Law professor pushes for end to discrimination based on appearance

A Stanford law professor is finally laying the groundwork in the human world for what may lead to the end of appearance bias. Transferring this concept to horses may take time, though.

In her book “The Beauty Bias,” Deborah Rhode proposes a ban on discriminating on the basis of looks in the same way that the government has banned discrimination based on race and gender.

Rhode says appearance bias is rampant and points to survey statistics that reveal that 11 percent of couples said they would abort a fetus predisposed to obesity and students would rather be married to a crook than someone who was fat.

Other statistics bear this out. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin say good looking people receive higher salaries and marry better looking and more successful spouses.

Rhode says statistics show that less attractive people are poorer and more likely to get a longer prison sentence.

Oddly, officials in the upper echelon of the Connemara world have been biased against good looks as opposed to in favor of them.

Run through the Connemara breed standards, and each one is designed to make sure the horses don’t look too beautiful, or rather too much like thoroughbreds, despite the thoroughbred bloodlines being let into the breed by the Irish in the 1940s. God forbid the horses’ looks reflect their genes.

This anti-beauty standard puts Connemaras who conform to the coarse breed standards at a disadvantage in a world that is obsessed with beauty. How can a horse that passes inspection because it has great “bone” compete in a show ring where beauty, athleticism, grace, power and intelligence are the standards by which the animal is judged.

One has nothing to do with another.

What if people were judged in a job interview by the shape of their jaw line or the circumference of their shin bone rather than their skills?

Well, in fact they are. Newsweek reported in 2010 that more than half of hiring managers surveyed said that people who were qualified but unattractive would have more difficulty getting a job, and half of those managers said applicants should spend as much effort on looking attractive as they do on sprucing up their resume.

We are asking that Connemaras that meet the ugly, or coarse, standards of today’s inspections go into the horse job world in a recession and compete with the more beautiful breeds, where they are met by a judge who is likely to look past the big jowl and chunky shins for the more eye-catching candidate.

And don’t tell me this is why we have breed competitions. How stupid is it to handicap your horses in the open show world and then hold your own little show so you can earn blue ribbons.

Why Connemara society members insist on this ugly standard might be a question for the ages.

It can’t be overlooked that at least some of them raised ugly horses for years and got their feelings hurt when pretty horses beat their offspring.

We also know historically that people tend to be attracted to things similar to themselves.

According to Linda Roberts, a professor of human development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: “People choose mates who have the same ear-lobe length or nose width. It seems to be unconscious, but we do have a propensity to choose people who look similar to ourselves.” She adds that men and women tend to choose partners with the same level of attractiveness. People with actor good looks choose the equivalent, and those in the middle of the pack looks-wise also search for their attractive equivalents, she says.

If the people pushing this agenda are truly coarse-looking themselves, wouldn’t one expect them to be fighting against appearance bias rather than for it? It is puzzling.

Rhode, the Stanford law professor, says there are laws against appearance discrimination on the books in Michigan and six municipalities.

All it will take is one good legal case — such as Brown v. Board of Education for race bias or Lawrence v. Texas for gay bias — to push the needle in the right direction to end appearance bias across the country.

Once this happens, animal lovers should be on more solid footing to build a legal case against breed standards. The Connemara world thinks I am alone on this journey, but I get email all the time that says otherwise. The day is coming. Dog and horse breeds investing thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on inspections and dragging people all over the country or world for this practice should wonder if it’s worth it since the days of these inspections will come to an end, and their fancy schmancy stud books will be tossed out.

Every horse born a Connemara is a Connemara, period. No one gets to decide that it is not.

Younger generations of Americans have no tolerance for discrimination, and they are the future. Breed inspections are finished. Eugenics should have been finished a long time ago. It’s nothing short of abominable that this practice still exists. But its end is inevitable.

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If you’ve missed my previous posts on this topic, please visit my post on the BBC documentary on breed standards and decide for yourself if eugenics has any place in the 21st century.