The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law [Paperback]

The Beauty Bias is a powerful attack on what the author, with some justification, considers a superficial society that values appearance, especially in women, over almost everything else. Most of us who have taken Psych 101 have heard of the halo effect, the tendency to consider attractive people smarter and kinder than less attractive people. Although she doesn't use that term, Professor Rhode shows how much harm it is causing people. My favorite example of absurdity (and sexism)was that of Sarah Palin's campaign, who spent more on her makeup expert than on her foreign policy consultant.

No free market absolutist, Rhode argues persuasively that businesses should not have the right to discriminate against someone because of their appearance. She makes a case that people discriminated against because of appearance have every much as legal and moral right to sue in court as did the civil rights movement or any other cause. The Beauty Bias is an important, well-reasoned book that should be read by anyone concerned about these issues.

The title notwithstanding, the book isn't really about "the beauty bias" as either a psychological or social phenomenon (Rhode is a lawyer, not a social scientist). It is rather about appearance discrimination in general, focusing mostly on discrimination based on race, disability, and obesity. I have no trouble believing such bias exists; sadly, though, Rhode does very little to prove it.

Rarely have I seen a valid point so poorly argued. Rhode's argument is ill-supported, faulty in logic, frequently off-topic, and repetitious. I'm not sure how one manages to continuously repeat oneself in only 161 pages of text, but Rhode accomplishes it. Overall, the book gives the impression of having been an over-long law review article that the law students at most major universities justifiably declined to publish.

The major problem with the book is that Rhode does not seem capable of formulating a coherent argument starting from a well-supported premise to a logical conclusion. Instead, she starts with some irrelevant personal anecdotes, throws around a number of disorganized facts gathered and claims made by others, impugns appearance-based discrimination with only minimal and unsatisfactory refutation of counterarguments, and makes some mostly arbitrary policy recommendations unsupported by any evidence of their effectiveness. By the end, the impression is that you have been the victim of a peroration rather than a scholarly work, and been made to pay for it in the bargain.

One irony here is that I believe the problem Rhode discusses, identified by psychologists long ago (taking one incarnation as the "Halo Effect"), is perfectly real and deserves serious consideration. Another is that this book is written by a chaired professor of law at Stanford Law School, conventionally ranked among the highest in the country. It is published by one of the most prestigious academic publishers in the world. Both of which prove that reputation ranks among the least reliable indicators of quality. This gives me an idea for another book: "The Unmerited Reputation Bias." I want back my money and the 6 hours of my life spent reading this.

This book is breathtakingly innovative and powerfully written. It is about using law to help remedy appearance-based discrimination--a type of discrimination that is epidemic but never addressed.