If you want to understand how to become better allies to people with disabilities, then join us at Embracing All Abilities: Including People with Disabilities at Work.
Are beautiful women treated differently during job interviews? Is there a bias for or against them?
Shailaja Chandra, a former bureaucrat herself, tells us in a blog post that the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) interview boards for civil service aspirants tend to avoid giving decent marks to attractive female candidates, and she bases her discovery on a single episode (I personally have doubts about such things happening in the UPSC based solely on a candidate’s looks, but Ms. Chandra knows better).
I do not want to go into the technicalities of the UPSC recruitment process, but what I definitely want to do is to try and generate a debate on this question – whether beautiful women are denied work opportunities simply because they are beautiful, and if so, why?
beautiful woman
Ms. Chandra’s post has given me enough fodder to make a beginning: she quotes from a news item in the Economist of March 31, 2012 that reports a study by two Israelis. The study concludes that if attractive women are denied interviews it is because of jealousy of women who are in charge of recruitment:
“Human resources departments tend to be staffed mostly by women. Indeed, in the Israeli study, 93% of those tasked with selecting whom to invite for an interview were female. The researchers’ unavoidable—and unpalatable—conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates.”
Now let me quote a report in Live Science, which in turn quotes from a study by Stefanie Johnson in the Journal of Social Psychology of May-June, 2010. It says,
“According to Johnson, beautiful people enjoy a significant edge in life. They tend to get higher salaries, better performance evaluations…In general, attractive people were judged more suitable for employment, even in jobs in which participants reported that appearance didn’t matter. However, attractive women were deemed less suitable than unattractive women for masculine jobs in which appearance wasn’t important.”
“One could argue that, under certain conditions, physical appearance may be a legitimate basis for hiring,” Johnson said. “In jobs involving face-to-face client contact, such as sales, more physically attractive applicants could conceivably perform better than those who are less attractive.
Another study quoted in the International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences of December, 2011 (Petersen and Togstad, 2006) while focusing on appointments where both men and women applied for the same position, discovered that “sexuality may sometimes be an asset from which women can enjoy benefits. In their study, they found that women have a higher probability of getting an offer: 1 out of 7 women whereas only 1 out of 10 men receive an offer when they compete for the same jobs.”
Now I am getting as confused as you, but it will be great to have reactions.
And yes, the UPSC interview that Ms. Chandra mentions had her as one of the members of the board. She says she swore not to be part of the UPSC interview boards ever again. I wish she had the courage then to have just walked out if a candidate was awarded less marks than she deserved simply because she was attractive. There’s hardly any point writing about it so much later.
Pic credit: Juliana Alia (Used under a Creative Commons license)
I am a former bureaucrat, and have worked a lot on gender issues, disaster management and good governance. I am also the proud father of two lovely daughters. read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Rajshri Deshpande, who played the fiery protagonist in Trial by Fire along with Abhay Deol speaks of her journey and her social work.
Rajshri Deshpande as the protagonist in ‘Trial by Fire’, the recent Netflix show has received raving reviews along with the show itself for its sensitive portrayal of the Uphaar Cinema Hall fire tragedy, 1997 and its aftermath.
The limited series is based on the book by the same name written by Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy, who lost both their children in the tragedy. We got an opportunity to interview Rajshri Deshpande who played Neelam Krishnamoorthy, the woman who has been relentlessly crusading in the court for holding the owners responsible for the sheer negligence.
Rajshri Deshpande is more than an actor. She is also a social warrior, the rare celebrity from the film industry who has also gone back to her roots to give to poverty struck farming villages in her native Marathwada, with her NGO Nabhangan Foundation. Of course a chance to speak with her one on one was a must!
“What is a woman’s job, Ramesh? Taking care of parents-in-law, husband, children, home and things at work—all at the same time? She isn’t God or a superhuman."
The arrays of workstations were occupied by people peering into their computer screens. The clicks of keyboard keys were punctuated by the occasional footsteps moving around to brainstorm or collaborate with colleagues in their cubicles. Most employees went about their tasks without looking at the person seated on either side of their workstation. Meenakshi was one of them.
The thirty-one-year-old marketing manager in a leading eCommerce company in India sat straight in her seat, her eyes on the screen, her fingers punching furiously into the keys. She was in a flow and wanted to finish the report while the thoughts and words were coming effortlessly into her mind.
Natu-Natu. The mellifluous ringtone interrupted her thoughts. She frowned at her mobile phone with half a mind to keep it ringing until she noticed the caller’s name on the screen, making her pick up the phone immediately.
Please enter your email address