Culture Watch
Page Two
The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law
by Deborah Rhode
Published by Oxford University Press, ©2010, hardbound, 272 pages
I’ve never forgotten the 1980s ad featuring model and actress Kelly LeBroc staring into the camera and uttering the words: “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Some viewers may have dismissed the ad as another silly ploy to get us to buy shampoo, which of course it was, and now it is just YouTube fodder, but it pointed to a much bigger problem than bad hair. It brought up the jealousy that can be created over great hair. In The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law, Deborah Rhode sheds light on the way that beauty works for and against mostly women in society. In my own research on women in politics and broadcasting, I’ve found dozens of similar examples from Deborah Norville to Jennifer Granholm. I’ve been thinking about them over the years and this book helped me think more deeply about the implications of beauty in society.
The book begins with Rhode’s own love-hate relationship with her appearance and whether or not investing too much in it would help or hurt her career as a law professor. I started to think more deeply about my own relationship with my appearance and how I’ve struggled over the years to embrace my own style without looking like I care too much about it, lest I appear less serious about my work and my family. Needless to say, this book dredged up lots of emotions. Some of the stories in this book are familiar and a bit hackneyed (maybe just because I told some of them in my books): Christine Craft, the newscaster fired for being too old (not yet 40), too ugly (a tall, athletic blonde), and not deferential enough to men (she knew the difference between the national and American football leagues); Oprah Winfrey’s decades-long weight battles and the eye-candy nature (at least once) of stewardesses (now air flight attendants).
But there’s a lot of fresh insight and new stories about how appearance is part of the job. If you are a “Borgata Babe,” for example, just forget about sizing up your skimpy little uniform, unless it is a bigger bustier you need because of your recent breast enhancement surgery.
Then there is the cost of “keeping up.” As the inevitable clock ticks on all of us how much “help” are we willing to submit to (and pay for) in order to keep ourselves in the beauty game, so to speak. It’s great to be attractive, but Rhode points out that you need money to perpetuate your youthful appearance: Botox, tummy tucks, even hair coloring and make-up all add up. Rhode estimates that globally $200 billion is spent by (mostly) women chasing after their own version of the fountain of youth. And some women die in pursuit of it. Failed surgeries, freakish looking outcomes are risks that all of us face when we choose to “go under the knife” to retain our appearance. Just turn on the TV and we can be reminded of the double standard: Andy Rooney just keeps on going as a television personality, but there is no female equivalent. Diane Sawyer might be sixty-four, but she looks about fifty on a bad day, and I doubt that she will ever appear much older than she does now, despite the fact that of course, she is aging.
The Beauty Bias digs deep into many of the sociological, financial and biological issues related to getting older and why any of this even matters. There will always be “girly-girls” and “sister misters” and lots of variations in between, so why can’t we just live peaceably together? The lawyer in Rhode comes out as she goes beyond just discussing these things to observing that being discriminated against because you are beautiful or not violates our rights as humans. With case histories and suggestions for addressing them, The Beauty Bias goes beyond just talking about injustice. It offers ways to counter it.©2010 Nichola Gutgold for SeniorWomen.com
