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The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law

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The Beauty Bias is a powerful attack on what the author, with some justification, considers a superficial society that values appearance, especially in women, over almost everything else. Most of us who have taken Psych 101 have heard of the halo effect, the tendency to consider attractive people smarter and kinder than less attractive people. Although she doesn't use that term, Professor Rhode shows how much harm it is causing people. My favorite example of absurdity (and sexism)was that of Sarah Palin's campaign, who spent more on her makeup expert than on her foreign policy consultant.

No free market absolutist, Rhode argues persuasively that businesses should not have the right to discriminate against someone because of their appearance. She makes a case that people discriminated against because of appearance have every much as legal and moral right to sue in court as did the civil rights movement or any other cause. The Beauty Bias is an important, well-reasoned book that should be read by anyone concerned about these issues.

The book puts alot into perspetive and makes you think about "beauty" in a different context. The legal angle was a new one for me and I really enjoyed the writing.

This book is breathtakingly innovative and powerfully written. It is about using law to help remedy appearance-based discrimination--a type of discrimination that is epidemic but never addressed.

I read through a lot of this book a few weeks back at a bookstore because the topic is so often in the news, and I thought it might give some more considered insight. The irony is that though the topic is constantly in the news it always appears with the concomitant idea that somehow it is a big revelation of an ignored truth, even though it is constant surveyed in society. The book does give interesting information on the legal angle and in that it has some depth. But in terms of contextualizing it in terms of history it seems to function with similar pat assumptions as TV. (The emphasis on women and their shoes sort of says it all.) I can't bring myself to rehearse the supposed truisms about this matter which everyone knows supposedly and everyone agrees with. What I will point out is that the very evolutionary theory that these assumptions are based on has a collateral aspect in history that gets lost in these discussions. Namely that people try to maximize an advantage they might have. In a culture that is obsessed with looks to some extent, the reverse psychology of looks is also an advantage. Making this exact point, apparently without knowing it was some guy on the Dr. Phil show talking about this very matter. He opined to the host that clearly he must have gotten his show because he was not good looking. the whole mode of analysis is so forced and tendentious that it almost defies analysis. If people are going to goose up evolutionary theory to account for complex decisions, then at least be sure to see them working in all sorts of reverse ways. What this means is that at any point of history there are likely just as many people who think beauty means brains as there are people who are ideologically sure that beauty means stupidity. As a culture we seem to have utterly given up on the grandmotherly wisdom that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Now we need evolutionary theories and legal details to make the same point. I would extend grandma's point about books and covers to say, only idiots judge a book without looking at its bibliography. History teaches that it is our sources that define us.

I read your book ' The Beauty Bias'. and I wanted to tell you that I have been a victim of that my entire working life. I have been stuck in working in the back of stores in the cafe or deli only to be told that I wasn't pretty enough to work as a cashier despite my skills. Even after getting my LPN, it was difficult ( it didn't help being fat) but when I did get a job I was constantly badgered about my hair, makeup and how my uniform looked. Now that I have lost 125 pounds I am still completely freaked out as I continue in RN school b/c I will be 48 years old when I graduate and I have to make certain that I am at my normal weight and that my hair has NO traces of grey, but if its going to be btw me and a 22 yo new RN graduate, who are they going to hire? Probably not me!