Lookism article from 'http://www.rateitall.com/i-91089-appearance-discrimination.aspx'

In fact it could be argued that Appearance discrimination is far more hurtful and destructive then Racism. As every single human is physically unique regardless of race, economic status, national origin, sex or in fact any other class protected by law. Would you rather be a victim of racism or appearance discrimination? A hurtful tirade or negative treatment due to ones individual features isolates you by yourself as 1 in 6 billion. There is no other person exactly like you to fall back with and have some solidarity. You are alone in your ugly lesser uniqueness. Whilst at least a black, white or Asian person racially abused in many ways can almost laugh at the idiocy of it and importantly has fellow members of his/her race who number in the millions with which to share the persecution. Ditto for sexism, in fact its proportionately easier again, 50% of the earth , over 3billion people can stand with you. A survey by Timur Kuran and Edward J.McCaffery of the University of Southern California; revealed that respondents consider discrimination based on appearance and economic status to be more prevalent then discrimination on ethnicity. Respondents also reported that they themselves have been victimized more by physical appearance and economic status discrimination then ethnic discrimination. Indeed on both the web or phone, the rank order of the great deal responses was the same and surprising: Physical appearance > Economic status > Ethnicity CASE Example If we examine our restaurant - hiring attractive girls example from above. Restaurant owners or commentators might say its not them its simply the market theyre catering to or that their customers dont want to see unattractive, plain girls. If so why cannot one open a restaurant purely hiring white people? As there has and still would be a proportion of citizens out there that prefer the company of their own race and would rather not sit with black or asian people. If you dont believe this then you must also believe that racism does not exist anymore and we have no need to protect ourselves from it via legislation. Of course there would be a media outcry, protests and it would be shutdown under numerous laws and human rights codes. Some points If we already accept from above that racism is wrong due to the fact, rightly so, that people cant affect their skin color then how is inherited physical characteristics discrimination on appearance any different? Powerful Role of the media in determining what is important and what isnt. As earlier mentioned the media pays little attention to appearance discrimination in fact it promotes it! In the above white restaurant example there would be massive TV, newspaper coverage of a RACIST store hiring only whites yet not nearly the same coverage towards an APPEARANCE Discrimination case yet the hurt is the same. According to Fair Measures employment law expert Rita Risser, Generally, the employer has the right to require employees to have a professional appearance. This of course cannot relate to age, race, sex, etc., but rather to clothing, hairstyle, personal hygiene, lack of visible tattoos or weird piercings. Characteristics you choose and can affect, can be dictated by an employer. Notice the lack of explicit mention of appearance discrimination in the protected classes. So in other words the restaurant owner could invent any number of excuses based on a girl having a slight hygiene problem, wrong hairstyle, not quite the multiple plate carrying waiter skills etc When in fact due to the nature of his store, it was because she wasnt model tall enough, didnt have long enough legs, large enough breast size, desired facial features like high cheekbones, lip-nose-ear-eye type or whatever it is that is pushed as attractive. Some recommendations for changing this include 1. Foremost, Appearance discrimination needs to become an explicit and protected class in legislation and human rights codes in all states, provinces and federal level. This is in recognition of the powerful societal and cascading effect such legislation, from the civil rights movements of the sixties to today have had in combating racism. 2. Incorporation of it in all and any endeavors, by law or otherwise that currently combat for instance racism or sexisms existence. Ie. modern HRM practices in private and government organizations, inclusion and specific attention towards it in the education curriculum 3. The level of apathy and non-awareness needs to be addressed and reversed.