The Look Of Abercrombie & Fitch
Well, I guess I know where I'm not going to be working. I'll just have to take my ugly ass somewhere else, eh??
Two ex-managers for a clothing chain accused of discrimination say corporate representatives of the chain, Abercrombie & Fitch, routinely had them reduce the hours of less attractive salespeople....
Dan Moon and Andrea Mandrick say Abercrombie & Fitch were after a certain "look" for their sales force, and the less a salesperson had of this look, the less they worked.
"I was sick of getting my schedule back every week with lines through names," says Mandrick. "I can't look the people that work for me, that want to be there, in the eye and...lie to them and say 'Oh, we don't have hours,' when, really, it's because they weren't pretty enough."
Moon, a former model, had a similar experience and says his look is what got him a job. "I think it was 90 percent of it and your interaction with other people was 10 percent," he says....
A group of minorities suing Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't think the retailer has the right to hire based on a look, a look they say too often is mostly white. "[The look] is dominated by Caucasian, football-looking, blond hair, blue-eyed males. Skinny, tall. You don't see any African American, Asian Americans," says Jennifer Lu, an Asian who says she is suing the retailer for firing her and other Asians because management preferred white males.
Abercrombie & Fitch denies these accusations....
Businesses tailor their sales pitches to certain market segments all the time. There is nothing new in this practice, so it is understandable that a retailer might want it's sales force to reflect the demographic they are targeting. Of course, the problem with this practice is that there is a very fine line between targeting a demographic and outright discrimination and racism. That a company's management would so openly push this philosophy is reprehensible, but it can be a difficult thing to prove.
There is a very simple way to deal with discrimination of this sort if it offends you- take your money elsewhere and don't shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. The only language retailers understand is that of the cash register. If it begins to cha-ching with decreasing frequency, management will have no choice but to pay attention. We can register our disgust by shopping elsewhere- and it's not as if they're aren't a plethora of options available.
At the risk of sounding like a true Conservative, this is a case where the marketplace can be used to make a difference. Let your dollars do the talking by taking them elsewhere.
