[Coda]

Originally Posted by Glitch

I will say the one I sent the snarky response to was for something much like a bartender position. From past employers I also know they like to hire . . . or at least my last couple of bosses liked to hire "hot blondes." And we had one really attractive blonde lady working with us and whenever they would be talking about customer experience he'd say something like "make sure Julie is there to greet the customers." This always made me feel really uncomfortable XD And then some of the customers would like to talk about how they went to such and such place and there was this absolutely gorgeous gal there, or they would come in and ask if/when Julie was working. Man. . . so I just wanted to refuse to send a photo to these guys, even though I am certain it will keep them from ever calling me D:

A lot of customers would also bring Julie presents ._. /sojealous

This is, in fact, illegal, and if they're making hiring/scheduling/pay decisions based on whether or not the candidate is female (and, potentially, if she's white/Latina, if that factors into their idea of beauty) that's unacceptable.

There's exceptions that can be made for discrimination based on sex/etc. that's necessary for the job (it's not illegal to require a female actress to play a female character, for example, or to require that the pastor of a Christian church be Christian), but I think it'd be a hard sell to convince the labor board that a bartending job is better filled by a woman than by a man.

EDIT: However, giving preferential treatment to Julie after she's demonstrated a particular competence at her job (even if that competence is a result of her appearance) isn't illegal, because she's doing her job.