Affirmative Action For Ugly People?
Is being hideous a disability? Severe unattractiveness may be the final frontier in regards to discrimination based on physical characteristics. In the New York Times, economist Daniel S. Hamermesh makes the case for affirmative action for the ugly:
The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.
In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse (and one who looks better, too!) and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers.
Why this disparate treatment of looks in…
A Year’s Worth Of Makeup At Once
With the aim of highlighting the “cosmetic overkill” prevalent in modern life, directors Lernert & Sander applied the quantity of makeup typically worn over the course of a year, 365 layers, onto a model in a single day.
(Surely she will be 365 times as beautiful?) The results of the experiment are fairly unsettling.
Hot New Cosmetic Surgery Trend: Eye Whitening
Down in the dumps? Stuck in a rut? It might be because your eyes aren’t white enough, making you unattractive and unlovable. Luckily, there’s a serious medical procedure to fix this; ABC reports on the growing popularity of eye-whitening surgery. It costs $3,000 to $5,000 (that’s per eye), possible side effects include dry eyes, scarring, and infection, and it’s almost as effective as using eye drops:
As a lawyer Steven Smith works long hours and reads a lot of fine print. But he blames years of sun exposure for making his eyes red.
It irritates him when people tell him how tired he looks. So when his ophthalmologist, Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, described the new eye-whitening procedure called I-BRITE, Smith decided to give it a try. I-BRITE is basically a procedure called conjunctivoplasty, a procedure that’s been around for decades. Surgeons use this to remove pterygium, or growths in the eyes.
But taking away…
