People have given me sanctimonious advice my whole life about how looks don’t matter, it’s what’s inside that counts, etc.
\nAs anyone who had the misfortune to grow up homely knows, that’s a pantload.
\nAnd telling people who weren’t born lucky in looks that if they would only change their at-ti-tude, they would be happy\/rich\/successful – well, it just adds insult to injury.<\/p>
People have given me sanctimonious advice my whole life about how looks don’t matter, it’s what’s inside that counts, etc. As anyone who had the misfortune to grow up homely knows, that’s a pantload. And telling people who weren’t born … Continue reading
\nCareerBuilder.com put a welcome stop to this nonsense with their article <\/a>“Do Pretty People Earn More?”
\nAnd more power to ’em for doing so, I sez.
\nOne study at Michigan State showed that “plain” (i.e., homely) people earn 5 to 10 percent less than people of average looks, who in turn earn 3 to 8 percent less than those deemed good-looking<\/i>.
\nIn other words, the financial penalty of being “plain” is as much as 17%<\/b>. That’s the kind of number that makes social activists seethe in reference to gender and racial bias. But in America, discrimination against the ugly is accepted as a normal, natural business practice.
\nIf being lowballed in the wage department because of looks wasn’t enough, homely people suffer from yet another form of discrimination: favoritism based on marital status.
\nCareerBuilder.com has another article<\/a>, “Are Married People More Successful?”.
\nQuoting from studies and books like The Case For Marriage<\/i> by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, the article states that married white women earn four percent more and married black women earn 10 percent more than their single peers<\/i>.
\nLet’s assume, as a matter of common sense, that homely women have little or no chance of being married.
\nNot having looked at the research docs to see if the following is a fair assumption, let’s also say that the effect of being homely and being unmarried are cumulative.
\nThat would mean that for a homely single woman, that financial penalty grows from a 17% to a whopping 20-25% differential.
\nIn other words, a pretty married woman makes 20-25% more – for the same work – than a homely unmarried woman.
\nThat means very likely that an unattractive single woman is basically in survival mode her whole life. She is working just to “get by”, unable to save for retirement, for example, or emergencies.
\nI knew there was a reason I really hate those smug Smith\/Barney ads. You know the ones, where a super-attractive white couple are dancing on the beach, celebrating their $4 million beach house, and another super-attractive black couple are patting themselves on the back because they’ve put four kids through college (“two in the Ivy League”).
\nThe Smith\/Barney ads lecture about the twin benefits of financial self-denial and the stunning success of their financial advisors.
\nBut if you don’t have disposable income – i.e., that gigantic 20% of extra bacon that the Sadies<\/a> get to bring home – then what can the geniuses at Smith\/Barney do for you?
\nYeah, squat.
\nI don’t blame S\/B for pitching to attractive married couples.
\nI do resent the dishonesty of their message, though. To tell people who were born on third base that they just hit a home run by having a smart investment plan is ridiculous.
\nI’d be a heck of a lot more impressed if S\/B showed a case study of a homelier-than-sin single woman who secured a modest retirement income through their investment know-how.
\nThen again, meeting Santa or the Tooth Fairy would impress the heck out of me, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"