Hot babes discriminated against by some employers
Can't get jobs in prison service, certain other sectors
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Trick-cyclists in the States have found that being a beautiful woman, while in general good news, is a disadvantage when trying to get certain types of jobs.
“In two studies, we found that attractiveness is beneficial for men and women applying for most jobs, in terms of ratings of employment suitability,” according to Colorado biz-psych prof Stefanie Johnson and her fellow experts. “However, attractiveness was more beneficial for women applying for feminine sex-typed jobs than masculine sex-typed jobs.”
Examples of "masculine-typed jobs" offered by the trick-cyclists included director of security, hardware salesperson, prison guard (presumably in a men's prison), tow truck driver, manager of research and development, director of finance, mechanical engineer and construction supervisor. Hot babes tend to be overlooked when people are hiring for this kind of position, an effect known to psy-profs as the "beauty is beastly" syndrome.
It seems, however, that among men beauty is never beastly. Should you have the good fortune to be a smouldering hunk of delectable manhood, you'll be on the inside track whether you want to be a oil-fire hellfighter or a hairdresser.
"In [perceived manly] professions being attractive was highly detrimental to women," said Johnson. "In every other kind of job, attractive women were preferred. This wasn't the case with men which shows that there is still a double standard when it comes to gender."
According to Johnson and her allied profs, there may occasionally be some sense in the prejudices shown by personnel managers with regard to the beauty or otherwise of those they hire for given tasks. There may be good business reasons for hiring hotties as receptionists or sales folk, for example.
"One could argue that, under certain conditions, physical appearance may be a legitimate basis for hiring," says Johnson, in a statement issued by her uni. "In jobs involving face-to-face client contact, more physically attractive applicants could conceivably perform better than those who are less attractive. However it is important that if physical attractiveness is weighed equally for men and women to avoid discrimination against women."
The argument here seems to be that beautiful men should be discriminated against just as foxy ladies are. That is, presumably they should be hired less often for certain classes of jobs. It was unclear, though, which jobs should mainly be the preserve of plug-ugly or otherwise unattractive blokes.
Certain obvious sectors do spring to mind, however. ®
COMMENTS
Especially when interviewed by a board
I saw this process first hand. Many years ago when I worked for an international (and very process driven) company they had teams of us interview candidates in groups - typically 6 employees would look after 30 or so candidates and during a day long selection process make recommendations for which ones should be blessed with an offer of employment.
On one particular recruitment day, an absolutely gorgeously stunning candidate turned up. While technical very capable, none of the men in the team (myself included) was prepared to put their hand up and say "yes, she qualifies for a job offer", although if all the candidates had been interviewed with paper bags over their heads, she would have made the cut with flying colours.
The obvious fear was criticism from the women in the team: "bah, you men, all you see is her .....". So given the choice between making an offer for someone who most of us would ever see again - as that vacancy was for only 1 of the teams and attracting criticism from the women interviewers who we had to work with every day, or not committing and preserving the peace, we all chickened out. The quandry was resolved by dragging in our boss-lady. She was briefed, went and had a conversation with the interviewee and thoroughly castigated us all for our immature and petty approach.
Prologue: Apparently an offer was made and duly declined. I guess the person in question realised that interviews are a two-way street and she didn't fancy working with a bunch of ugly, drooling neanderthals.
Bit of a non-story.
Anyway. I'm not sure about this. I'm pretty sure I remember a documentary about the goings-on in an all-female prison. The guards were pretty hot, and so were the inmates.
Actually, it may not have been a documentary now I think about it...
@AC
I have been informed many times that when it involves discrimination against women it is sexism. When it involves discrimination against men, it is "positive discrimination."
I still am too primitive to comprehend how any discrimination of any sort against anyone can possibly be positive.
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