European Commission is considering mandating burqa

Will this be your next interview outfit?

A Brussels law firm has issued an internal set of recruitment rules to guide their HR department in the selection of new candidates. Amidst those rules, one prohibition shocked sufficiently some employees to be leaked to the BJ: the firm clearly states that beautiful women should not be recruited, regardless of their merit.

The short explanation given by the firm in its note is that a recent Dutch study published in the scientific paper “Hormones and Behavior” has shown that beautiful women are bad for men’s health, as seeing them generates stress hormones called cortisol. Inducing such stress is obviously bad for health, hence the law firm’s recommendations.

These guidelines closely follow an opposite finding in the United States where Deborah L. Rhode , a professor of law and the director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford University, and author of The Beauty Bias, analysed a blog discussion entitled: “Are Attractive People Better Lawyers?” posted on the Above the Law blog. What prompted the question was a quotation from an unnamed hiring “professional” who acknowledged that she would write “This person is attractive” on an applicant’s cover letter before forwarding it to law firms. In her experience, “whether they admit it or not, many employers feel that having pretty female employees will reflect well on their firm.”

So ugly women lawyers have it made in Brussels and don’t stand a chance in the US? Unacceptable, says Commissioner Andor, in charge of Employmanet, Social Affairs and Inclusion for the European Commissioner. Andor’s team are looking into the matter and one could except an “Interview Regulation” to be issued soon. Though no one wanted to comment on the specifics of this Regulation, the BJ was told unofficially that it was looking into some quite drastic measures, such as forcing all interviews of female candidates to take place with the women in question covered by a burqa.

“A perfect solution”, said a member of Andor’s cabinet, “except that we need to fine-tune it for those countries, such as Belgium, where burqas are outlawed on the street. This will probably require an intermediary step where the women come to the location of an interview with a brown paper bag on their head, and are offered the possibility to change to a burqa once they are in the premises”.

The Women’s Liberation Front is outraged by this proposal. Their spokesperson, Millie Strong, stated at a press conference that “as always, it’s the women that have to pay for the fact that men can’t control their hormones. It is outrageous and humiliating.” We were told that the WLF were working on a counter proposal whereby all interviews would be conducted either in the dark or by blindfolding the interviewers, hence leaving the interviewed women unrestrained.