness as considered by Shahani-Denning (2003) in the study. Although numerous lawsuits under employment legislation were filed, most of them were based on conscious discrimination and quite interestingly there are no laws governing discriminatory practices under hiring based on “physical attractiveness”. However the brand image of Abercrombie and Fitch is dependent on the outward projection of physical appearance and hence there is a rationale for the argument of hiring physically attractive store staff to attract more

Personally I see this world of salesmanship and such value being put on image everyday in the world of business. Sad but true, that many employers hire first off based on what that candidate looks like as they walk up to the interview room. Image without substance; what ever happened to what that

Wolf discusses the effect that these standards are having on women in the workplace. A woman’s beauty, or lack of it, can be used against her. In 1986, Mechelle Vinson lost a sexual harassment case. “Vinson was young and ‘beautiful’ and carefully dressed. The district court ruled that her appearance counted against her.” (Wolf 38) “In Hopkins v. Price-Waterhouse, Ms. Hopkins was denied a partnership because she needed to learn to ‘walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely,’ and ‘wear makeup’.” She brought in more business than any other employee. (Wolf 39)

Cann, A., Siegfried, W., & Pearce, L. (1981). Forced attention to specific applicant qualifications: Impact on physical attractiveness and sex of applicant biases. The Journal of Personnel Psychology, 34, 65-66.

The article “Beauty and the Labor Market” by Daniel S. Hamermesh and Jeff E. Biddle examines the economics of discrimination in the labour market based on looks and the relationship that exists between beauty and labour market earnings. Analyzing, results from several studies, data from various empirical research and surveys; the article identifies the source of earnings differentials related to looks in six distinct and detailed sections.

Jefferies was successful in his pursuit and as a result, his exclusionary sentiment permeated the workplace culture of the organization at every level; from the sprawling 300-acre headquarters in the woods of Ohio to each individual retail outlet. At the heart of this culture was the “Looks Policy”, an unforgiving guide to how employees should present themselves at work. This policy governed every aspect of an employee’s appearance from the number of times they rolled the cuffs of their jeans to the tone of their skin, which was preferably ‘sun kissed’. Not only did this policy contribute to a negative work environment where employees felt they were constantly being evaluated on the basis of their physical attributes alone, but it also led to human rights violations wherein job applicants were denied employment on the basis of their race and/or religion. In a 2004 class action lawsuit filed against the retail giant, several thousands of former A&F employees alleged the company discriminated against African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans in its hiring practices as well as its advertisements. The claimants also purported that non-white employees were frequently relegated to the back-of-store tasks where they would not be visible to store patrons. A&F settled the lawsuit out of