What is Lookism and What Can We Do About It?

Aubrey Carter (0:00)

This is an All Ears English Podcast. What is lookism, and what can we do about it?

Lindsay McMahon (0:07)

Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. Coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com/subscribe.

Do you ever judge people by how good looking they are? Do you feel like others judge you? Today, find out about the term lookism and how to strike up a conversation about it in English.

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Aubrey Carter (1:34)

Hello, Lindsay. How are you?

Lindsay McMahon (1:37)

Hey, Aubrey. I'm doing great. Great to be back on the mic. We took a little break, although episodes still came out, but you and I hadn't recorded, haven't recorded in a few weeks here, so it's nice to be back on the microphone together.

Aubrey Carter (1:47)

It is nice to be back. And I have a question for you. This is going to be a really interesting topic today. And I'm wondering, do you ever judge someone based on their appearance?

Lindsay McMahon (1:57)

I mean, I think if you said no, it would be a lie, right? The human mind is designed to draw conclusions as quickly as possible because that's evolutionarily how we survived as a species, unfortunately. But I will say that what I try to do is when I make a judgment, I think about the fact that I just made a judgment. It's like an awareness, right? And I think, oh, could that be untrue?

Aubrey Carter (2:21)

At least you're questioning the prejudices, you might have the assumptions. And it might not necessarily be about someone's beauty or something physical, but maybe if they're slovenly dressed or seem like they have poor hygiene, things like that, it's hard to not draw conclusions about a person.

Lindsay McMahon (2:39)

Oh, for sure. I mean, and I know it happens on the other side. Like I know that when I bring my son into daycare now, I basically roll out of bed, feed him and then go in kind of like just and cut off jeans. And my hair is all over the place. And most parents drop off their kids when they are polished, ready for work and they're high heels. And I know I've been looked up and down and I know what they're thinking.

Aubrey Carter (3:01)

I've had that same experience. If I have to drop something off to kids at school, I'm like, I wonder what the other moms look like coming in. I'm like, barely dressed.

Lindsay McMahon (3:09)

Yes, it's just like, I work from home, okay? You know, so it happens on both sides. And so we're going to talk about this today. This is fascinating as a topic.

Aubrey Carter (3:19)

This was inspired by an article that I saw in The New Yorker that was called, Should We Do More to Fight Lookism? And I immediately was like, what is lookism? I had never heard this word. And Lindsay and I chatted briefly, you hadn't as well, right? So it's sort of a new term, I think. But it makes sense. This is the unfair treatment or discrimination of people based on their physical appearance. So judging someone's character, intelligence or value because of how they look. And that can be anything about their appearance, then something that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their character, but it's a judgment solely based on how they look.

Lindsay McMahon (3:53)

Completely. Guys, we love to get into topics like this, thought-provoking, new cultural topics. And we're going to show you later in the episode how you can talk with another English speaker about this too. So hit follow if you love our style. We'll show you how, most importantly, to connect around good conversation.

Aubrey Carter (4:11)

Yes, exactly because this is such an interesting topic. It's very cultural. I'm sure it's different around the world. But all of us have observed it, or noticed it, or found ourselves doing it. So definitely something that's interesting to talk about.