For all the reminiscing over the “good old days,” some things do improve with time. We may never succeed in eradicating prejudice, but the past century saw the United States make tremendous strides toward eliminating racial and gender-based discrimination. Though still a work in progress, the effort to curb intolerance towards homosexuality has also gained serious legal and social traction.
More recently, though, some would lead the campaign for equality in a new direction. Next on their agenda of wrongs to right is the long-existing but newly discovered bias in favor of attractive people. In particular, they challenge the propriety of factoring looks into hiring decisions. For the sake of simplicity, let’s call this form of discrimination “sexyism.”
In the minds of activists, sexyism, like any other prejudice, arbitrarily assigns greater value to people based on extraneous qualities. It debases and dehumanizes, objectifies and commoditizes. Because perceptions of physical beauty arise from cultural norms, sexyism can act as a proxy for other, more pernicious forms of discrimination, like racism or xenophobia. Sexyism also reinforces wealth disparities, since the poor usually subsist on inferior diets and can’t afford expensive dental work or gym memberships. And, since most employers are still men, sexyism is more likely to impact women than men.
Yet despite all this, I still believe sexyism to be acceptable. Certainly, there are major hurdles to legal enforcement—how, for example, do you determine whether an employer’s hiring practices produce a disparate impact on ugly people? Even assuming effective enforcement, though, sexyism is a justifiable bias, one that pays dividends to both individual businesses and society at large.
(I should note, in the interests of fairness, that as an attractive person, I benefit from sexyism myself. Nonetheless, I believe it to be objectively justified.)
Employment discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and sexuality is unjust for two reasons. First, these characteristics are uncontrollable and arbitrary; no one “chooses” to be black, or female, or gay (I’m avoiding the rare cases for now). Second, these traits, taken on their own, are irrelevant to job performance. Women accountants can account as well as their male counterparts; gay plumbers plumb as well as straight ones. To hold against a person a characteristic that is both immaterial and unchangeable simply doesn’t comport with common sense norms of fairness.
Notably, employment discrimination is permissible if only one of these factors is present. It may be beyond a worker’s control that he was born without arms, but an employer should be under no obligation to hire him as a typist. Wearing a green hat to work may make no impact on profits (it may even diminish them), but it is an employer’s prerogative to demand it of her workers. Beauty, however, is neither predetermined nor irrelevant.
First of all, physical attractiveness includes not only fixed factors, but malleable ones as well. In this respect, beauty resembles intellect. It involves an obvious genetic component—some people are just “born” attractive. But just as ambition and education can improve the mind, personal effort and prudent choices can enhance appearance.
But more importantly, beauty can contribute directly to both work quality and consumer preferences. Businesses spend countless dollars every year designing floor space, purchasing furniture, and perfecting decor in attempts to “beautify” the work environment. A pleasant work atmosphere improves employee morale and focus, while a properly decorated store attracts customers and signals a certain style (or lack thereof). In fact, the prominence of workspace beautification suggests it plays an important role in the success of a business; otherwise, we would expect the market to correct for such profligate expenditures.
Nothing suggests that human beauty cannot provide a similar effect. Talented and hard-working applicants may be drawn to a business environment where they will be surrounded by beautiful people. Corpulent coworkers exuding foul stenches, on the other hand, may diminish employee cohesion. An obese mouth-breather may not provide the “chic” Hollister is looking for, just as emaciated glitteratae may prove unconvincing purveyors of chili dogs.
Finally, it’s worth noting that people respond to incentives. Tax something, and you’ll get less of it; subsidize it, and you’ll get more of it. Insofar as physical appearance translates into better job prospects, we encourage people to improve their looks, thereby yielding positive externalities for the whole of society. In fact, given that a pleasant physique usually corresponds to a healthy lifestyle, the benefits extend beyond shallow appearances.
I sometimes wonder whether the frontiers of civil rights are ever expanding, or whether there is some limit to our zeal for equality. Whatever the answer to that question, resistance to sexyism is unwarranted.