Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and respectable occupations. Personal consultants give better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants (被告). But in the executive circle, beauty can become a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.
Handsome male executives were perceived as having more integrity than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to account for their success.
Attractive female executives were considered to have less integrity than unattractive ones; their success was attributed not to ability but to factors such as luck.
All unattractive women executives were thought to have more integrity and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Increasingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight successes was attributed more to personal relationships and less to ability than was that of attractive overnight successes.
Why are attractive women not thought to be able An attractive woman is perceived to be more feminine (女性的) and an attractive man more masculine (男性的) than the less attractive ones. Thus an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally masculine position appears to lack the "masculine" qualities required.
This is true even in politics. "When the one clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently," says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates. She asked 125 undergraduates to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of women, in order of attractiveness. The students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.
The results showed that attractive males utterly defeated unattractive men, but the women who had been ranked most attractive invariably received the fewest votes.
The word "liability (Line 4, Para. 1)" most probably means "______."