Facial Discrimination

 

 

Act Utilitarian is a school of thought that believes that the actions of a human being are acceptable as long as they bring about acceptable results in the context in which he or she made them. Utilitarianism involves considering a particular action and analyzing the action in terms of happiness. For example, it would be wrong for me to deny someone a job based on the fact that he or she is unattractive rather than consider academic and other qualifications. Act utilitarian also considers the fact that one does not have time to examine the results of their action even if they have time, they will choose it based on their pleasure or happiness, for example choosing to work for a charity group which will benefit a lot of individuals or buying a television, one will obviously lean on a choice that brings him pleasure. Act utilitarian can agree with facial discrimination. This can happen when one selects more attractive people in a company than selecting based on academic merits. If the consequence of this action benefits the company, act utilitarian will support the action and this will promote more facial discrimination. Therefore, act utilitarian focus on the overall result (Landy, 2005).

 

 

Facial discrimination, is stubborn as it comes in many concealed forms especially in the work places.it can affect the ability of qualified individual to gain employment as the employers may view him in terms of their facial attractiveness. Employers often set standard rules that require one to be properly groomed while at the work environment. Employers may make salary increment and promotional decisions based on appearance .This criteria may also apply when they want to lay down workers, they may discriminate based on looks. This has become a serious problem especially when the company performs poorly due to the fact that other qualifications were not considered nor given a chance. In learning institutions students may favor the teaching style of an attractive teacher than an unattractive one and when ranking is done, the attractive teacher will probably have the upper hand than the teacher students find unattractive despite the content and service delivery being similar. Appearance cannot be linked to the performance of the employee. This is unfair to the persons qualified for the job but is left out due to appearance .This shows the value society places on attractive people ( Laycock,2005).

In general, the society values appearance .Men and women strive to improve their looks through plastic surgery, cosmetics and other grooming methods. This has rationalized facial discrimination as individuals tend to be more receptive to people they find attractive than to people they find unattractive. Physical attraction tends to overshadow other habits and forms the main basis of first impressions. Attractive people tend to be perceived as having good personality traits. Good personality and acceptable traits are more likely to be associated with attractive people than unattractive people. Example of such traits are honesty, courage and generosity. On the other hand, unattractive people will be perceived as dishonest, lazy and unproductive. Some professional fields physical attractiveness is a requirement that is vital to the success of the company and its clientele. Examples of such professions include modelling, actors, flight attendants, advertisers and even secretaries. This professions find it as a key tool to sell their products to the masses (Ross, 2008).

If a law should be drafted to deal with job discrimination based on or caused by ones physical appearance, the law should be inclusive and standard. It should show variance across age, race, health, ethnicity and weight. It should also ensure that qualifications and accomplishments is a top priority in comparison to physical appearance. The law should also have a penalty in case the law is ignored or disobeyed. Another major step can be to ban the facial discrimination at work places. The law should also force the society to change its opinion by enforcing the law to companies which rely on physical appearance .Therefore, the law should be applied equally to all companies so that its effectiveness may be felt by employers .Coming up with dress code policies may reduce dependence on physical attributes and maximize on other changeable attributes that can ensure customer satisfaction (Player, 2013)

Companies and other businesses can take various measures to ensure that facial discrimination is not used in their premises for the purposes of hire, promotion and even advertisement. Steps which can be taken to ensure this happens is by conducting interviews that seek to analyses the accomplishment of potential employees. This will automatically eliminate discrimination in terms of physical appearance. One of the first steps is to become familiar with available laws on facial discrimination that can be easily implemented and followed to the latter. This will immediately eliminate physical discrimination. This laws can be made familiar by having an employee visit seminars where they can learn and have the opportunity to teach others. Another step is to create a policy that will be easily understood by the employers of the company or business premise. An easily to understood policy will enable it to be easily implemented, followed and regulated by everyone including the top management. The third step is to train employees on the laws through different programs that will enable them to put in practice. Step four involves selecting an investigator who will investigate immediately a complain arises .lastly, there should be analysis of company decisions to ensure they do not bring about facial discrimination. Homogenous businesses brings about trust ,loyalty and productivity which save on costs, fairness and loyalty in the work place .In order to achieve this, facial discrimination should be done away with (Solotoff Kramer , 1994)

 

 

Reference

Landy, F. (2005). Employment Discrimination Litigation: Behavioral, Quantitative, and Legal Perspectives. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons

Laycock, D. (2010). Religious liberty. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.

Player, M. (2013). Federal Law of Employment Discrimination in a Nutshell. West Academic.

Ross, S. D. (2008). Women's human rights: The international and comparative law casebook.

Solotoff, L., & Kramer, H. S. (1994). Sex discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace. New York, N.Y. (345 Park Ave. South, New York 10010: Law Journal Seminars-Press.