Democrats Will Regret Forcing Al Franken to Resign

[haele]

25. The problem is not the person hiring, it's the political perception.

I'm a woman who has experienced both working in a male dominated field and working for the government in a political environment on occasion.
Working in governance politics - even staff positions - carries the same perception bias that working in any customer service position does - the assumptions just from one's appearance have just as much weight to one's job as does one's qualifications. Dress, grooming, trustworthy "symmetrical" features and sufficient height mean a lot to the average person, who tends to have a particular "look" in mind when imagining someone who's a good executive, or a good staffer.
Buxom or Sexy is not a good look for anyone who intends to be taken seriously. I've seen qualified women - and men - lose to less qualified applicants because they came in to interviews looking too sexy or too casual.
...Unless they were working for BAH as Flag staff support - Booz went out of their way to hire "sexy" to support Flag officers - and it was understood that even though the employees were qualified, they were primarily there to look like high powered personal executive secretaries in borderline inappropriate dress (the "from the office to the cocktail hour" look).

So yes, I can see where appearances might affect the way politicians would start staffing their support, especially if s/he wanted to seem more professional - "get the job done" - as opposed to high-powered - "this boss always gets what s/he wants".

Haele