Pretty privilege is misogynistic
I’m sick and tired of girls flaunting ‘pretty privilege’ as if it’s something that gives them leverage in society. It does quite the opposite. It spoon feeds misogyny under the disguise of admiration, at the cost of women’s equality. What might seem like a drink at the bar or a waiter sneaking you a cupcake on the house, is actually the patriarchy mocking you to your face, using you as bait for its ideologies.
As a woman who experienced what one might call a ‘sudden glow up’ after not being conventionally pretty until fifteen or sixteen, I’ve fallen victim to feeling good about having pretty privilege. I’ve joked about winking at a guy to make him pay for my drink, not thinking much of it. That is, until I spoke to a friend who has never experienced this. It baffled me. It’s funny how you sometimes need to step into someone else’s shoes to come back to your senses. Empathy truly feels like a dead art.
I realized how conventionally pretty women are often sheep led to slaughter in a butcher house owned by misogynistic men. Pretty privilege is yet another way to draw lines between women. It differentiates us using the same tired criteria of colour, stature, facial features, overall appearance. Pretty privilege doesn’t make me feel pretty; it makes me feel sick. It makes me wonder whether I look like someone who believes women deserve different treatment simply for looking different.
The ideal guy would send a drink to both the conventionally pretty friend and the one who isn’t. You know how some partners bring a small bouquet for their lover’s friend, too? Exactly. If you’re genuinely interested, a coffee, a muffin, or a drink for someone’s friend is a thoughtful gesture. And that brings us back to the point, pretty privilege is not a sweet thought.
Beauty bias is a far more accurate term than pretty privilege, and it’s something that has existed for generations. As a society, we have boiled a woman’s social worth down to how she looks. That is objectification. That is differentiation. That is the exploitation of the ‘girl code.’ Nothing about pretty privilege is pretty, it’s just petty.
as someone who has never actually experience pretty privilege (mostly due to the fact that i’m not conventionally beautiful), the onslaught of fat shaming and comparisons, if anything, made my body dysmorphia and relationship with food worse (i am getting better!). pretty privilege sucks ass.
just purely from what some friends have said about pretty privilege in general (the sexualising and getting free stuff), it only divides people more, driving insecurities towards women who are not pretty enough to MEN. it doesn’t help that the onslaught of slut-shaming towards people who are attractive (who are also successful) exists too. honestly it sucks and we all deserve so much better. we are all beautiful and we all deserve to be treated the same, regardless of our attractiveness.
i think there’s a misunderstanding here about why pretty privilege can actually be disadvantageous and cause a significant level of cognitive dissonance
i am in a corporate, male dominated industry and quite senior for my age and gender (female), i am also conventionally / “above average” looking - this is not a flaunt. I am stating factual information I’ve received re people’s recounts of me.
However, often in my industry when I try to leverage my knowledge, critical thinking off the back of my two degrees (law/policy), it often feels i am shut down and unheard in corporate male environments because they see me as nothing more than “a pretty face and body” - bimboesque culture. Women do not like to approach me unless I am extremely and actively looking approachable (which can be difficult with being on the spectrum as I have a tendency to blank expression), and so this often causes a dissonance of: am i likeable or tolerated, am i intelligent or are they just mesmerised by a physical feature, am i ever going to be taken seriously?
I feel it’s very unfair to pin something as misogynistic when there are real life counts of myself and I’m sure other women in fields that experience the paradox of being caught between pretty privilege and the effects of cognitive dissonance