Appearance Discrimination

Perusing ALDaily.com this morning I came upon the following, "Prejudice against unattractive people in the workplace runs deep. Obese women earn 12% less than thinner co-workers with similar qualifications... " with the following link: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6090/the_beauty_bias_at_work_and_what_should_be_done_about_it/

For it's overall generality, I find this new bugaboo very attractive. It's very close to perception discrimination but not quite so vacuous. As in trying to pin fog to a wall or a piece of bologna, appearance has substance and is easier to classify. It includes age, race, and ethnic discrimination as well as fat, ugly, and handicapped discrimination. Not perfection but close.

I don't doubt the reality of this sort of social banishment. An ugly face is difficult to look upon unless you manage to engage the eyes. As the fabled windows of the soul, eye contact allows for more authentic communication but it is difficult to maintain with the distraction of striking physical attributes.

Discrimination of itself is not evil. We discriminate between what foods we eat, clothes we wear, where we live. It is only when another suffers from our choices that it becomes a concern. A concern of our own, not that of society. Being the change you wish to see (to paraphrase Gandhi's statement) is truly the only course one can follow to equality. An appreciation of the difficulty in altering inherent prejudices within oneself allows for a less stringent view of another's inability to follow the same path. There are as many paths as there are living things and it appears to me that all the paths lead ultimately to the same destination. Your path is your choice, discrimination again. We are all creatures of one sort or another huddling together in groups for protection and support.

As a child in the 1950's I was nannied by Mr. Farnsworth's television and one of my earliest role models was Alan Watts, whose program I enjoyed as more for his soothing voice and manner than for what he had to say which I am not sure I could comprehend at the time, but he seeed to be such a nice man, a gentle man. In his book, Beyond Theology, he states, "To be quite sure, to be set, fixed, and firm is to miss the point of life." I've liked that from the moment I first read it. It seems to me to be true to the flow of existence and fits right in with the survival techniques taught to me by the U.S. Army which I condense to, "Stay on the balls of your feet and use your peripheral vision. Stay alert, stay alive". Nothing is certain, change is constant. It smells like evolution.