Student name: Nguyn H My

Class: PG21
Student ID: 15046241

ADVANCED SPEAKING AND LISTENING COURSE

Persuasive speech
Speech title: Appearance discrimination
Purpose: persuade listeners that having attractive appearance can
sometimes be disadvantageous
Modern society nowadays has the
tendency to over-evaluate physical
appearance of a people. In another
word, people tend to believe that life
is easier for good-lookers.
This statement, in my opinion, is not
completely true because there are
also ugly sides of being beautiful.
It seems paradoxical to talk about
the problems of being beautiful.
You may do not believe in such
existence. But researchers have
proven this to be real.

To begin with, beautiful people tend

to be treated differently by people
from their own genders for.
In a research of Maria Agthe, the
result claims that attractive person is
at a disadvantage in a hiring process
if the decision-makers are the same
sex. This maybe the result of

During the speech, I use personal

pronouns such as I, you to relate
audience to my speech.

The statement is paradoxical

because I want to arouse curiosity
from audience ugly sides of
beauty. If listeners want to know
more this, they should listen to the
speech.
On the slide, I insert a scene from a
famous movie about the topic:
Legally Blonde. The movie is about
a pretty girl trying to overcome the
stereotype of dumb blonde.
During my speech, I give clear signal
about my speech organization. If
listeners recognize the movie, theyll
be interested in the topic.
Because my topic is not familiar and
may seem a little bit unbelievable, I
try to convince listeners with hard
facts. My credibility is enhanced by
referring to scientific research on this
topic. Also, I try to use multiple

jealousy, the fear of intimidation

In another research of April Phillips
and Cassandra Hranek, beautiful
people were less likely to receive
forgiveness from their same-sex
fellows.
Another fact is that women is more
frequently the target of appearance
discrimination
For men, having attractive look is an
advantage in all jobs finding, while it
is the opposite for woman when they
are trying to apply for some certain
professions which are traditionally
identified as male jobs such as IT,
construction-related positions, etc.
Seductive women are tended to be
sorted into more traditionally
female positions like receptionist or
secretary.

evidence for each point I make to be

convincing. I want to emphasize a
point that even though my audience
does not know about the existence of
appearance discrimination towards
people with good look, it still exist
and is the topic of interest of a
number of psychologists.

To clarify this point, I include a

specific example of Debrahlee
Lorenzana and her picture on the
slide for curious listeners to do more
reading by themselves if they want
to. Authentic examples make my
speech more persuasive.

In addition, women in the workplace

are often faced with a double bind:
they are expected to be sexy but can
be punished for being too attractive.
In the case of Debrahlee Lorenzana,
a banker of Citybank, she sued the
bank she worked for being distracting
when she wore the clothes (which
were perfectly fine for other female
co-workers to wear) because of her
This is a common stereotype that
curvaceous body
most people have, so I ask them a
question to think about, to recall
In addition, people usually give less
their experience and opinion about
credit to good-looking people and to
the stereotype of the pretty but
an average-looking one.
dumb girls.
People are too quickly to assume that To be more convincing, I add the
hot people are dumb. Do you
result of scientific research on this

remember the image of a beautiful

curvy blonde but who is also not very
bright? This stereotype is all over the
movie industry, magazines, etc.
Research also finds that people are
likely to think that beautiful peoples
success is because of their luck,
beauty instead of their talent
(Forsterling, 2007).

point into my speech.

On the slide, I add a funny image
about the related points: beauty and
stupidity

To conclude my persuasive speech, I

give audience a question. Through
At this moment, many of you maybe
this question, they can see if maybe
think to yourself: Are the beauties
they themselves are being
complaining for being too beautiful? discriminative. This will captivate
If it is true, then maybe you are
their attention and make audiences
discriminating them then.
questioning themselves.
The fact that they happen to be
attractive does not mean that they
dont experience inequality or they
do have insecurities about body
image, other social issues, or things
Lastly, I end my speech with a
like that.
suggestion to avoid being
So, next time, when judging someone discriminative
who happens to be good looking,
remember the question, Do I being
fair to them? and remember to
exclude the appearance factors

REFERENCES
10 Pleasures and Pains of Being Beautiful (2011, August 16). Retrieved July, 21,
2016 from http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/08/10-pleasures-and-pains-of-beingbeautiful.php
Dareh, G. (2010). Woman says she was fired from Citibank for being too hot.
Retrieved July, 21, 2016 from http://nypost.com/2010/06/02/woman-says-shewas-fired-from-citibank-for-being-too-hot/