I predict that the next front in the struggle for equality will be
prejudice based on physical features: attractiveness, height, and weight.
I have never worn makeup, and I have often mocked women who do. In
my mind, makeup created an artificial face, and I have been a devotee of the
natural. “Why can’t women be like men,” I thought, “and live with the face they
were given?”
Recently the New York Times
had a forum about the use of makeup, “Does Makeup Hurt Self-Esteem,” with brief essays on both sides of
the issue. One was by Nancy Etcoff, an
assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School and a research
psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has done research into the
perception of women’s faces with and without makeup.
Her
experiments showed that when a viewer first saw a face with makeup, the initial
reaction was positive, but upon longer reflection, the more dramatic the makeup
the less trustworthy the person was judged to be.
We asked people to rate photographs of women with and without makeup. Seen very quickly (250 milliseconds), women wearing makeup looked more attractive, likeable, competent and trustworthy to our viewers than those who went without it. On longer inspection, responses became varied and nuanced. Faces with natural makeup were seen favorably but faces with more dramatic makeup were seen as less trustworthy.
This seemed to validate my prejudice against makeup, but then I read
her journal article online and changed my mind. Ms Etcoff and her
associates cite four different studies showing a strong prejudice against
unattractive people in the workplace. Men and women who are judged to be
unattractive have a harder time getting hired, earn lower salaries, and are
judged to be less intelligent and competent.
