Some people still hire based on looks.

[AkiT]

That people are still allowed to get away with this stuff in this day and age.

"I saw this article in the Press of Atlantic City, and it provoked strong feelings with me. As a woman who works in a stereotypical "male industry", I believe people should be hired and promoted based on their performance, not looks. I also think being healthy is important (not too thin, and not too heavy)...." this woman said.

Really? Some still think different.

http://new-jersey-small-state-big-attitude.tressugar.com/New-Jersey-Borgata-Babes-settle-supersize-suit-1832538

 

[BoD]

http://www.askmen.com/galleries/babes-of-borgata-calender/picture-1.html


Examples of this disgraceful exploitation ..

Smurf

 

[perkins97]

Psychologists and Sociologists have done numerous studies and all concluded a handful of things that people generally acknowledge to be true, but rarely openly admit. One of them is that life is easier for the beautiful people in the world. One study I read about that made me laugh was that a group of psych students were asked to grade some essays written by 'college students', who were in fact not the authors. The papers were broken into a group that were considered A quality, and F quality. The 'authors' were divided into beautiful, and ugly. The psych students graded the beautiful authors with the A papers the highest, then the beautiful people with F papers next highest, and the ugly people had basically the same grade regardless.

Sad as it is, yes, we do infact think more about looks then quality. There is also this thing called 'stereotype threat' that plays big into this as well.

 

[SaraConners]

It is never going to change. My ex-wife used to work for a orthopaedic manufacturing company and their sales force looked like robots. When they would come into town for meetings the women were all 5'8", blonde, size 6-8, blue or green eyes. The guys were all like 6', black hair, full head of hair, and the sales force was all between 25-35 years old. It really was amazing. When the guys would start losing their hair, boom, transferred into inside sales....The men would target the office women, the ladies would target the old creepy docs.....But it happens in all fields, looks can trump knowledge almost anytime...

 

[Ceecee]

We had this guy as a supervisor on a job site once he looked very GQ and well suited in dockers and a nice dress shirt.He had trouble finding his car in the parking lot. But he could sit in the conference room with the big bosses and make a great impression for the company.

 

[k12955]

The labs I used to work in wanted pictures of people at work for the website and brochures and stuff. They decided to get in models to don the white lab coats and point at computer screens and hold pipettes... Errrrrm... It was a frickin' lab not America's Next Top Scientist Model!!!

 

[DemonicW]

I think when it's a job where looks are important then there's nothing wrong with it. Nobody would bat an eyelid if a model accused someone of hiring them for their looks. When it comes to a place like this where they're obviously trying to convey a certain image to people then I don't see the issue.

The blogger in the original post does briefly mention that men have almost the exact same restrictions as the women in the exact same job. Only the men don't bloody whine about their supposed thyroid gland problem. I'm sorry, call me cynical, but I've heard too many fat people blame it on their glands rather than their lifestyle. My coach routinely says he has a problem with his glands - he has a gland that makes him a lazy greedy A-hole. His words, not mine.

As for "the natural changes a woman goes through as they get older", do they mean MIDDLE AGE SPREAD? sounds like it. Nah frankly this looks to me like 2 woman with a serious case of sour grapes after being told they're too fat then fired. I'll bet my wang that they got paid a monstrous sum for workign there - it's a goddamn high class casino. They don't get paid much higher rates than other waitresses for nothing.

I don't deny however that issues like the male bosses insisting on boob jobs etc. probably exist, or that its completely messed up. That, however is a separate issue from the one raised by the OP.

 

[larryvr88]

Does Hooters still exist? There used to be one in Nottingham but I never had the chance to, erm, sample their extensive menu. How do Hooters get away with it? They're a down market eaterie rather than a high class casino...

 

[icewitch54]

You need to be a whole other kind of desperate to go to a hooters bar for your kicks. There's a mountain of porn on the internet, its free and you dont have to get up. Win win really.


For once MB I completely agree with you. I don't understand this stuff much so I can't tell if gaining 7% of your bodyweight makes you a whale, but their cocktail waitresses your supposed to parade in a short skirt, wiggle your breasts, and generally be everything your parents brought you up not to be. They don't want big people and thats just common sense. If they were told they couldn't do something like a stock room at primark because they were big then well thats a problem but this is, as you say, just too women being pissy because they didn't want to keep healthy. Also like you said the same restrictions apply to men so its not sexism at all.

Slightly OT but I train in a gym and got chatting to a couple of personal trainers and both of them said one of the most annyoying thing about the job is listening to all these overweight people complain about their lives but then don't really want to exercise or fix their diet. Its really quite annoying.

 

[ILikeToast]

Too much equality is not a bad thing - a job that involves heavy lifting shouldn't be forced to hire weaklings because it is discrimination not to, a job that requires intelligence shouldn't be filled by idiots.

However there's a world of difference between selecting people with the necessary, ahem, qualifications for the job and forcing them into surgery to remain. I also can't find any reason to support the weight gain rule - I could understand a rule that suggests the staff are expected to be healthy and maintain their appearance, but forbidding weight gain (which may be healthy for some of the staff) is a different matter.

I did find it interesting that similar rules apply to the men, which is why I find it hard to argue. If the rules were just applied to the female staff then I'd want to see the casino taken for all it was worth.



Actually, that'd be pretty good.

 

[BonquishaJenkins]

I see no problem with assuming that attractive people are better at my job. Besides, it's really just the ugly people kicking up a fuss about this again.

 

[chrisbowe82]

As I said at the end of my post, I agree that pressure for surgery is wrong. However, the women themselves never actually said that they were TOLD to get surgery. But that the men suggested it. Now whether this is true or not I can't obviously say, but if it is then it's still wrong just for the pressure aspect of it. However it's not quite the same accusation as being TOLD by your boss to get surgery.

Well, 7% weight gain isn't a lot for bigger people or for guys. I, at a relatively small 74kg (I'm pretty out of shape just now - not trained in 2 months since I moved to Germany), could gain 7kg and most people would see a definate difference in my physique. For someone at 100kg, the extra 10 wouldn't make such a visual difference. So, for a 50kg girl to gai nan extra 5kg, it will make a visual difference. However, as you say, theres different types of weight gain but the blogger and the reporter she refers to never actually make a statment saying that the casino doesn't differentiate. If the average 50 - 55kg bar maid starts thai boxing for instance, you'll see an increase in muscle mass in mainly the shoulders, the thighs and the calves. Now, by and large, this wont make such a huge visual difference and what difference it DOES make is usally seen as positive. I doubt the casino would give someone a warning for that but I just don't know. HOWEVER, if the same girl were to gain 5kg in fat, then that's a whole different kind of visual change and in fact, a lot more noticable. The average woman who gains 5kg of fat will usually gain it on her upper thighs, bum/waist and belly. Now for a workplace that requires it's staff to maintain a certain level of appearance I can understand why this might concern them.

 

[LucyLoo]

I ate in Hooters a few times when I was in the states, the waitresses are friendly and the food was pretty good and quite cheap. There were Hooters all over the place in the area I was in, as well as other places that were similar.

I don't think it would work so well in the UK though, I dunno why.


I do think one thing that is often overlooked in the looks debate is the confidence factor. Good looking people do tend to be more confident, not always but often, and I do think confidence is a massive factor in interviews. I'm not particulally good looking, but I am confident and I tend to do pretty well in interviews. I guess it might be different for women though, but I do think confidence plays a huge part.

 

[riovida88]

Cheers


Yo can judge a girls confidence by their cleavage

 

[Cheeseball]

I went to the Hooters bar in Nottingham YEARS ago (10+).
The waitress skipped for us. I cringe to think about it now.
Not sure if it's still there these days.

 

[BeD]

I prefer the pretty but insecure ones - much easier for an uggo like me to get phone numbers from.

 

[daftks]

Girl's like that are rare as hen's teeth but you're quite right

 

[EarlTerdstone]

I'd agree with that and add to it. We all try to make a good impression in an interview and often (not always) 'good looking' people are the result of a lot of effort on their part to be presentable. This is more than just iron your shirt and comb your hair, this is lots of time invested trying products, styles and colours that match. Most of us can scrub up well if we put the effort in but most of us don't invest the time day to day. However you view it personally this quality often translates to more attention to detail in general. Confidence is a huge factor, plus how other people treat attractive people preferentially offers an advantage. I know how I react to a pretty girl asking for a favour or a little leeway is very different to how I treat another guy and I'm definitely not on my own there! Sadly it's far more complex an issue than just insisting that no discrimination based on looks occurs because on a very basic level we all do this and often with good reason.

 

[Melandi]

WELL SAID! I have interviewed a great deal. I tend to look for exactly the type of attention to personal detail you spoke of. How can I trust someone to take their job seriously when they don't take themselves seriously enough to present themselves at their very best? If you can't put the work in there then, to me, that speaks of a lack of concern. If you aren't concerned about your appearance during an interview, how will you be concerned about the mundane, tedious parts of your job in 6 months?

I generally cut my hair a few days before an interview if possible, as I like to let it "settle". I have my suit and shirt cleaned and pressed. I tweeze my eyebrows, shave the hair on my hands and arms, shave my face until its perfect, clean up the back of my neck so my hair line is even and neat, I polish my wedding ring, apply cologne and take every precaution against bad breath possible. When I walk into that interview I'm at my absolute best and that makes me confident. I have never NOT gotten a job that I really wanted.

But more than that, I've seen beautiful people blow an interview because they simply lacked the ability to relax and have a conversation. An interview is not an inquisition, its an opportunity for a potential employer to get to know you. The fact that you're at the interview means they saw something in you they found interesting and either need more clarification or simply need validation that you're the one they want. I have never had an interview last LESS than an hour. By the time I'm through Im speaking about the job as if I already have it and this is just a meeting to discuss my projects. Its the assumptive close in carnate. Usually by the time I leave we're laughing, shaking hands and leaving as friends. We spend more time talking about other things than the actual job itself, lol...

People want to hire someone that will bolster their team. If you can bring the right personality to the table, make the interviewer comfortable with you, you'll stand a much better chance of getting the job regardless of looks - unless you're so malformed and hideous they can't look directly at you without turning some of the lights off.

If the scales were so skewed toward the beautiful people then why are the so many "unbeautiful" people in the corporate world today? The issue delves deeper than just looks I think...

 

[meridithg]

See, I've always approached them with the philosophy that yes, of course don't go in looking scruffy as hell, but if they're going to hire me mainly because of my appearance, I don't want to work there. I want them to listen to what I have to say.

However, I admit now this is different for me as I'm confident and a people person and can usually make a connection pretty easily. And of course I'm not that old in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure when I go for an academic interview, I'll put a shirt on at least