Appearance Discrimination

If you thought liberals whine too much about racism and sexism and think concepts such as ableism, ageism, and sizeism are ludicrous, take a look at what is soon to be the new liberal -ism: lookism.

This article, written by career feminist Lindsay Beyerstein, is over a month old and was written shortly after the Deborahlee Lorenzana story came to light, but it is nonetheless an important look into the worldview of liberal women.

In her provocative new book,The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Law and Life, Stanford law professor Deborah Rhode argues that workers deserve legal protection against appearance-based discrimination unless their looks are directly relevant to their job performance. [...]

Considering that leftists rant about racism, sexism, heteronormativity, cisgendierism, ableism, classism, ageism, and sizism I am not surprised that some feminist law professor wants to ban "lookism."  In case anyone's curious, this is what the anti-lookist professor looks like.

It should go without saying that discrimination on the basis of appearance is unjust, especially when it comes to features individuals have little or no control over.

Actually, it should not go without saying. Only a liberal woman could write such an ignorant statement. Does she realize that, barring an odd fetish, even the most feminized, beta, herb liberal mangina still would have a much more positive reaction to a 9 model than he would an obese 2?  If discriminating on the basis of appearance is unjust, then as physical appearances tend to be very important to men when selecting a mate, most men are unjust.

She is incorrect when she claims that people have little or no control over their appearances. They can become fat if they are sedentary and eat too much. They can stay fit if they exercise and eat right. They can become muscular if they lift weights (among other things).


Aside from exercising, there are plenty of ways to change your appearance. Buying new clothing can enhance your appearance. Hair dye gives you a new hair color.  Make-up improves womens' faces (and mens' in some cultures). Fair women can tan. Dark women can use skin lightener.

Prior to feminism's triumph, women did a lot of things to improve their appearances. They took care of themselves; they wore make-up when going out; they wore skirts, dresses, and jackets; they wore feminine hats; they wore stockings; etc. It's only up until recently in Western history that women have taken to not caring about their appearances.

Also, it doesn't take that much work to avoid becoming obese. I'm a computer nerd, a member of a group not known for physical prowess, yet I exercise daily. It really is not very hard.

Rhode does a good job of spelling out why such bias is offensive to human dignity and equal opportunity. [...]

Equal opportunity sounds nice on paper, but in reality it doesn't work. Everyone is not equal. Some people are stronger, smarter, faster, smaller, larger, more dominant, or more attractive than others. No amount of liberal social engineering and legislation can change this.

The increasing prevalence of obesity in America has done nothing to curb virulent prejudice against fat people. Ironically, immobilizing obesity is protected as a disability, but discrimination based purely on cosmetic aversion to fat is totally legal.

It is perfectly legal because most people, even liberal manginas, think women who look like they could wrestle a bear and win are disgusting.

In one study, 43 percent of overweight women reported feeling stigmatized by their employers.

As they should be. If the remaining stigmas against fat were destroyed, most women in America would probably become lard buckets.  Most men would too, for that matter.

Obese women earn 12 percent less than their thinner counterparts with comparable qualifications. Obese women are more likely to live in poverty, even after controlling for other factors.

So, why shouldn't women who take care of themselves be rewarded? Obesity is largely a result of lack of self control and absence of willpower. People with no self-control are more likely to waste their money, so it is obvious that they will be more likely to end up in poverty.

Her most egregious assault on reality comes with this statement:

Rhode notes that beauty bias also exacerbates and perpetuates other kinds of discrimination. Female workers are held to more elaborate grooming standards than their male counterparts. [...]

What universe is she living in? At every level, men are held to higher grooming standards than women. Many lower-class retail/service jobs prohibit men from having long hair, whereas I've never heard of any employer prohibiting short, dykish haircuts on women.

Workplace appearance standards in general are stricter regarding men than women. Ties are often required in service industry jobs, yet they are not for women (this is not considered discrimination by the government, although it's a guarantee that the reverse would be).  Many workplaces specify attire for men, but allow women to basically wear anything except jeans.  In workplaces requring professional dress, the men will be covered from the neck down with jackets, ties, slacks, button-down shirts, close-toed shoes, and socks, while women can get away with wearing sleeveless shirts, garments that are essentially T-shirts, no jackets, skirts with bare legs, and sandals.

There's a lot of overlap between appearance discrimination and racism. Some have speculated that coworkers perceived Lorenzana in a more sexualized way because she's Latina. Stereotypically Anglo-European features like smooth hair, slim hips, and pert noses loom large in our prevailing beauty ideals.

Is there anything liberals dislike that is not racist?  And what is "Anglo-European"? I've never heard that word before. Is that a term referring to English people residing on the Continent?

There's a class component in beauty bias, too. A gleaming smile engineered by an orthodontist is a badge of membership in the middle class. As we all know, poverty increases the risk of obesity.

So not only is appearance discrimination racist, but it's classist, too!  It's like a discrimination doubleheader.

Also, poverty doesn't increase the risk of obesity.  Ultimately, low IQ causes both since people with low IQs are likely to have low time preferences and poor decision-making skills.  Not that I'd expect a liberal feminist to acknowledge that.

Rhode acknowledges that the law can only do so much to mitigate the effects of such deep-seated prejudices, but she argues that the enormity of the problem is no excuse for inaction. Sexism, racism and homophobia are certainly ingrained, but that doesn't mean that the law is powerless against them. As segregationists said in the era of Brown, you can't legally force people not to be bigots. On the other hand, when you discourage people from acting like bigots, tolerance can become a habit.

So because the War Against Racism has gone very well, we should extend it to battling the evils of appearance discrimination.  Fifty years ago, blacks and whites went to separate schools, lived in separate neighborhoods, and worshiped at separate churches.  Today, it's the same, if not worse since in the 1950s most blacks weren't born to single women.  A War Against Appearance Discrimination would be even more ineffective, since it would be difficult to prevent someone from having a visceral reaction upon seeing a bloated, obsese colossus or a woman who got smacked with an ugly stick.


Most people with racist views like myself are not biologically hardwired to view blacks as prone to crime or to view Asians as excelling in school (remember, even positive stereotypes are bad!).  These views come from statistical evidence and personal experience.  However, as Beyerstein notes in her article, even infants have a more positive reaction to people with attractive faces.  Appearance discrimination is part of our biology.

Even after a couple decades of brainwashing schoolchildren with "body acceptance" propaganda, it still exists.  Feminists will be unable to eradicate it from our society, no matter how much they try.  All they will do is attack another aspect of freedom of association and thrust upon us another destructive bureaucracy.


In modern America, it is unacceptable to hold women to any form of standards related to sexuality, including appearance.  Combined with the elite's veneration of equality no matter how absurd and laws against appearance discrimination are the natural consequence.

However, I think there's a more personal motive in Beyerstein's article on appearance discrimination.  She's the blond in the picture below.

Dress Codes for Women are a Joke

Ever since "business casual" became popular in the 1990s, work dress codes have essentially become male-only. Women's only restrictions could be summed as "no bare breasts, midriff, or groin."

Take Disney for example. For years Disney's dress code for its employees was described as "conservative," which in the gynocentric, feminized liberal media means "women are expected to dress like they are not at work, not a nightclub." A few days ago, Disney apparently decided that they were wrong to hold women to any standards in appearance:

Disney theme parks' dress coder relaxed
Female employees don't have to wear pantyhose with skirts anymore, unless the leg wear is part of a costume.
By Hugo Martín and Jason Garcia
June 16, 2010
Reporting from Los Angeles and Orlando, Fla. —

Chalk one up for women who work at Disney theme parks: They don't have to wear pantyhose anymore.

In the biggest change to the company's appearance code in a decade, the Walt Disney Co. has decided to let most female employees at Disney theme parks worldwide, including the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, forgo pantyhose when wearing skirts.

Although it may seem a trivial change in any other business, the relaxing of dress codes at Disneyland is a significant move considering that founder Walt Disney was adamant about making sure all employees maintained a well-groomed, all-American look.

"That clean-cut look never went out of style as far as Walt Disney was concerned," said David Koenig, the author of four books on Disneyland and a regular writer for http://www.mouseplanet.com, a website about the Disney parks.

Koenig recounts a time in the 1970s when some Disneyland managers brandished rulers to ensure that employees' sideburns and hair length met strict grooming standards.

But since then, the company has regularly revisited and relaxed its appearance and dress codes. The last major change to the policy came in 2000 when the company let male employees wear mustaches. Disney tweaked its guidelines again a few years later by allowing male employees to style their hair in cornrows.

Disney officials said the latest change, announced companywide May 28, was prompted by a routine review of company guidelines and a comparison with the dress codes of other Fortune 500 corporations.

"We continuously evaluate our appearances," Disneyland spokeswoman Betsy Sanchez said. "We are trying to stay relevant."

The decision to permit female employees to forgo pantyhose applies to most Disney employees, except where the leg wear is part of a particular costume, such as the outfit for characters such as Tinker Bell or Alice from Alice in Wonderland.

Among the 20,000 or so employees at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, the changes will apply mostly to staff who work in offices or behind the scenes at the park.

Among other changes to the code, women will for the first time be permitted to wear sleeveless tops — though in typically restrictive Disney fashion, only if the shoulder straps are at least 3 inches wide. Female employees also will be allowed to wear Capri pants and sling-back shoes that also have open toes.

Men, meanwhile, will now be allowed to wear untucked, casual shirts.

This "dress code" like most modern American dress codes for working women is a joke. Note that under Disney's new dress code women can wear sleeveless shirts, capris, skirts with bare legs, and sandals. They can basically wear whatever they want (except shorts, it would appear). That's not professional looking - that's casual. And keep in mind that this is the dress code at a "conservative" company. But of course, "conservative" means "what was liberal ten or fifteen years ago."

Men, in contrast, are now finally allowed to wear untucked shirts, although women were probably doing that at Disney for years before. But even with untucked (presumably collared) shirts, men will still be wearing slacks, socks, and dress shoes, which look a lot more professional than what the women will be wearing.

The headline writer made a big deal over the fact that women don't have to wear nylons anymore (Disney was probably one of the few places left to require women to wear them after bare legs became ubiquitous throughout the 2000s). Nylons make women look professional and polished, improving their image. Of course, American women stopped caring about their appearances long ago, except to make themselves look sluttier, so it's understandable why they are happy about not having to wear them anymore.

Don't mistake me for a prude. I have no problem with women wearing revealing clothing in general and I'm probably less prudish than most Americans in some ways. For example I wouldn't have a problem with women going topless on American beaches as many do in Europe. But I think that there is a time and place for such clothing. Work is not one of them. If men are capable of dressing professionally, then women should be to.

It really shouldn't be surprising that so many companies have nonexistent dress codes for women. HR departments are run by women, like the spokeswoman quoted, who are to busy "trying to stay relevant" with the latest Sex and the City styles than to hold women to any sort of professional appearance standards. That just wouldn't be fashionable. And corporate men are probably too afraid to hold women to any sort of appearance standards, for various reasons.

Professional jobs are becoming more and more feminized as America reverts to a 21st century female farming system matriarchy. Combine this with the fact that young American women have sluttiness ingrained into them from the time they are kids and it's easy to see why corporations don't (or are unable to) hold women to appearance and dress standards anymore.

Flip-Flops and Young Women's Inability to Dress Nicely

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I attended a graduation at a large university last Sunday. Aside from the male women's study major, another thing that surprised me was how many female graduates were wearing flip-flops with their cap and gown.

I'm accustomed to seeing people, especially women, dressing shoddily to events that only a decade ago required a certain formality in dress, but it's pretty ridiculous that women are wearing Asian peasant footwear to such events. Even after a decade of business casual, men (including young men) are still capable of dressing somewhat nicely when the situation requires - I saw plenty of male graduates in ties and most were wearing at least button-down shirts, slacks, and dress shoes - yet young women do not seem to be capable of doing so.

I guess that there are two reasons behind this: the first is the "decline of the matriarch" that Welmer of The Spearhead has written about. The second is that in this era of pussywhipped men, feminism, "strong and independent women," and sexual harassment laws, men are afraid of criticizing women's appearances - including how they dress for events that should require formality from them - for fear of being attacked by a feminist harpy mob.

Sword and Sandal at the White House

This is the dress that Michelle Obama wore to a yesterday's state dinner with Felipe Calderon. Larry Auster wrote about it here - be sure to read all of the comments, they are amusing.

From the dress' "fabric" (I put fabric in quotes because it looks like it's made out of plastic), the single strap (the dress probably would have looked less ugly with no straps), its sword and sandal B-movie look, and her black ghetto bitch scowl, to the fact that her cleavage appears to start at her collarbone, her entire appearance is repulsive.

I don't have a problem with women wearing cleavage-revealing dresses to formal events. Women have been wearing cleavage- or bosom-baring dresses for centuries, but in the past, they looked nice while doing so. Modern American women seem to be incapable of making such a dress look elegant, a word which few American women seem to know the meaning of. Younger women end up looking like sluts and middle-aged women end up looking ridiculous. Michelle Obama looks like the Nubian Queen in a direct-to-DVD sequel to Clash of the Titans.

Since the elite loves Michelle Obama, more women will probably attempt to copy her "fashion."