Lookism
Lookism – a form of social discrimination characterized by biased attitudes toward people whose appearance does not conform to socially accepted standards of beauty.
The concept of lookism entered scholarly usage in 1978 in connection with the struggle of overweight people for their rights.
As a scholarly category, lookism may be defined in different ways. It can be understood as an umbrella term for a group of appearance-based forms of discrimination, including:
- beautyism – discrimination based on physical attractiveness or conformity to beauty standards;
- weightism – discrimination based on excessive or insufficient body weight;
- heightism – discrimination based on height;
- sizeism – discrimination based on body size or clothing size, and therefore often related to weight;
- ethno-lookism – discrimination against an ethnic group on the basis of visible physical features.
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