A Texas economics professor argues that because unattractive people earn less money over the course of a lifetime than attractive people, unattractive people should be identified as having a disability and be compensated by the government.
Don't hate me because I'm beautiful," I told the woman sitting next to me on the bus.
She didn't even look up from her newspaper: "Not going to be a problem."
Good for you, I thought. Be strong. If you swallow that resentment, it will taste like chocolate.
Life is good to the good looking. They get better jobs, better tables, better service. We all know this. (True story: I was once in a McDonald's where the girl behind the counter gave my change to the only other customer, a Matthew McConaughey lookalike. Laughed so hard, I could barely key his car.)
But this flip side of the coin, the idea that Big Brother should embrace the unhuggable, is new.
"It's a matter of simple prejudice," wrote Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of the book Beauty Pays, in a New York Times opinion piece the other day. "Most of us, regardless of our professed attitudes, prefer as customers to buy from betterlooking salespeople, as jurors to listen to betterlooking attorneys, as voters to be led by better-looking politicians, as students to learn from better-looking professors."
He cited a series of studies, including one that showed an American worker in the bottom oneseventh in looks, as judged by random observers, earns 10 to 15 per cent less than a similar worker whose looks were deemed to be in the top third.
His solution: "Why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?"
Because nobody likes to be called ugly, that's why.
Because while there's little debate about who qualifies for membership in the other groups Hamermesh mentioned (though in ultra-Anglo Victoria, the term "visible minority" includes redheads and Belgians) pigeonholing the homely is a more delicate matter.
No one likes being judged, or at least being judged runner-up to Quasimodo. Back in the old days (because gosh, no one would act so unprofessionally now) I always dreaded stumbling into a game of Shag Or Shoot, in which the women of the Times Colonist editorial department would debate whether they would rather A) sleep with a particular colleague or B) take a bullet. Alas, there were a lot of figurative shell casings on the floor. (Hey, it's a newsroom, not a firehall.)
OK, not everyone can be Clooney/Pitt/Reynolds/Knox perfect. The fact is, few of us are much to look at. And it can be argued that anyone who is not actually attractive is, by definition, unattractive. Jerry Seinfeld, in his eponymous television show, declared 90 to 95 per cent of the population "undateable." (Elaine: "Then how are all these people getting together?" Jerry: "Alcohol.")
But how would the authorities determine who is so hideous that the government has to step in? What are they supposed to do, park us in a bar at closing time and see who bites? Run us in front of an American Idol panel? Not sure I'd want Simon Cowell blanching, saying "Sorry, pal" and slipping me a $50 bill.
