Too Sexy For My Job
link Iowa Top Court: Firing of Attractive Aide Is Legal – ABC News.
“They know not what they do.” This is probably the best way to sum up this Iowa court ruling’s consequences in the years to come. The fact that this ruling was made by an all male panel of judges is particularly quizzical, unless of course, they are all married. In that case, we can assume there was some outside ‘influence.’
What this ruling does however is set a precedent for an entire generation of lawyers to live off the avails of more stupid lawsuits. Corporations that are in the beauty business had better start taking note. If people who are ‘attractive’ can be summarily fired just for their attractive appearance, there will be no incentive for people, women in particular, to doll up for their jobs. Who is Bill Clinton going to get to work for him?
As in most policies or laws that are enacted which run counter to common sense, the consequent results are often the opposite of what was desired. Think about minimum wage legislation as an example. Ostensibly implemented to protect lower rung entry level workers, what this actually does is to discourage employers from hiring a worker with no experience, instead opting to hire the more qualified person for the higher wage. This results in more unemployment for the lower rung workers, not more. Think about the recent implementation of the so called Obamacare act. All of sudden, employers are cutting back on full time workers and making part timers a larger part of their workforce. So now, fewer people get medical coverage, not more.
In the case of being able to use appearance as a reason to dismiss someone, we can see HR departments all across the country getting ready to ax people for having greasy hair, tattoos, nose rings, shaved or Mohawk heads or being just plain ugly. So what will happen is that attractive people will get jobs to the exclusion of uglies, fatsos and other visual undesireables. Hmm, in that case, the daytime television show, The View may be on its last legs.