Preview

Going for the Look

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
538 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Going for the Look
Going for the Look
Times continue to change and today people tend to judge a person on how they look. Companies are becoming more competitive and are looking for ways to attract customers. More retailers and companies are using the approach to hire based on appearance rather than work capability. Hiring should be based on work ethic, rather than appearance which can be discriminating.
Companies all over the United States are denying people employment based on their physical appearance. In the United States people are told that everyone is given equal opportunity; which is untrue because there are people being denied employment due to how they are dressed, piercings or tattoos they have, and even weight.
It is not our choice to decide what we look like. We do not decide to be tall, short, have small or big eyes, or what skin we are. People should not base hiring on physical appearance. Most retailers are now looking to hire people that look like models, characteristics being tall, slim, pretty face, & young.
Retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch, whose approach is to have an attractive sales force. Being a customer of Abercrombie, I have not seen an employee at Abercrombie being overweight. There employees look like beach models walking around the store. According to Mr. Serrano a former manager assistant at Abercrombie employees are told to approach and offer a job to someone who fits their store look. If someone walked into their store and they have a pretty face; employees are supposed to approach them and offer them a job even if they don’t have any retail experience. I believe that is wrong because if an older lady with retail experience were to apply for a job at Abercrombie she wouldn’t be the one hired.
Statistics show that people who look better get paid more. More and more companies are using the approach to hire on appearance because they believe it attracts more customers. So many people are unemployed and looking for a job, yet retailers

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Going for the Look

    • 326 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Another argument Cohen brings up is that retailers hire based on looks because it is smart and necessary. In the article “Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination” by Steven Green gives a great example about Elizabeth Nill. She walks into Abercrombie stores and almost every time managers walk up to her and offer her a job. This proves that retailers hire only attractive people. This is discrimination because Abercrombie is only hiring white, attractive people. This leaves them vulnerable for criticism from the public.…

    • 326 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Going for the Look Article

    • 1977 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Hiring for looks is old news in some industries, as cocktail waitresses, strippers and previous generations of flight attendants know all too well. But many companies have taken that approach to sophisticated new heights in recent years, hiring workers to project an image.…

    • 1977 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    According to Rhode, the United States has made many laws in the past years to protect groups of people that are being discriminated based on sex, religion, race, or disability, yet there is no official law protecting employees that are being discriminated on their looks. Since there is no law that protects a person from this kind of discrimination, it is allowing corporations to discriminate an employment seeker, or a current employee based on his or her appearance. Rhode claims that companies discriminate people on their looks, because attractiveness is “job-related” and they want a person with an attractive appearance to represent their company. Deborah L. Rhode states that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and the fact that a boss has the power to say who is “attractive” or “unattractive” really gives employees a disadvantage in their job. This limits the person to show how good they can turn out to be in a certain job. Rhode insists that discrimination based on looks is just as bad as racial or gender discrimination, and there should be an official law that will protect employees being discriminated by their appearance.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Going for the Look

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Certain stores have a certain image that is shown by the employees and models representing it. Abercrombie and Fitch for example, has a Caucasian, preppy image. So to keep this image, Abercrombie prefers to hire preppy looking Caucasians. Tom Lennox, Abercrombie’s communications director says, “Brand representatives are ambassadors to the brand. We want to hire brand representatives that will represent the Abercrombie and Fitch brand with natural classic American style, look great while exhibiting individuality, project the brand and themselves with energy and enthusiasm, and make the store a…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    By judging someone only by their appearance you are not giving them the chance to show what they have to offer. When you judge someone off of their looks you could be missing out on the kindest and hardworking person you have ever met. Some people can’t afford to dress in nicer clothes and just have to work with what they have. Other people prefer to dress in what makes the either feel nice about themselves or comfortable. The way a person dress should not be a major factor when it comes to judging them because they are many aspects as to why they are dressed a certain way.…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Companies that regulate a worker 's appearance, from banning tattoos to mandating makeup, are facing a growing risk of lawsuits, most employment lawyers assert. Appearance based discrimination lawsuits are being filed more frequently, involving everything from eyebrow rings to sexy clothing, employment attorneys say. The corporate loose white shirt is in the past, more and more, people look different and are entering the work force, and the tensions between culture and policy are going to escalate (Johnston & Shafer, 2006). Another cultural shift that is taking place is where managers are struggling to control a younger generation of workers who are more culturally and racially diverse than before. Therefore, the younger generation is more resistant to rules regulating their personal appearance (Osterman, 2005). Attorneys note that in recent years there 's been a rash of image-based lawsuits, including: The state of Nevada has a female bartender who is challenging a recent court ruling that upheld a casino 's right to fire her for refusing to wear makeup (Osterman, 2005). In Massachusetts, a former employee is challenging a retail giant’s prohibition on facial jewelry (King, Winchester, & Sherwyn, 2006). Most recently, a jury ruled against a university librarian, who allegedly was denied promotions because she was too attractive and did not fit the image of a librarian. The university claimed she was told that she was considered to be just a pretty girl who wore sexy outfits, and that 's why she wasn 't getting promoted. The attorney for the librarian argued that this was a case where his client didn 't fit the stereotype of the librarian (King, Winchester, & Sherwyn, 2006). Another lawyer is representing a women in an ongoing sex discrimination case against an entertainment conglomerate over a "personal best" policy that required women to wear makeup, she was fired for refusing to comply. The…

    • 3281 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    For a long time women and men have had self image issues due to what society depicts is beautiful. If you don’t look like a certain kind of model or a certain actor/ actress then you are considered ugly. This has been going on for the longest time. Women are judged by the size of their waist, butt, thighs and how pretty their face looks. Men are judged as well. They are judged on how muscular or tall they are or if they are capable of being a Hollister model. People shouldn’t be judged on how they look.…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through my reading and interpretation of this essay, I’ve come to realize that there will always be discrimination because of how a person looks, acts, and presents themselves, but I don’t think there should be a reason for individuals to get so distraught over the issue. Although looks and physical appearance shouldn’t be something one person should judge another over, I firmly believe there are certain standards for particular situations, and we, as people, should come to understand that. When Rhode brought forward the issue with the waitress being denied a larger uniform due to health issues, I felt sorry for her, almost to the point of pity. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the casino, just like any other business, had a certain image to uphold, and they had a certain standard for the way their employees should look and portray themselves. And even though she had a legitimate reason why she gained some weight, the waitress signed a contract with the casino which required her to keep an “hourglass figure” (247).…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Marketing strategies have been taken farther than ever before. Companies are now making money by using their employees as walking billboards. In the article Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination, Steven Greenhouse discusses how this new technique could be a form of discrimination, and why industry analyst, like Marshall Cohen, think the strategy is necessary. The definition of discrimination is the showing of unjust favor, and by companies declining employment to those who do not fit their “image” definitely appears to be unjust. In the article Mr. Greenhouse gives countless examples of how hiring based off looks could be seen as discriminatory, which is why…

    • 891 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the society we all live in today, where outside beauty is emphasized more than inner beauty, businesses have realized how to utilize that view to their own benefit They have looked at trends and realized that it is profitable to hire those with outer beauty. However, since certain businesses are only hiring certain ethnicities in order to project that image, it has been questioned whether these businesses are discriminating. In the article, Going for the Look, but Risking Discrimination, it says that " hiring attractive people is not necessarily illegal, but discriminating on the basis of age, sex, and ethnicity is." The companies cannot help it that only certain types of people fit their marketing image and their hiring strategies are not exactly discrimination because they have nothing else against other people except that they aren 't selling material. Although it might be seen as discrimination in only hiring certain types of peoples, I agree with Cohen that it is a smart move to hire based on image because if is an effective marketing strategy.…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the story “Why Looks Are the Last Bastion of Discrimination” by Deborah L. Rhode there is not a difference in appearance discrimination for that which one can or cannot control. Rhode notes this by saying “Just like racial or gender discrimination, discrimination based on irrelevant physical characteristics reinforces invidious stereotypes and undermines equal opportunity principles based on merit and performance” (246). This type of discrimination puts limits on an individual’s freedom to expression (246). Freedom of expression is a right that is given to each and every citizen of the United States and would simply be denied if someone was not offered a job based on their certain personal appearance choices. Not everyone is the same and…

    • 149 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Going for the Look

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In conclusion, companies shouldn’t hire because of looks, they should hire for the experience of the person. Like Greenhouse argues that it is just a way of telling people know it is discrimination. I agree with him since this has been going for a long time, I think mostly everyone…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Appearance and presentation has involved itself in society too much. If certain people in society don't like an appearance or a first impression on specific people, then that person usually is not spoken to or acknowledged too often. It's because too many people in modern life don't look at the inside of a human being; they look at the outside. The outside of a…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After doing some more research, I realized that appearance discrimination is very common, especially in the workplace. In his paper, Akst stated that “plain people earn less than people of average looks, who earn less than the good-looking” (Akst 336). However, this seems to be a very subjective means of measurement, which makes his proof seem quite weak. In fact, the entire idea of measuring one’s attractiveness seems to be very abstract and opinion-based, which is why conducting more research from more sources may be…

    • 715 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Equal Pay Act Case Study

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Discrimination in the workplace doesn’t just affect those who are being discriminated, it also affects the employer/ business. Assuming that the employer wants to be as successful as possible, they will need to be efficient. In order to be efficient you need to have good and reliable employees. This is when it comes down to the hiring process and whether or not you hire based on looks or actual talent (equally). Just because you hire someone who is physically attractive, doesn’t mean they will be good workers and have beneficial effects on your business. Appearance doesn’t mean everything and that is why we have these laws such as Title VII and the Equal Pay Act to protect those who are actually talented, but may not have the right/ best looks to show for it. By overlooking the less desirable looking candidates, you could potentially be missing out on the businesses’ potential profits. That’s not to say though that people who are physically attractive aren’t valuable workers. If physical attractiveness is the only thing you look for, you have less likely of a chance of hiring someone who could be doing positive things for your business, and sooner or later these actions could come back to bite your business in the butt. (S. Friedricks,…

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays