Appearance, Disability and the Law

People with disfigurements often face prejudice, exclusion and discrimination in employment and across other life contexts. Law's response to this evidence is flawed both by its own limited and illogical scope and its failure to understand the perspectives of those people who may need to use it. Drawing on interviews with both people with lived experience of disfigurement and employers, the book sketches out different approaches to the complex social problem of discrimination against people with visible differences. It also asks whether, in our changing social context, law should widen its protection beyond disfigurement. Would a protected characteristic of appearance offer viable legal rights to the many millions of us who do not have a disfigurement but who are prone to a few spots, whose ears stick out more than we would like, or who are carrying an extra stone in weight?

• Draws together scholarship from a variety of disciplines, including law, psychology, sociology and organizational behaviour
• Provides a novel analysis of the relationships between models of disability, appearance and the law
• Explores and critiques the law on disfigurement equality