Bigs do not correspond to the cult of performance
"We are hiring in our stores people who have a good appearance, because the beautiful attract beautiful, and we want to sell to cool and beautiful customers.» Pendant des années, l'Américain Michael Jeffries, dirigeant de la chaîne de magasins de vêtements Abercrombie & Fitch, a pu en toute impunité balancer ce genre de phrase, sans s'en prendre une.The slap, finally, falls in May 2013. Une pétition (75 000 signataires) et de savoureux détournements des pubs de la marque avec des slogans du style «Attractive & Fat» (séduisante et grosse) inondent la Toile.The press seizes it.The brand's scholarship course unscrews.In 2014, Michael Jeffries was asked to get dressed. Et pas chez Abercrombie & Fitch.Are we applauding very hard?Okay.But how many little Jeffries are still in nature?How many politicians still strive to pose only around young thin people, how many restaurants still relegate the ugly near the cabinets?How many employers still select their future employees according to the old method of "at the mouth of the customer" with a clear appetite for slender, blond or brown, for a very hierarchical position?These are some of the questions and spikes that the academic Jean-François Amadieu (Paris-i Panthéon Sorbonne) balances without malling in his latest work the society of appearance, the beautiful, the young ... and the others (1).Fourteen years after the publication of his success as a bookstore The weight of appearances, in which he showed that questions of physics are nothing frivolous and have until the judge, this is this scientific advisor at the Ministry of Labor, also a member of the'Enterprise Handicap agency, which is responsible.Climbing a notch.On what he now calls "tyranny of appearance";tyranny whose first victims are the big.Haro on grossophobia, this is his cry.
Nous serions victimes d’une tyrannie du paraître. Le terme n’est-il pas un rien exagéré ?
I know, the word is strong, but I wanted to underline the importance of the pressure of everyday appearance on individuals.Social networks and in particular Facebook have considerably increased it.Facebook daily users are estimated at 900 million.And every minute, 136,000 photos are sent to this network.There is an omnipresence of physical appearance and a distraught quest for Likes.And filigree, a cult of beauty and thinness.
Ce culte n’est pas nouveau…
Yes but he's going to crescendo since the 1970s.With increasingly unattainable objectives for women, because at the same time, the population tends to grow.There is also this cult of big breasts, incompatible with that of slimming.Suddenly, more and more women are not well in their bodies.And don't consider yourself.In 2004, 28 % of them planned to resort to cosmetic surgery;Ten years later, they are 41 %.Worryingly, we realize that these stereotypes of ideal beauty appear from childhood.When you show images of thin children, average or big weight to 3 -year -old girls, they have a very negative perception of big - stupid, unstopped, ugly, ordinary, little treated ... - whileThey value slim, nice, intelligent, calm.Children do not only react to the photos.When we play girls from 3 to 5 years old with dolls, thin, corpulence or round, the result is final: the large doll is decked out of all defects.The big ones, in our mentalities, do not correspond to the cult of good health and performance.However, appearing in bad health today, it's terrible.The episode of Hillary Clinton pneumonia is a typical example.Basically, we think that big and large are not competent, not dynamic, and in addition, they are made responsible for their situation, implying that their overweight is their fault, that they do not know how to master themselves.
Fait-on pour autant de la grossophobie ?
First, statistically, large represents a very important group in France and even more in the United States.There are thus 15 % obese among the French, but it is declarative and the figure of 18 % seems fairer, while 30 % are in overweight.And, yes, this part of the population is experiencing real rejection.Even more than the one who strikes the seniors and which we begin to become aware.Obesity, for example, is not even mentioned in the charters of diversity in companies.It has proven that large or obese women have lower wages than others.And it was not until 2014 that the defender of rights reported, in his annual barometer on the sidelining of the world of work, physical appearance as an important reason for discrimination.In this survey, it was job seekers, not the French in general, that we asked what was discriminating;And there, finally, the question of the physical appeared.In this question of physics, it is the most important obesity.More than being small or large.In addition, there is a double sorrow side with obesity, since it is shown that it is linked to the social environment, at age, and that it strikes more women.Woman in the RSA, over 40 years old living in the North, this is unfortunately the typical portrait.Several factors are accumulated and that may be why we don't see this problem enough.
Sommes-nous à ce point myopes ?
In France, questions of gender, sexual orientation, transsexuality or discrimination due to national origin - people from immigration - truses funding.I too tested this a lot, and we are now in Europe and the United States well documented.Last June there was a great "testing" on being "from diversity" in the public service.Coming from diversity!I hate this word.So there would be various people and others not ... Why turn around the pot?In any case, these questions of racism, since it is good, should not prevent us from looking at other subjects.In addition, it seems to me that it is more skillful to do investigations and fight against several discrimination at the same time.Okay, we cannot do everything, and in the law there are no less than 20 reasons of discrimination identified.Some say that if we attack everything, we will do nothing, and that is what we criticized for the Halde [High Authority for the Fight against Discrimination and for Equality, Editor's note] at the beginning.On the contrary, I think that focusing on discrimination, a single group, can be counterproductive.This stigmatizes.Hence the interest of the anonymous CV which makes it possible to deal with several problems both.
Mais il a été enterré, ce CV anonyme…
I am one of those who tried to save him.SOS racism also fought a lot.But the 2006 law on equal opportunities, which provided anonymity of candidates from 50 employees, has never been applied, for lack of decrees.Worse, it was repealed in August 2015.President François Hollande explained in September this year that the anonymous CV would not be implemented because he would turn against those he is supposed to protect.
Each time, we explain that, anyway, recruiters pass interviews after.That is true.But passing a first step is already that.And we can then encourage companies to pass real skills tests rather than rely on interviews.Pôle Emploi has developed these kinds of tests.You know, in the United States, on CVs, there is no photo and sometimes there is no age either.We, in France, ask very prying CVs.Why talk about his leisure activities?The height at the moment is that rather to focus on your tests, Pôle Emploi has been offering an application since last year allowing job seekers to make video CVs in which they can show themselves.It's ridiculous.If that is not the triumph of appearance.
(1) Odile Jacob editions, 223 pp, 22.90 euros, September 2016.
