"It hurts to be beautiful" has been a cliche for centuries. What
has been far less appreciated is how much it hurts not to be
beautiful. The Beauty Bias explores our cultural preoccupation with
attractiveness, the costs it imposes, and the responses it demands.
Beauty may be only skin deep, but the damages associated with its
absence go much deeper. Unattractive individuals are less likely to
be hired and promoted, and are assumed less likely to have
desirable traits, such as goodness, kindness, and honesty. Three
quarters of women consider appearance important to their self image
and over a third rank it as the most important factor.
Although appearance can be a significant source of pleasure, its
price can also be excessive, not only in time and money, but also
in physical and psychological health. Our annual global investment
in appearance totals close to $200 billion. Many individuals
experience stigma, discrimination, and related difficulties, such
as eating disorders, depression, and risky dieting and cosmetic
procedures. Women bear a vastly disproportionate share of these
costs, in part because they face standards more exacting than those
for men, and pay greater penalties for falling short.
The Beauty Bias explores the social, biological, market, and media
forces that have contributed to appearance-related problems, as
well as feminism's difficulties in confronting them. The book also
reviews why it matters. Appearance-related bias infringes
fundamental rights, compromises merit principles, reinforces
debilitating stereotypes, and compounds the disadvantages of race,
class, and gender. Yet only one state and a half dozen localities
explicitly prohibit such discrimination. The Beauty Bias provides
the first systematic survey of how appearance laws work in
practice, and a compelling argument for extending their reach. The
book offers case histories of invidious discrimination and a
plausible legal and political strategy for addressing them. Our
prejudices run deep, but we can do far more to promote realistic
and healthy images of attractiveness, and to reduce the price of
their pursuit.
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