Hear/Say

We Uglies are at it again.

Never smile at me, Chamillionaire

Was reading through a collection of articles crying about how dumb Sarah Palin was/is/continues to be, on theweek.com when several ridiculous headlines caught my eye, the most ridiculous one titled “America’s Bigoted Love for Beauty”. This is an article on another article, titled “Why Looks are the Last Bastion of Discrimination” in the Washington Post. What a waste of space, right? Because by dramatically stating looks as the last bastion, it seems like the journalist fails to acknowledge that racism and sexism still exist. And they’re obviously not using “looks” as a reference to ethnic minorities say, under current Arizonian BS.

So who cares? There are tons of ugly beautiful beautiful uglies, and we still have to carry on with life– plastic surgery seems to be worsening physical appeal, in my opinion, but other then that drastic and unnecessary measure to temporarily reign in our insecurities, people carry on and grow more beautiful once they work with what they have.

 Just like racial or gender discrimination, discrimination based on irrelevant physical characteristics reinforces invidious stereotypes and undermines equal-opportunity principles based on merit and performance. And when grooming choices come into play, such bias can also restrict personal freedom.

So complain about it. People don’t like the way we look: how will any public policy on making people feel more equally attracted to uglies as well as beauties?

Appearance-related bias also exacerbates disadvantages based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and class. Prevailing beauty standards penalize people who lack the time and money to invest in their appearance. And weight discrimination, in particular, imposes special costs on people who live in communities with shortages of healthy food options and exercise facilities.

The article tries to be relevant by mentioning heavier political implications– gender/race/ethnicity/age– and I’m not saying we should try to avoid these discriminations (c’mon y’all, everyone has a heart, even the ones with too much blush and orange skin), but it’s just like arguments about stereotypes. They can be revealing, and they’re consistently there because there is a root of cultural or social truth.

If I were to consider between an overweight job candidate and a physically fit one, I would probably choose the physically fit: an obese person might need to reprioritize their health standards and I wouldn’t want to pay for their insurance against heart disease, heart attacks, or any other bodily harm they’re more susceptible to. It’s not even as if I think they’re lazy, but tremendously overweight people will have more difficulty in physical movement and energy endurance. Obviously, some are more genetically proned to gain more weight at a faster rate, and I don’t ignore this: but there it is again: life isn’t fair. Some people have to work harder at one thing in life and maybe not so much in another: you can’t win them all.

The Washington Post article is also contextually contradicting: while they bring up the issue of discrimination based on appearance, the businesses they solicit for responses are usually services reliant on selling beauty:

Employers often argue that attractiveness is job-related; their workers’ appearance, they say, can affect the company’s image and its profitability. In this way, the Borgata blamed its weight limits on market demands. Customers, according to a spokesperson, like being served by an attractive waitress. The same assumption presumably motivated the L’Oreal executive who was sued for sex discrimination in 2003 after allegedly ordering a store manager to fire a salesperson who was not “hot” enough.

How do they completely miss this? There is an entire industry on beauty products and luxury designer clothing they can attack because of the shallow and frivolous values they advertise, but instead they blame employers on choosing candidates that are more attractive to them. It’s not really something you can argue; of course someone will choose to associate with someone they feel more attracted to– platonically or otherwise.

In any case, the articles/topic will fail to promote any action by us Uglies. Just by relating to the article, we implicate our own lack of beauty, and confirm the beastly ugliness that supposedly might keep us unemployed.

FAIL, press.Fail.

Graceee