Saturday’s edition of The Globe and Mail featured a very realistic and relatable article from Leah Eichler titled Playing the sex card to get ahead, discussing how both women and men (but mostly women) are enhancing their appearances to propel themselves farther up a company hierarchy. Eichler makes reference to the controversial book Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital by Catherine Hakim, where Hakim says that people are valuing their “erotic capital” (sex appeal coupled with strong self presentation) to be just as important as education! Maybe I should have bought a gym membership rather than enrolling in business school! However, is it ethical if an employer hires a fashion queen sans brains, and lets an ordinary woman or man with a university education walk right out the door? Absolutely not!
But here’s where the debate gets interesting: In an article written by Dyana Hepburn in helium.com, she claims that a study proves that attractive women who apply for a job which seems “masculine” (such as a finance director) are at a large disadvantage, while attractive men were “always at an advantage”. Obviously employers these days cannot look past a woman’s beauty and realize that she also has a brain, but it seems that men have this skill of balancing beauty and brains down pat. Put yourself in an employers shoes…what would you do?
