You may have noticed that people in prominent positions often look good. Is it because they were met more positively and given more opportunities than those who are not? Are they more trustworthy? More efficient? Or is it just unfair? These are difficult questions – not for those who are considered “pretty”, of course, but for those who didn’t get the job because they aren’t pretty. Appearance discrimination is a real problem both for individuals and for society. news recently wrote about how “fat people” feel discriminated against by healthcare personnel. It agrees well with international research. The research also shows that it starts early. Children who are perceived as less attractive receive less attention from parents and health professionals. Teachers expect better performance from children who are considered attractive. Those who are perceived as less attractive have lower salaries and get less prestigious jobs. They have less attractive partners and less attractive children. If appearance is the deciding factor, it is unfair. This is called appearance injustice and can have many other consequences than which job you get, how well you earn and which partner you have. Historically, people have been executed because of their appearance. It’s extreme. Far more common are discrimination, bullying, stigmatization and prejudice. In any case, it is unfair when people are treated differently just because of appearance. What makes someone unfairly treated because they look the way they do? One answer is attraction, i.e. whether one feels attracted to them. Attraction is often given an evolutionary explanation. We are attracted to people who are healthy, strong and have energy. The strange thing is that those who are healthy and strong, but are not considered “pretty”, do not get the same attention and opportunity as the “pretty”. Another explanation for why “pretty people” get benefits is that they are perceived as normal. The usual is perceived as safe. Therefore, it is easier to hire a person with an ordinary appearance than someone with a deviant appearance. A third explanation can be found in aesthetics, where the symmetrical or well-proportioned is preferred. Although attraction, normality and symmetry can explain why we differentiate between people based on appearance, it can hardly be defended. What then drives appearance injustice? The research shows that there are many things. Prejudice is a prominent factor. People who are perceived as “fat” are met in a different way than those who are perceived as “athletic”. Bias is another. We tend to think that good-looking people are good and capable – despite many examples to the contrary. But is appearance discrimination really unfair? If people who are less attractive are actually inferior, morally or professionally, then it is not wrong to give the job to the person who is more attractive, is it? Or if people are perceived as less pretty because they are less hygienic or more sickly – then surely it is reasonable that those who are clean and healthy benefit from that? Isn’t disgust a form of self-protection mechanism? There may of course be something in such arguments, but it can hardly justify all the forms of appearance injustice that we see today. Many of those who do not get the top jobs because of their appearance do not get it because of a lack of cleanliness or poor health. What can we do? One strategy is to sicken ugliness. We already do that when we operate protruding ears on children for aesthetic reasons – or in bariatric surgery. While this may be good for the individual, it reinforces the aesthetic norms that underlie appearance injustice. Sickening is therefore not a good strategy. Creating awareness of the phenomenon is probably more suitable. Ask yourself: Would I treat this person differently if they had a different appearance? It is important that we ask ourselves such questions in order to break the vicious circle where “the pretty” get more attention and more opportunities. In the same way that we can “blind” the name of job applicants, we can also “blind” or anonymize their appearance. The problem is that so much of the identity of people is linked to appearance, and that we are so dependent on visual impressions to orient ourselves. But in principle it is possible. In a visual age – where we manipulate appearance both digitally and analogue – injustice due to appearance is a growing problem. When appearance becomes more important than what one performs and who one is, we get visual discrimination. And because it takes place in all of us, such discrimination of the visible becomes almost invisible. Test yourself: Would you consider and behave differently towards the person you meet if they looked different? Then you contribute to appearance injustice and should perhaps start looking at people with different and “prettier” eyes.
ttn-69
Did you get the job because you’re pretty? – Speech
