Abercrombie & Fitch Case Study

The case study we analyzed was the North American clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F), which was founded in Manhattan, New York over 100 years ago, currently with over 1000 stores worldwide. A study conducted in 2015 from a man by the name of Samuel V. Bruton was completed to examine the morality of looks-based hiring. Abercrombie & Fitch is notorious for hiring those who fit the “all-American image,” while subjugating those who do not fit into this look by sending them to the stockroom, where these people are isolated from intermingling with customers; A&F admitted to hiring based on physical appearance. Our society is built upon a certain standardized beauty, where we have certain standards for aspects such as skin colour, height,

Those who are against looks-based hiring believe that it is morally unjust to hire based on physical appearances, as it detracts from the favourable notion in society that people should be hired based on their competency, or brains over beauty. Conversely, the reason why looks-based hiring is viewed as being ethical, is that if it provides a significant enough economic gain for the company, then the practice of looks-based hiring is ethical. The benefits of beauty appear to be significant in many societies divergent from North America. Those with a “standardized beauty” make more money over the course of a lifetime than average or “non-attractive” people. A&F admitted to selling based on a “social status”- they are targeting the “cool kids”, and if an attractive employee is working for the company, then that will draw youth into buy their clothing. This case study sides in favour of looks-based hiring being principled, and argues that although looks-based hiring is a form of discrimination, there are many other forms of discrimination within the workplace during the hiring processes, from judging mental capacity to selecting one candidate over

(???) Arguments in favour of looks-based hiring conclude many companies take part in discrimination throughout their hiring processes when they are sifting through applicants to find the “perfect” candidate. There are different attributes being sought after by many companies. For example, one job might require a high IQ level, while another job might require having a good speaking voice. Therefore, looks-based hiring advocates that an attribute of beauty should not be treated any differently. Hence, job relevance is extremely important to job hiring processes, and does not constitute discrimination. Those against looks-based hiring argue that effective functioning of the job can depend on more than how well one does the job, however the looks of a person also has a large effect on the job productivity and overall economic gain. In summation, this article in favour of looks-based hiring states that this form of hiring is not discriminatory, as it is less of a bias towards unattractive people and more of a preferred taste for attractive