Is Physical Appearance Completely Irrelavant?

Jumping in late here -- I apologize for any duplication of previously submitted thoughts. When I read the question "Is physical appearance completely irrelevant?", the first thing that comes to mind is a counter-question: Irrelevant to what? I think the answer very much depends on context, so here's a couple of contexts that I find interesting with regard to this question.

In the context of meeting up with online friends, I don' t know about big meetings, but I know about meeting individuals and small groups of e-friends. Each time, I ended up thinking a lot about physical appearence. But that wasn't because I thought it was an important issue, but because it was the only new thing about the people I met. I didn't think a lot about their character a lot, but not because I'm not interested in character -- I am interested in little else! -- but because the real life character of people tends to be very similar to their online character. Contrary to the scare stories you sometimes read about fake personalities on the internet, it seems to be very difficult in the long run to fake an online personality that isn't you. So that's why physical appearance is the most interesting news in this kind of gathering.

In the context of dating, I can attest with authority that physical appearance does matter. During the last 10 years, I've run through all body-mass indexes between 25 and 42, which gave me the chance to find out that it's much easier for a 5' 6'' person to find a date at 180 pounds than at 260 pounds. (Did I hear a "Duh!" here?) There are strong animal instincts involved in dating -- much stronger than in normal man-woman friendships -- and if you want a date, there's little you can do about it except to adjust your physical appearance to the shape preferred by the opposite sex.

In the context of work, there's a yet entirely different mechanism at work. Here's an example. I'm a techie at a rather large tech company, and though I certainly wouldn't call myself a genius, my standing among the other techies is reasonably strong. A few weeks ago, I briefed a room of middle managers on the basics of a some new technology coming down our research pipeline. Like most techies, I'm a Jeans'n T-shirt kind of guy, and like most middle managers, the other people in the room were, well, suits. Even though I was obviously the most competent guy in the meeting technologywise, I ended up spending most of the time defending physics 101 insights against a particularly fancy suit who challenged them, and who was much more fluent in executive-speak than I was. (That is to say, he used words like "quantum leap", "next-generation" and "value-added" a lot.) In cases like this, I think there's a self-reinforcing prejudice at work. Middle managers live in a culture whose adherents believe that all competent professionals wear suits. Because suit-wearing isn't a hard thing to do, only incompetent professionals fail to catch up to the prejudice and adjust their clothing accordingly. In my next meeting with suits, I'll wear a suit myself, justifying what started out as a stupid, elitist prejudice.

I only hope I can get away without a tie.

-- Thomas

oss and stradee

Anyone claiming that women are treated as equals to males (broadly in north american culture) is likely to also hold that police treat white folks and folks of native or african descent equally and that jewish bankers created viagra so that folks wouldn't be outdoors at nighttime to witness the fleets of Boeings spreading nerve agents over us via con trails.

Thomas,

Your points are most relevant. That is to say that I agree. But of course, I can't see if you're wearing a suit or not. If I could..........well, I think I'd agree anyway. :wink:

I agree with Stradee, Osso and Blatham. Prejudice against women still exists out there. I don't run into it much in my profession. And in my day to day life outside the office I don't notice it either. But of course, if someone doesn't pay attention to what I'm saying, I just smack em upside the head and then I command immediate respect. I admire your stamina Osso.

Setanta,

Being a satanist is a requirement for several other professions as well, such as air conditioning repair man, auto mechanic, tele-marketer(contemporary door to door sales) and cable installer.

thomas

That's a nicely written and relevant post...thank you.

I was thinking last night of soz's rhetorical question ('why do I resent this?) and an anologous resentment which I have relates to advisements that one ought to wear polished footwear for a job interview. I think it a measurement criterion for simpletons - do I even want to spend my days working with people who are so dull they'll think that important?

Perhaps it is this relationship between appearance and knee-jerk judgements which gets in our craw? If we are old, we are not interesting...if we are young, we will be foolish...if we are pretty, we have a low IQ, etc.

Where such arbitrary criteria exist in the culture, and where real ramifications follow (mating, hiring), it seems quite predictable that resentment will also follow. To make it even more confusing, toss in the complexity that having experienced such judgementalness in previous encounters, we can imagine it being present even when it isn't.

As to self-enhancement...when I went back to university, it was the period when the prevalence of steroid use in competitive sports was engendering much debate. Folks more academically inclined, who I tended to spend my cafeteria yak time with, were pretty universally aghast at this risky enterprise. It caused some pause when I had them imagine the not distant future where our increased understanding of neurology and bio-chemistry allows additives that very well might make us better artists, or writers, or measurably increase our abilities to remember and make theoretical connections.

Thomas, very pertinent example indeed. That is probably better than my braces example in terms of showing how people can be disgruntled about being expected to adhere to certain social standards without jealousy coming into it at all.

That's also very much what I was talking about when I mentioned adjusting my wardrobe in L.A. With hair down my back, low-heeled shoes, and long flowing skirts, visitors to my office would sweep past me and ask my interpreter if she was me. (She was a bottle redhead who wore high-heeled shoes, suits, and particularly vivid makeup -- I hadn't seen anyone actually use bright BLUE eyeshadow before her. ) When I upped the heel height and skirt heights and got a fashionable layered cut (still long, but shorter), they started to actually believe I was in charge and act accordingly. I like how you characterized it in terms of wasted time -- one CAN stick to one's guns and refuse to comply with expectations, and then spend a significantly high percentage of your time explaining, with words, who you really are and what you really know. Or you can play the game and adopt the details of physical expression that say as much without words.

All of this varies not only by profession but by geographic location, of course. L.A. is about the worst in this respect, I think -- famously superficial.

Don't know if it's a prerequisite, but it'd certainly give 'em a leg up!

I'd nominate internal auditors, realtors and politicians, but then I should talk. I work in P.R.

Resent? When did I say resent? This is the closest I found:



The distaste, in case it was not clear, is that I personally dislike the idea of spending too much time working on my physical appearance. It seems silly and shallow. I'm not saying that's right -- that is in fact what that paragraph is about, is examining my instinctual distaste.

Edit: NOT! In case it was NOT clear. (Previously read "in case it was clear...")

I normally can get away without any makeup

Sure looks like it. Upping your heel height wouldn't have made a difference for you here in Germany unless you're very small -- 5"2' or less, say.

soz

sorry...it was 'distaste'...I'm practicing misremembering so as to better understand republicans.

re 'silly and shallow'...understood. I suppose my notion here is that we each find a comfort zone in our relationship to the world around us, and that it is dependent on a complex of factors internal and external, social context, geography (as you point to), etc. I confess I am quite happy not to be Michael Jackson.

I've spent, in my entire life, perhaps twenty hours in a non-school gymnasium. But I'm more fortunate than many simply due to my physiology and metabolism - so far as I know, my weight has varied no more than 15 pounds since I was eighteen. Though I personally cock an eyebrow at the muscleboys, I don't know that I can say anything further than "It's not for me".

sozobe, I agree. My work stands on it's own merits, and although challenges are to be expected in daily dealings with people, my choice is simpy doing the best that I can with each encounter, tossing petty judgements aside <generally with non verbal communication> and keep moving :wink:

But "petty judgments" can often have a very profound effect on your life. I know that, were I so inclined, I could never advance in my current line of work (yecchhh) without making drastic changes to my outward appearance, no matter how qualified I was. This isn't a big gripe, they aren't huge changes, but I am nonetheless uninclined to make them here. Now, down the line, I will have to play the game, simply to get where I want to be. I don't like the game, so that's difficult for me; I am very much the tee-shirt in a room of suits, like Thomas. Lola, perhaps, enjoys playing the game, and there's nothing wrong with that in itself. My own resentment, as has been so much more eloquently stated by others here, is that I will have to play the game to get to do something that is totally unrelated to the rules of the game.

Slightly tangential: the work I do right now is highly servile and odious, so demanding that people go to odious lengths to meet arbitrary standards re: their appearance may not be such a bad screening technique. I'm a no bullsh!t kind of person across most of my life, and that does impede my ability to shut up and do whatever task is put in front of me, however ridiculous the request may be. Others here (at my work, I mean) are more accustomed to conforming to arbitrary standards, and so have less trouble swallowing their pride and doing things for people that they should be perfectly capable of doing themselves.


(Still struggling to make a meaningful contribution to what is really an excellent discsussion, but I think I'm too personally invested in the subject matter...)

Blatham
Blatham, are you familiar with The Northcott Theatre in Exeter?

BumbleBeeBoogie

Has anyone else noticed this?
I find it interesting that, except for Sozobe, no one has responded or acknowledged my posts about people's attitudes towards fat people? I wonder why? Obesity is one of the most instant appearance reactions by most people. Negative attitudes towards fat people is the most persistant and socially permissible behavior. It is also one of the most blatant and deeply hurtful.

It appears that the ignoring of these posts reflects the behavior towards fat people in real life. Do fat people just not exist for us and we brush them aside as undersirable people to know or to be friends with, even to love?

BumbleBeeBoogie

BBB, you are right on the money here....I am less than 10 lbs. overweight for my height, yet my family harps on me to lose weight so my genetically inherited jowly face will look better...I say f--- them...I am healthy, and at this time of year I tend to get swollen glands in my throat (another piece of wisdom: don't get yer kids tonsils out), so my face looks fat while the antibiotics do their thing. Who cares...fat or not. Goddammit we are all people, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just not worthy of attention.

Eyup.

Re: Has anyone else noticed this?


RIGHT ON TARGET - every word

I hear you BBB, and I wonder how guilty I am of such discrimination myself, at least in the most personal arenas. The gf and I are both a bit heavy (20-30 lbs past healthy, prolly), but I wonder if we would even be together if she had been morbidly obese (harsh clinical term) when we'd met, or if I had been. I very much doubt it. (By the same card, I would have and do found the anorexic death's-head thing a huge turn-off, as well.)

I certainly hope this doesn't extend to my own public life, but differing treatment on the whole of very large people (again, particularly of women) is certainly pervasive.

Cavfancier
Cavfancier, that you for responding and for your geniune humanity. You are fortunate that you are only 10 pounds over your desired weight. Can you imagine how it is for people whose weight greatly exceeds that? Most obese people are dieting their entire lives. Some even endanger their lives by submitting to risky surgery in an attempt to be attractive to those can't stand fat people.

There are a million reasons people become obese. I won't go into all of them here. But you can be sure of one thing. Discriminating and behaving badly toward obese people sure doesn't help them in their struggle to achieve their desired weight.

Anyone who says I enjoy being obese is in serious denial, both for appearance and health reasons. If it was easy to be slim and trim, we all would be that way. It's not easy to achieve. That's why it is so hateful to make life even more miserable for obese people.

This topic arose because of a desire to explore our instant impressions of peoples' appearance. But the elephant in the room being ingored is our instant reaction to fat people.

-----BumbleBeeBoogie

To judge anybody on the basis of being overweight is probably the most inane kind of judgement we humans make of another. It's just plain stupid. c.ii.