"Beauty Bias"

      Doing research for my commercial last week got me thinking about image in today's society. I never realized how much society pushes the idea of the "perfect image" onto women. As children we are told by our parents to accept ourselves the way we are, which makes sense. However when we turn around later in life all we see are images of models everywhere and commercials telling us how to loose 5 lbs in 5 minutes. It is confusing. In today's society it seems we can't look anywhere in the media or Internet age without being judged. And even if we ignore that we can be judged by other people in our community. Which leads to what is now called the "beauty bias" the idea that more attractive people get jobs over less attractive people. Research has show this to be true, especially now when beauty is so much harder to obtain.
     When researching the "beauty bias" I found an article written by professor Deborah Rhone argues that states should have laws that protect people from being discriminated against based on their appearance. "She discusses that it goes against the ideals of equal opportunity and is offensive to human dignity. More then anything people shouldn't be discriminated against for things they have little or no control over. However it still occurs frequently. If an employer is looking at resumes of potential workers, and believes that the person is unattractive then their resumes will get less consideration. At the same time though many people see attractive people as less trustworthy, smart and capable of doing the work but they are still hired more often. "(Beyerstein) The article continues but thats what I found the most interesting.
     Another article I found connected to the topic of how the idea and embodiment of sexiness has changed throughout the decades. It talks about the different ages and what the idea was then, to what it has become now. "Things like "full-figured" appearance, pale skin and "boyish" clothes were considered sexy at a time, when now we may think the opposite. It wasn't till later that things like make-up and tight and short clothes came into affect, and even then it was done very little. Now when people think of sexy what usually comes to mind are thin, tan women with big hair and make-up."(Khosla) There is more freedom but it seems that there is also more pressure to fit the mold.


article url: 1.http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6090/the_beauty_bias_at_work_and_what_should_be_done_about_it/
2. http://www.modelsandmoguls.net/articles/2010/03/30/the-perception-of-sexiness-through-the-years/