Five New Job Titles That Are Corporate Code For "Hot Girl"

Moe — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:40:00 EDT

This will shock you, but apparently some women get jobs at hedge funds solely on the basis that they are hot. “You meet these bimbos and they say, ‘Oh, I work at a hedge fund,’ and you think, What?!?” one "head of an investment bank who pals around with high net worth investors" tells W Magazine. “And then you realize, Oh, this is, like, the PR girl. And it's a wildly successful strategy." Yeah, sure, until the only women working on Wall Street are brainless bimbos because all the smart women have been driven away by the financial sector's overpowering, self-destructive atmosphere of misogyny…oh wait. Anyway, the story — while it's annoyingly absent of internal memos detailing illegal hiring practices or, for that matter, pictures of any of these hedge fund hos — reminded me how, no matter which way the economy blows, the American workforce, since the days of flight attendants in hot pants, has always found a place — and a visa! — for a sufficiently hot girl. In fact, as those hedge fund gurus are well-aware, opportunities have never been brighter!

1. Television News Anchor. Okay, so this is obvious, but topical, because surely you've found yourself in recent weeks thinking, "What would Tim Russert's female equivalent look like?" And is there a single woman of prominence who looks anything remotely like her? No.
2. Pharmaceutical sales representative. (Or really, most jobs ending in "representative" now that our call centers have all been relocated in India.) Commonly recruited from college cheerleading teams, the practice of hiring hot drug reps probably originated around the time Big Pharma realized it could sell a lot of mood-enhancing pills to people who didn't need them if they took doctors out to dinner here and there. There's been some cutbacks in this industry since the major pharmaceutical companies got so focused on building their sales forces they forgot to develop any new drugs, but I bet being a babe doesn't hurt.
3. Any kind of "Director" that is not "Managing" This is obviously a gross generalization but my sense is that, from publishing to fashion to design to advertising to basically any sector besides film or traffic, "directing" is one of those things that can be done by people with minimal actual skill and therefore they probably got hired because their boss liked looking at them. I'm pretty sure "director" was a popular title at American Apparel, though in that case I might amend that last sentence to just finish reading "naked."
4. Intern When did all female magazine interns start looking like they'd been cast for a reality show? Seriously, when?
5. Italian cabinet member. In a scene in the latest British Esquire, Silvio Berlusconi is giving a town hall meeting and a woman rises from the audience to ask a question about the economy and her career prospects. "Don't worry," he tells her. "I'm sure a woman as beautiful as you can easily find a rich man to settle down with." But wait, it's not so bleak as all that! If she's really so insistent on working, I'm sure there's a spot for her in his cabinet.

Money Honeys [W Magazine]

Telling A Child She's Beautiful Could Be Sending The Wrong Message

Jessica — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:30:00 EDT

In today's Times of London, fashion editor Lisa Armstrong dissects what she deems our egregiously-lookist society. "Increasingly, looks are used to define women who never set out to compete by those rules," Armstrong points out. "The entire female flank of the French Cabinet has recently had their wardrobes pored over as if they were auditioning to fill in for Cate Blanchett on the red carpet while she takes a spot of maternity leave." Armstrong also quotes Fay Weldon, writer and insane-o, who, for once, makes a good point. "Nowadays, all little girls are told that they're beautiful by their mothers, even when they're not," Weldon says. "We're terribly conflicted. We don't want appearance to be important, but almost everything we do reinforces that they are."

At first I thought Weldon was just being an asshole, because all children are beautiful to their parents, but then it got me thinking — how often do you hear a mother tell her son that he's handsome? Very rarely. Strangers hardly ever come up to a male child and comment on his looks, while a female child, nearly from the day of her birth, will have all manner of people chattering about her appearance (true story: a total stranger once came up to my aunt and told her my 3-year-old cousin was "unfortunate looking."). [True story: At a wedding last year, during a post-ceremony toast, the father of the bride went on and on about how lucky his son-in-law was because his daughter is "so beautiful". -Ed.]

Are parents just making their daughters narcissistic by telling her she's attractive? Are they setting her up for disappointment if she's not that attractive in reality? Or are they buffeting her against possible future low self-esteem?

Looks Aren't Everything? Don't Kid Yourself [Times of London]

Jezebel: looksism

Five New Job Titles That Are Corporate Code For "Hot Girl"

Telling A Child She's Beautiful Could Be Sending The Wrong Message