The Beauty Bias

by Deborah L. Rhode

Book Overview

"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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195372875
• ISBN13: 9780195372878
• Release Date: May 2010
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Well argued brief for the not-quite-perfect

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.

Brilliant book

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.