'Looks Are The Last Bastion Of Discrimination'

We live in a world with an abundant amount of followers and not enough leaders. Society is focusing on maintaining youth, accomplishing ideal body builds, conforming to popular fashion trends, and unveiling a physical appearance that is acceptable and pleasing to others. The followers of the world follow, for lack of a better term, the rest of society so that they themselves do not fall out of the social realm. The leaders of the world are not conflicted with the trends of mainstream America, they hold strong to what they want to pursue and don't let others' discrimination penetrate and influence their ideals. Mainstream America puts an image on every American individual and if one is to not live up to its expectation then the population, as

Everyone judges and I personally have first hand experience; to judge is human nature, but to stray away from judgement makes you a better person as a whole. Whether they be obese, unattractive, skinny, or appealing society judges constantly. "Looks Are the Last Bastion of Discrimination," written by Deborah L. Rhode, is a text about the affects of not fitting into the social ideal image. Rhode says that in the nineteenth century, a Chicago ordinance was passed that made it illegal for "unsightly" individuals to be seen in public. Any "unsightly" or unattractive person that was seen in public was issued a one dollar fine. Another scenario Rhode brought to attention was the story out of Texas. In Texas of 1994, a 240 pound woman was rejected from a job as a school bus driver as she was seen unfit for the job. The company doctor for the public schools system inferred that the woman wasn't up for the tasks the job held which included evacuating children from the motor vehicle in case of an emergency. Truth be told, the woman was never given any agility test to see if she even could be fit for the job because of the discrimination placed on

Body art and clothing choices are big components of fashion. David Kirby, author of "Inked Well" writes about how he once hated tattoos and thought they made people look unsophisticated, if you will. He met with many people who had gotten tattoos in the past and one specific person he met changed his whole reasoning as to why he thought tattoos were unnecessary. Her name was Jodie, and of all the subjects Kirby interviewed, Jodie was the most kind-hearted. Jodie, a recent self-abuser, shared with Kirby why she had spent so many long, tedious hours in the tattoo shop and her response was, "It didn't take me long to realize that getting tattooed was quite comparable to cutting myself; it was a way for me to 'bleed out' the emotional pains which I was unable to deal with otherwise.(Inked Well )" Tattooing caused Jodie to find an alternative way to release her pain. David Kirby was very much so a follower of society and by the end of his endeavor into the effects of tattooing he found he had a newfound respect for the "outsiders." Today more and more people are getting tattoos and in return they are becoming more acceptable; if discrimination towards tattooing can diminish then so can any other discriminatory