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The glasses issue


efaardvark

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πŸ˜‚Β 

At first it sounds quite ridiculous. When you realize that it affects quite a few people, it seems a bit more serious. I had heard about the high heels thing recently, which is also mentioned in the article.

The matter however is not as simple as it seems. Naturally, we might be quick to condone it, but might not realize that similar practices might exist in Western societies as well.

Glasses reasoning and similar things in the West
If we take this particular example, the main reason cited against it seems to be some sort of expected income loss for the company/business. The reasoning, as I see it, being something like, women wearing glasses give a displeasing impression. A displeasing impression will reduce sales. Employees should avoid reducing sales. Therefore, women should not wear glasses in the workplace. This reasoning, I think, is not too dissimilar from companies in the West who in their employment agreement demand some sort of 'professional attire' in the sense that you must wear something like a suit. Personally, I think both of these examples don't work, as I don't think their underlying claims are true. I don't think wearing glasses will lead to reduced sales, just as well as I don't think wearing a suit will lead to increased sales.

Discriminatory against women or not
What is a bit different in this example seems to be that it is targeted specifically at women wearing glasses. While this might seem discriminatory at first, I don't think it necessarily is. If we were to assume (and I am not saying this is something that should be assumed) that women wearing glasses give a displeasing impression, but men wearing glasses does not, I think you'd have a reason why women should not, but men could, wear them. Given recent other things, like the high heels example, I highly doubt that a decent evaluation of factors hurting sales has been conducted. Taking everything into account it seems more likely that some people seem to have certain societal expectations which are later tried to be rationalized, i.e. 'I don't think women should wear glasses in the workplace, now let's find a reason how we could argue for it'.

On a more general level, I think the idea of putting business interests over what employees wear is misguided. I do think everyone agrees that there should be certain limits. People showing to work naked might for several reasons be something that should be prohibited. The simple reason of 'this might lead to reduced sales' is for me not a sufficient ground to restrict what employees can wear, but I am aware that others see this differently.

Edited by Illusion of Terra
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how are they supposed to see??

contacts are two to three times as expensive as glasses...im not sure about the cost or coverage in japan because idk how healthcare works there, but since the eye vision industry is a worldwide monopoly, id assume costs would be pretty similar there, like glasses being in the $50-$200 depending on frames, they can be pretty affordable. and contacts being $200+ depending on astigmatism ect, plus you have to get new ones every few months and you can keep glasses for several years before having to replace them.. this is just elitist, misogynistic,Β and unnecessary

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