No leading lady worth that label in the golden age of Hollywood would have baulked at being described as “glamorous”.
But Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth were not slaving away in modern local authority offices, where, according to an employment tribunal judge, the term is “undermining” and “belittling”.
Indeed, the judge, Sophie Park, was brutal in a recent ruling, saying that “in a business context, [the tribunal] concluded that being described as glamorous is potentially inappropriate”.
The judge went on to say that “looked at objectively”, the word “could be taken as undermining or belittling the person being described, making them seem less serious and professional”.
At the centre of the debate about whether being described as glamorous was a compliment or a curse was a barrister and former beauty pageant winner.
Jeniffer Campbell, who is black, alleged that her manager, Alexandra Jacobs, racially discriminated against her by using the term.
And while the tribunal rejected the racism claim, it found that use of the word was potentially a breach of employment law.
The tribunal had been told that Jacobs was showing a new colleague around the offices at Waltham Forest borough council in east London, where Campbell worked as a contract lawyer, when she highlighted the “glamour corner” in reference to where the former model worked.
Council colleagues told the tribunal that Campbell took great care of her appearance and that Jacobs had previously complimented her.
But Campbell claimed Jacobs’s remark to the recruit was “offensive” and she sued the council for race harassment and race discrimination.
The tribunal in east London dismissed her claim, with a judge ruling that it was impossible to accept that Campbell could “understand the comment as having any racial connotation”.
During the hearing, it emerged that outside work, the 49-year-old lawyer modelled and competed in beauty contests, being crowned in 2019 as “Ms UK International Elite”.
Campbell joined the local authority in 2018 and was sacked two years later over what were described as “longstanding issues with her performance, such as client complaints”.
At the tribunal hearing, Campbell alleged that Jacobs discriminated against her by using the word glamorous in 2019.
The tribunal judge noted that Campbell was introduced to the recruit “as the glamorous member of the team” and acknowledged that the lawyer had been “upset” by the remark.
Jacobs gave evidence to the tribunal that she was mortified and apologetic.
The hearing was told by one of Campbell’s colleagues that the lawyer “always appeared to take care about her appearance”, including doing “her hair and make-up every day for work” and that her “dress sense was glamorous”.
Despite accepting that the word glamorous could be viewed in the workplace as “undermining”, the judge said that Jacobs’s explanation for the comment was “credible” and that the manager “was trying to introduce her in a complimentary way”.
The judge said that while the “comment was a misplaced compliment” it was not “due to her race”.
Other claims of race discrimination, harassment, and victimisation related to allegations of being spoken to in a humiliating way, being criticised for her work, and not investigating her complaints, were dismissed.
