Brian Boyd: High heels and the curse of the beautiful people

When Nicola Thorp wrote last week that she had been sent home without pay from her job as a receptionist at Pricewaterhouse Cooper in London for refusing to wear high heels, the whole world agreed that the degree to which her heels were elevated had nothing to do with her ability to do her job.

But the company were perfectly entitled to send her home without pay due to the fact that employers retain the right to impose a formal dress code in the workplace.

The statement from PwC's outsourcers says: "These policies ensure staff are dressed consistently and include recommendations for appropriate style of footwear for the role." The reason, one can only assume, why some companies include a high heel requirement for women, is as the director of a law firm specialising in workplace discrimination, Lawrence Davis, says "they think high heels make women look sexy". And, as Davis elaborates, "being sexy at work is not a job requirement".

Hypocrisy

“Sexy” or “physical attractiveness” as it applies to women and men in the workplace is an explosively loaded term beset by hypocrisy and contradictions. We are socialised by family, the education system and the culture at large to believe that a person’s physical appearance should have no bearing on their value and worth. But every single study, for decades now, from the sharpest minds in academia and beyond, has brought forward compelling, irrefutable evidence that our physical appearance has an awful lot to do with our financial value and our societal worth.

The noted economist, Daniel Hamermash – author of Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People are More Successful – introduced the term "pulchronomics" and was able to calculate how much more a physically attractive employee earns over a lifetime. Yes, he agreed, it is bad for society that business rewards better looking employees – but the world of business argued back that they their figures showed better looking people brought in more work. And were easier on the eye to boot.

Deborah Rhode, a law Professor at Stanford University, wrote The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law in which she argues that the "beauty bias" – in which attractive people are paid more, promoted more and generally perceived as "better" people – is virtually immune to legal challenge.

Rhode, who struggles to see why any woman would wear high heels at work, believes the situation is as dangerously pernicious and widespread as bias on race and gender that legal protection is now necessary. Whereas we have legally enshrined the right of people not to be judged on race, gender, sexuality, faith, age and disability, can we really legislate against what is known as “lookism” – the last great “ism” of our times?

‘Instinctive’

Dr

Catherine Hakim

, a senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics, says it goes further than better pay and promotion prospects. “People seek out the physically attractive, the positive response to them is instinctive; we even attribute values to them which aren’t necessarily there. The world really does smile on these people – and as a result they tend to move faster forward with their lives.”

And it’s the cluster of attributes around the base notion of attractiveness that facilitates this. “It’s not just beauty, it’s social skills, good dress sense, physical fitness, even a person’s sex appeal,” says Hakim. “This seems like cheating, in that we are supposed to live in a meritocracy but if you have these attributes you become more attractive in the eyes of your friends, your work colleagues, your business contacts and prospective sexual partners.”

Hakim has substantial data to prove that the economic benefits of physical and social attractiveness to a person are “substantial”.

I once happened to be in a nightclub with Naomi Campbell. As she was due at another function, she reached into her handbag, took out a short black dress that fitted into the palm of her hand, went to the ladies to change. When she re-emerged, she brought all conversations to a stop and in the silence that followed all eyes moved to her. That is the raw, potent power of beauty. Whether we like it or not.

Deep down, we are very shallow. Newborn babies will fix their gaze on pictures of attractive people and ignore those of less attractive people. We are innately prejudiced - and lookism is the “ism” that we are all guilty of.