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In Your Face ~ How celebrities and ordinary people use cosmetic medicine, in Orange County and elsewhere.

Do people discriminate because of how you look?

August 25th, 2008, 5:25 pm · 1 Comment · posted by Colin Stewart

Have you faced discrimination based on your physical appearance?

That’s one of several questions the YWCA raised in a discussion guide it published along with its “Beauty at Any Cost” report on the effects of Americans’ pursuit of beauty.

Such discrimination can be negative — perhaps you lost out to a prettier person in competition for a job you were most qualified for. It can also be positive — perhaps you’re the pretty face that won a job on the basis of your good looks.

Readers of In Your Face can answer that question in this reader survey:

Have you faced discrimination based on your physical appearance?
View Results

Below are some other questions from the YWCA discussion guide about American women’s attitudes about their appearance:

IMAGE AND COMMUNICATION

  • What women do you think are beautiful? Why?
  • Do you think you are beautiful? Why?
  • What messages did your family communicate to you about female beauty? About your beauty?
  • How do you talk about other women’s beauty to other women? To men?

PERSONAL EFFECTS

  • Do you ever feel pressure to change your looks/body to be more “beautiful”?
  • Do you feel manipulated by the beauty and cosmetic industries to buy their products?
  • How have you been personally affected by America’s obsession with idealized female beauty?
  • Have you ever experienced any form of discrimination based on your physical appearance?
  • Have you ever experienced low self-esteem or felt insecure because of your physical appearance?

OPINIONS

  • What do you think of the dramatic increases in cosmetic surgeries and procedures?
  • Do Americans have an unhealthy obsession with female beauty?
  • Do you think employers intentionally discriminate based on a woman’s physical appearance?
  • What role do the cosmetic industry, media, dieting, and fashion industries play in fostering low self-esteem in women? What motivates them to do this?
  • When does the pursuit of female beauty cross the line into unhealthy behavior?

CAUSES AND CHANGES

  • What role do women’s magazines play in promoting idealized female beauty?
  • What role do pornography and men’s magazines play in promoting idealized female beauty?
  • Do you think the FDA should more rigorously regulate cosmetics?
  • Do you think it is possible to change the way that Americans define female beauty? If yes, how would you make this happen?
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 One Comment

  • Eddie Estro says:

    Imagine having dreadlocks in a corporate atmosphere in the deep south. Need I say more? Ive gotten every question to how does your do that to let me touch it to we don’t promote that type of lifestyle in this company enough said!