By S. Kershaw

NEW YORK: It would be close to impossible to tally all the magazine articles, scholarly treatises and philosophical works, reality shows and Internet sites, college courses, lectures and books devoted to the subject of beauty.

But what about ugliness?

It is an awkward topic, a wretched concept, really, and, of course, a terrible insult when flung in your direction.

When a woman once told Winston Churchill he was drunk, he is said to have replied: “And you, madam, are ugly. But I shall be sober tomorrow, whereas you will still be ugly.”

Ugliness is associated with evil and fear, with villains and monsters: the Wicked Witch of the West, Freddy Krueger and Harry Potter's arch-meanie, Lord Voldemort, with his veiny skull, creepy slits in his nose for nostrils and rotten teeth.

There are the gentle souls, too, plagued through no fault of their own by their disturbing appearance: Dr. Frankenstein's monster, the Elephant Man and Shrek, who is ugly and green but in a cute way.

Ugliness has recently emerged as a serious subject of study and academic interest unto itself. Sociologists, writers, lawyers and economists have begun to examine the subject, suggesting that it has been marginalized in history and that discrimination against the unattractive, while difficult to document or prevent, is a quiet but widespread injustice.

Researchers who have tried to measure appearance discrimination, or “uglyism,” and the impact of what they call the “beauty premium” and the “plainness penalty” on income, say that the time has come for ugly to peek out from beauty’s shadow.

“It hasn’t been politically correct to talk about uglyism,” said Anthony Synnott, a professor of sociology at Concordia University in Montreal, who is publishing a paper this month on ugliness. “But there’s no reason for us to think that beautiful people are actually good and ugly people evil, yet we do.”

One pioneering study, “Beauty and the Labor Market,” published in the American Economic Review in 1994, estimated that unattractive men and women earn 5 to 10 percent less than those considered attractive or beautiful, and that less attractive women marry men with less money.

Another study, in 2005, determined that the discrimination was consistent across occupations, so that even a computer programmer buried behind a desk could suffer from the plainness penalty.

“People who are physically attractive might develop better communication skills because the tendency is that from an early age they get more attention from all their caregivers, including their own mothers onward,” said Tanya Rosenblat, an associate professor of economics at Iowa State University, and an author of the 2005 study “Why Beauty Matters,” published in the American Economic Review. The study tested how volunteers, in the role of employers, rated the ability of “employees” to complete computer mazes. The volunteers predicted that the more attractive employees could complete more of the mazes.

The study authors concluded that because attractiveness has no bearing on the ability to complete computer mazes – unlike a job in which beauty may be an occupational asset like retail sales – discrimination based on looks occurs across occupations.

Some U.S. cities, including Washington, San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California, have passed ordinances banning discrimination based on looks. But legal action on behalf of the unattractive can be complicated.

“Because of successful identity politics, people have come to identify profoundly with other kinds of groups – ‘I am a Jew’ or ‘a French person,’” said Sherry Colb, a law professor at Cornell. “But it’s not likely with ‘I am an ugly person and let’s have a meeting of all ugly people.’ Most people in general would want to disclaim membership. It’s like declaring yourself a member of the clueless.”

Defining ugliness is difficult. Beyond a predictable visceral response to cartoon ogres or Halloween witches, is there any agreement on what makes someone or something ugly? Social scientists investigating beauty have found that people across age groups, races and cultures tend to agree on what constitutes facial attraction; but there is no corresponding body of study that measures homeliness. Synnott of Concordia University, who has written and taught courses on beauty for more than a decade, was recently contacted by an online journal to contribute another article on the topic. He suggested instead that he write about ugliness.

In his article, “Ugliness, Visibility and the Invisible Prejudice,” to appear this month in the first issue of Glimpses Journal, Synnott notes that judgments about appearance imply values about good and evil – the “halo-horns effect.” These conclusions are “false, unfair, dangerous and silly; yet it is perpetuated by our language, literature, media,” Synnott writes in his paper. Many colloquialisms, like “beauty is only skin deep,” suggest that there is collective acknowledgment that the fixation on physical beauty is superficial, he writes.

By contrast, the phrase “ugliness is only skin deep,” is rarely heard, Synnott said, adding that the booming cosmetic surgery industry underscores the plainness prejudice.

“Beautiful people are considered to be more intelligent, sexier, more trustworthy and they have more partners,” Synnott said. “And this implies that ugly people are assumed to be less trustworthy and less intelligent.”

By contrast, the phrase “ugliness is only skin deep,” is rarely heard, Synnott said, adding that the booming cosmetic surgery industry underscores the plainness prejudice.

“Beautiful people are considered to be more intelligent, sexier, more trustworthy and they have more partners,” Synnott said. “And this implies that ugly people are assumed to be less trustworthy and less intelligent.”

The International Herald Tribune. 2008, November 3

1. Classify all the nonverbal means of communication mentioned in the text.

2. What are the stereotypes associated with different physical types of people?

3. What is the essence of the “plainness prejudice”?

Ex. 2. Discussion. Express your opinion about the following. Do you agree that physical ugliness is a taboo subject?

Ex. 3. Follow-up. Discuss what role physical attractiveness as well as unattractiveness play in people’s lives, in their ability to persuade and manipulate others.

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