Abstract
Men and women are conscious of their body image along with their looks. In the labour market, individuals bring in their physical traits along with other features. The extant literature on labour market discrimination, due to deviance from ideal notions of beauty and body image, establishes that both genders have, either covertly or overtly, benefitted from or been discriminated against because of their body image. The aim of this paper is to explore the notion of beauty, the issues surrounding the appearance of the body for women and men employed in the Indian labour market, and the impact of these issues on employability as well as career progression. In-depth interviews with 28 working professionals were conducted to explore the research problem. This work highlights that appearance-based discrimination is prevalent in the Indian labour market and also gives an account of the steps taken by individuals to address this challenge.