The Power of Looks

Social Stratification of Physical Appearance

Bonnie Berry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317019565
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, implying that beauty is subjective. But can it be said that 'better looking' people have more social power? This book provides a fascinating insight into the social stratification of people based on looks - the artificial placement of people into greater and lesser power strata based on physical appearance. The author analyzes different aspects of physical appearance such as faces, breasts, eye shapes, height and weight as they are related to social power and inequality. For example, tall people are often associated with power, with tall people being seen publicly as more capable and thus more deserving of power than shorter people. The author moreover assesses how people's physical appearance affects their chances of marriage, employment, education, and other social and economic opportunities. The book contributes to and differentiates itself from current literature by emphasizing sociological theory - including constructionism and critical theory - and research to understand the phenomenon of social aesthetics, a term coined by the author to refer to the social reaction to physical appearance.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Turning the page of the newspaper, I saw the double full-page advertisement, in color, for a department store. The picture was of four people, one woman and three men. They were extraordinarily attractive, white, young, and apparently financially successful. The woman was lounging on the hood and windshield of a mint-condition vintage convertible Mercedes, wearing a short dress which was well above her knees and with her long blonde hair flowing over the top of the windshield. The three men, all showing perfect white teeth, were casually but elegantly dressed. In the back of the Mercedes was a beautiful wooden canoe, spotless and shiny. The setting was idyllic. The people were in a wooded area with a very inviting lake behind them, apparently about to enjoy an outing in their canoe.

What this advertisement has to do with the goods sold at the department store that sponsored it is not immediately clear. It will be by the time you have read very far into this book. To get ever so slightly ahead of myself, we, the viewers of the advertisement, are supposed to believe that if we buy our clothes at this store, we will be like the people in the advertisement or perhaps that we will have the chance to associate with them. Mostly, we want to be them.

We are not. Globally, most of us are not white, many are not young, few are so financially secure, and almost none of us are anywhere close to being so physically attractive. The chances of the people in the picture representing the public, at whom the advertisement is aimed, are small indeed.

The advertisement gave me pause because, having studied the phenomenon of social reaction to physical appearance for almost a decade, it is abundantly clear that we are all aware of the things I will describe in this book and yet we continue to be inundated with the same social messages about appearance. We know, for example, that attractive people have social advantages that unattractive people do not have. They gain access to social power, be that power economic or more purely social, because of their looks. We know that we are bamboozled by economic forces, such as but not limited to advertising and the media, into believing that we should strive to be as attractive as we can be. We know that beauty standards have an arbitrary, superficial, restricted, and false nature to them such that, for instance, whites with Northern European features are generally considered more attractive than those of other ethnicities and features, that tall people are considered more capable than short ones, and so on.

We know all these things and more. But the visual images of what we should be and, for the most part, cannot be, affect us. We accept these visual images as valid representations of what we should be. There is not a backlash against, or even a serious questioning of, the artificial socially arranged hierarchy that creates social alienation on a scale that rivals if not exceeds other forms of social inequality. This form of social stratification, moreover, exacerbates the “isms” that we are more familiar with and have begun to deal with: racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, and culturism. Unlike our dealings with the other “isms” (racism, and so on), the social awareness we have of appearance bias is shallow, infantile in its development, and mostly acceptable as a given and unchangeable form of inequality.

Social Aesthetics

When first beginning this project, I spoke of the topic as “social aesthetics,” by which I meant to describe public (social) reaction to physical appearance (aesthetics). Admittedly, the term, while it has a nice ring to it, is somewhat vague. After all, conceivably, social aesthetics could refer to a social reaction to any kind of aesthetics (the design of ink pens, home remodeling, and so on). A more precise term might be socio-personal aesthetics, since I am attempting to understand the social reaction to personal aesthetics (an individual’s physical appearance). I will use both terms and beg the readers’ indulgence.

Regardless of what we call it, the phenomenon about which I am writing is fraught with stratification, bias, and discrimination. In this way, social aesthetics falls under the broad category of social inequality and the inherent problematic nature of socially imposed inequality. Being short, fat, plain, wrinkled, visibly disabled, and so on is not truly the problem. Social bias is: social bias against people, based on their looks, inhibits social functioning at its best.

Social stratification has been mentioned in the Preface and has a prominent place in the title to this book. All societies stratify along a number of dimensions, be those dimensions income, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, region, and so on, with the chief outcome being a layering of categories of people with greater and lesser social power. Hierarchies by themselves are not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. For example, to rank order people by height in order to arrange a photograph is socially meaningless. But when height is used to deny employment, with tall men (in particular) granted employment privileges that short men and women are denied, we have bias.

Bias exists against the less-than-physically ideal. Throughout this book, I will describe the appearance traits considered ideal and, conversely, less than ideal. As mentioned, appearance bias shares many of the same features as does bias against other disenfranchised groups, such as minority races, women, the poor, the differently abled, and the not-young. Indeed, as we will see, appearance bias overlaps with racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and ageism. Appearance bias against the non-ideal goes beyond attitudinal prejudice and unkind remarks. The consequences are real when they impinge upon income, medical care, educational opportunities, and access to social networks.

As I have mentioned in Beauty Bias, looks-bias refers to bias against people based on their physical appearance. Looksism in practice has severe to mild social and economic outcomes. Usually, looksism is hidden and unknown, not unlike other “isms,” such that the victim may not be given the real, true, honest explanation for unequal treatment. Although, and this is an important point, occasionally we are told that we are rejected from jobs, dates, and other means of access to power because of our looks. When this happens, it is a clear indication that the rejecters think it is appropriate to claim appearance as a sufficient reason for denying equal treatment to the less-than-desirable. Probably more often than not, we are not told the truth about our rejection but are given an explanation much more palatable and much less sueable, such as “you’re just not as qualified as the other applicants.”

To date, looks-bias is largely unmeasured and mostly anecdotal. To some extent, it is unmeasurable because, as just mentioned, we are not told the real reasons for denial of employment, healthcare, housing, friendships, dates, and so on. And certainly, the deniers (landlords, health insurers, employers) are not usually going to freely and openly admit to their prejudices and their discriminatory practices. Nonetheless, bias is present in a number of social contexts, from hiring to airplane seating to the higher prices charged for plus-size clothing; and these forms of bias are measurable. Even when looks-bias is measurable and documented, the problem then becomes what to do about it. Legal recourse is one approach to righting wrongs, education is another, grassroots awareness-raising is still another. Clearly, though, looks-bias, as well noted by others besides myself, is the last vestige of legal and mostly socially acceptable prejudice and discrimination.

For the remainder of this chapter, I will address the alienating effects of appearance bias (isolation, invisibility, social expectations, mediated anxiety, and impossible binds), the social meaning of beauty (the beauty “ideal”), the false and real choices to undertake appearance changes, the various body parts that receive our social attention (skin, eye shape, height, weight, and so on), and the temporary nature of appearance. Following these discussions is a brief description of terminology and a brief overview of the chapters.

Alienation and Appearance

The enactment of socially established beauty standards can be a source of alienation. If we fail to live up to these standards, if we are plain or (worse) unattractive, we are not uncommonly made to feel excluded and socially rejected. The standards for acceptable looks are supermodel-high, unrealistic, and unrelenting. While the plain and unattractive are frequently stigmatized, even the attractive can be stigmatized if they are not attractive enough. By sheer numbers alone, even the most common looks, one would think, would escape stigmatization, since they are common. But they do not escape.

Isolation

To get an idea of how this stigmatization is experienced in a real way, consider the words of disfigured author, Lucy Grealy. Grealy wrote of growing up as a child with jaw cancer and specifically identified the source of her unhappiness “as being ugly” (Grealy 1994: 126). She wrote: “When I tried to imagine being beautiful, I could only imagine living without the perpetual fear of being alone, without the great burden of isolation, which is what feeling ugly felt like” (Grealy 1994: 177).

People with visible disabilities are viewed similarly to people who are unattractive; in fact, the disabled are sometimes viewed as the unattractive by virtue of their disability. In any case, the disabled are relatively socially isolated. They are marginalized economically, educationally, and romantically. They are less likely to complete high school or college and far less likely to gain employment. When they do get jobs, they are paid less than the abled. Their social isolation has been reduced due to changes in structural accessibility, such as ramps, Braille instructions on menus, and so on. However, despite some improvements in accessibility, people with disabilities are still far less likely than non-disabled Americans to go to restaurants, movies, concerts, sporting events, churches, or stores. They are twice as likely to live alone. Those who grow up with disabilities tend to marry later, if they marry at all. Disabled women in particular marry and form families significantly less often than non-disabled women or even disabled men. Over the past 20 years, “these conditions have improved modestly or not at all, and in some areas such as earnings things have actually gotten worse,” so writes Paul Longmore, a differently abled professor of history (Longmore 2003: 20).

Is this social isolation due to health issues and restricted physical access? No, or not entirely. After I read his book, I asked Professor Longmore if marginalization and social isolation could have anything to do with the physical appearance of the disabled. Certainly the absence of physical access affects isolation. So does the confusion that the abled experience when assimilated with the disabled. Given the poorly understood status of the disabled, the abled are often unsure of what to say or do when in contact with the disabled. Real physical barriers and unwelcoming social attitudes affect isolation.

But the physical appearance of disability per se plays a role in the disabled’s marginalization. Much of the initial bad reaction to a disability may be due to the visible artifacts of the disability. Society at large may be put off by the obvious signs of disability: the wheelchairs and other accoutrements, missing parts, and prostheses. There are also social aversions to an unusual gait, facial grimacing, and so on. Not to be dismissed are the temporary versus permanent cues of the disability, such as paralysis or a motorized chair (signaling permanent disability) versus a leg cast or an arm sling (interpreted as temporary disability), with permanent disabilities being less “forgiven.” And there is the location of the disability as it pertains to visibility and thus public reaction, with the face being the most obvious place we focus our visual attention, and with disfigurements of the face receiving especial focus.

Disabilities that are not visible may be far less targeted for prejudice and thus are not so isolating; witness the deaf Miss America. Heather Whitestone, Miss America of 1995, was as beautiful as her fellow contestants and was able to participate in all the pageant rigors (the talent contest, and so on). Her deafness, in other words, did not affect her physical appearance. The pageant, moreover, in its attempt to demonstrate inclusiveness (very likely a superficial and false sense of diversity acceptance) may have singled out Miss Whitestone as the prize winner because she is deaf (Banet-Weiser 1999).

Besides deafness, other invisible disabilities include asthma, heart conditions and other internal organ ailments, chronic fatigue syndromes, and sometimes blindness. When I asked Professor Longmore particularly about the visibility versus invisibility of disability as related to social marginalization, he responded that 70 percent of people with disabilities have non-apparent disabilities. These invisible disabilities, including learning disabilities, many psychiatric disabilities, mild cognitive disabilities, epilepsy, diabetes, and arthritis, become known only in certain circumstances. The invisibly disabled have to deal with issues of “passing,” voluntary and involuntary disclosure, skepticism, and “bad faith,” with the latter term referring to the observer sensing that she or he has been deceived by the disabled. So long as the public does not know that a person is disabled, the social stigma and isolation are kept at bay. “Disclosure,” however, “often triggers discrimination” (Longmore 2006).

(In)visibility

As to the visual nature of looks, we know that primates, including humans, are visually oriented. We do, in fact, judge books by their covers. Nina Jablonski writes: “Today, humans are not just visually oriented; we are visually obsessed. … appearance has come to assume an overwhelming primacy. The first impression that we read from a person’s appearance … carries inordinate weight; it contextualizes and guides our subsequent interactions, often unconsciously” (Jablonski 2006: 142).

As the reader can surmise, visibility is a significant theme to the study of social aesthetics. One way to flout appearance stigma, the negative public reaction to visible physical traits, is to be invisible. Isolation, socially imposed or self-imposed, ensures invisibility of the unattractive. While an advantage in the sense that unpleasant social attention can be avoided, the isolation and invisibility reinforce the socially unacceptable nature of unattractiveness. I have written earlier, in Beauty Bias, about the effect of refusing employment to the appearance-stigmatized (the disfigured, the fat, the short) and concluded that a continuing pattern of employment discrimination ensures that, if they are never seen on the job, society at large would never have to confront the fact that the appearance-stigmatized are as capable as the appearance-acceptable. In the minority of cases where, for example, extraordinarily short people get jobs, we can no longer avoid the obvious: short people are as capable as tall and medium-height people.

This isolation-invisibility phenomenon came up again after reading two case histories of men-of-size. One weighed 1,072 pounds before weight-loss surgery and the other weighed 781 pounds until he lost weight also. These cases are not relevant to my usual examinations of size bias because: (a) they are not representative of ordinary people-of-size (that is, these cases represent people-of-extraordinary-size); and (b) they are so hidden from public view that they do not face public reaction to their size (Associated Press 2005b; Montgomery 2005). They cannot and do not leave their homes. They cannot walk, they cannot work, they do not socialize outside their homes. So there is very little public viewing and public reaction. From this, the question arises as to whether the isolation encourages extreme obesity since the extremely fat do not face public scrutiny. Perhaps social isolation, ensuring an absence of the harshly punishing social mirror, allows the extraordinarily fat to escape judgment and interpret their fatness as okay.

We may wonder, similarly, if we would bother to do any looks-improvement, barring health maintenance like brushing our teeth and taking baths, if no one could see us. Would we color our hair, work out, apply cosmetics, or even think about these things if no one saw us? I will write more on this later.

Expectations and Alienation

Unrealizable expectations to be beautiful for most of us, as imposed by society, creates an anomic state not unlike Merton’s American Dream analysis, in which we are all told that we can achieve whatever we want (wealth, education, and so on) if we only try hard enough (Merton 1938; 1968). The result, when we “fail” to achieve what we are all told we can achieve by our own wits and effort, is an uncomfortable state called anomie, more popularly known as alienation.

A sense of alienation can come over us when we realize that we fail to measure up to, if not social norms, social expectations. I differentiate between norms and expectations since, in the case of the topic at hand, norms refer to averageness and we are, most of us, on average, not especially attractive.1 Expectations are an entirely different matter, however. Unrealistic though these expectations may be, we are expected to be thin, tall, attractive, with white Northern European features. What is meant, more exactly, by “expected” refers to the aspirations as put forward in the media, largely through advertisements, but also through TV and movies. The failure to resemble beauty icons (fashion models or movie stars) or even unknown people in newspaper advertisements can leave us feeling inadequate. Ironically, people who are not necessarily attractive themselves expect us to be attractive because, I argue, these unrepresentative images are held up as what we can be and should be.

Take women’s body size as an illustration. In the past few decades, the ideal female body has strayed more and more from the average, real woman’s physical reality. About 30 years ago, the typical fashion model weighed 8 percent less than the average American woman. In 1990, she weighed 23 percent less than the average. At the same time, “the average woman’s body size has increased considerably over the past forty years” (Gimlin 2002: 5). The strictures have become more stringent while the reality has diverged farther and farther from the ideal. Here we have a recipe for failed expectations.

Sandra Lee Bartky agrees that cultural expectations have shifted progressively away from the reality of woman’s appearance, as well as her accomplishments, with a firm division between what culture dictates she should look like and do and what realistically she looks like and does (Bartky 1990: 80). Interpreting Bartky and matching it with Naomi Wolf’s conclusions in The Beauty Myth (2002), Cecilia Hartley finds that, “as women have claimed intellectual and economic power for themselves, culture has simply found new ways for them to be inferior. … because women themselves are seen as somehow less than men, their bodies must demonstrate that inferiority” (Hartley 2001: 62). In other words, women (and less so men) will never, if society has anything to say about it, succeed in being as attractive as they ought to be. Women’s accomplishments will be downgraded to less than what they could and should be. Under these circumstances, women’s social power, in short, will be suppressed and their anxiety will be kept at a high boil.

Mediated (Read: Encouraged) Anxiety

Stephen Muzzatti and Richard Featherstone (2007) describe media-generated fear of crime in their analysis of Washington Post newspaper articles on the serial sniper attacks that took place in the Washington DC area in October 2002. From their study, we may make an analogy to the false impressions and false public perceptions about beauty, as generated by the media (advertisements, movies, TV, magazines, and all visual media). Muzzatti and Featherstone refer to “mediated fear” of crime, with media being the mediator, whose messages increase “public anxiety and thereby heighten the marketability of the story” (Muzzatti and Featherstone 2007: 44). Likewise, we have mediated anxiety about not measuring up looks-wise in a world that consistently blares the message that there are extraordinarily beautiful people in the world, that we can and ought to look like them, and that if we do not look like them, we are less-than-adequate.

The mere fact that most people appearing in advertisements are extraordinarily att...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Brief History of Social Aesthetics
• 3 Two Types of Appearance Power: Economic and Social Networks
• 4 Minority Statuses, Inequality, and Social Aesthetics
• 5 Alterations: Making Our Appearance More Suitable
• 6 The Media, the Economy, Globalization, and Other Forces Associated with Social Aesthetics
• 7 Methodologies: The Means to Understand Social Aesthetics
• 8 Theories: Explanations of Social Aesthetics
• 9 Animal Aesthetics: An Illustration of Symbolic Interactionism
• 10 Transforming Social Aesthetics: Accommodation and Rebellion
• 11 Conclusions
• Appendix: Field Notes from Seattle Street Laborers’ Interviews
• Bibliography
• Index