There's a complication with this study, which is that it seems really weird in the first place to attach a photo to a resume. (Maybe this is different in Israel -- anyone?) A photo is out of the ordinary and prompts people to think up an explanation for it. One possible explanation HR staff and potential interviewers might come up with is that the person relies on their looks as a career asset. That assumption is easier made about women than about men because it better fits gender stereotypes, which could account for the discrepancy without bringing the gender of the HR workers into the explanation.<p>(A picture of an unattractive person would not provoke suspicion that the person expects to get by on their sex appeal instead of their performance, so "plain" women and men would not be stigmatized for attaching a picture.)<p>Because attaching a picture prompts the recipient to wonder why, and possibly to make different assumptions about the applicant based on the explanation they come up with, I think the situation is too complicated for it to be possible to draw conclusions from the results. I don't disagree with the researchers' explanation, though. Even when we try to be fair, the idea of an attractive person getting by on their looks is more viscerally offensive, and threatening, when the person is of the same sex. Men might think it's lame and shitty if a woman relies on her looks, but if a man is rising in the office by charming and chatting up female managers, it goes beyond "lame" and becomes a personal threat. Ditto for women. Both sexes "appreciate" sex appeal as part of a charming personality when it appeals to us and stigmatize it as dangerous when it competes with us.
Reminds me of a friend from college. She's now an astrophysicist. It seemed to me she had some trouble being taken seriously, because she was drop-dead gorgeous. Demure girl next door looks with a body that was swimsuit model material. (Even sans airbrushing)<p>I think some people saw her, learned what her major was, then concluded it was too good to be true. Also, it was hard for a lot of guys to think with 100% efficiency in her presence.
> The researchers’ unavoidable—and unpalatable—conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates.<p>I could believe that women tend to discriminate subconsciously against unattractive women; though I don't think the reverse finding would have surprised me either. But did the study actually show that men don't discriminate against attractive women?<p>edit: the paper is here, it seems to be open access: <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1705244" rel="nofollow">http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1705244</a><p>From skimming through, it looks like they don't compare whether the hirer is male or female. But<p>* Employment agencies prefer no-photos, but don't discriminate between attractive and plain women.<p>* Companies hiring for themselves don't discriminate between no-photos and plain women, but discriminate against attractive women.<p>Which is evidence in favour of jealousy: the people who won't work with them don't feel threatened. The paper is considerably more thorough than this though.
Please submit the original Economist article.<p>Forbes has this habit of taking other people's articles and slapping ads on them. They're robbing original authors of eye balls.<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21551535" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/node/21551535</a>
I'm guessing that it's the same for men (when viewed by other men).<p>I've recently started applying around using both my linkedin account and also a text version of my resume. Since linkedin is nice enough to show me who has looked at my profile recently, I often see which companies and which person has looked. Because I'm a programmer, often it's a guy reviewing my profile.<p>I don't have enough data points to be conclusive, but it's looking like I get better results from my text resume (that is, the companies that don't show up as having viewed my linkedin). I was starting to wonder if the photo on my linkedin was turning people away, since the content was generally the same.