What is Pretty Privilege? #8
Bi-Weekly Relationship Advice
Pretty privilage is a postive biased towards people presenting “conventially attractive” features.
Unfourtunately, just because it has postive connotations, there are pros and cons to this privilege.
What are “conventionally attractive” features?
Beauty standards have been skewed heavily towards western features. With the push for body postivity and the calling out of racism within the beauty and fashion communties, we are slowly making progress to move away from this.
Generally speaking, we can catagorise some of these “conventionally attractive” features as:
Clear skin
Symmetrical facial features
Styled hair
While we can influence some of these features through the use of products and makeup, it raises the question: are these actually attractive features or just sociatal norms and expectations we have been brainwashed to view as attractive?
There are also negative expectations for “conventianally attractive” features such as:
Fit body type
Proportional body shape
Well groomed
These may not seem like glaringly negative features but when you start critically considering them, it raises the next question: are there different standards for different genders, sexualities, and races?
Is it attractive if men are muscular but not women? Is there more emphasis on a gay man needing to be well groomed compared to a straight man? Is it less attractive for an asian or black woman, with darker hair, to have body hair compared to a caucasian woman or someone with blonde hair?
But…can pretty privilege be good?
There are some pros to this. Unfortunately, they err on the side of manipulation. One of the main factors of pretty privilege is the way you are treated for being “pretty presenting”. Putting that extra thought and effort into one’s hair and makeup, or facial grooming, can have you experiencing more postive interactions. This is not a sure-fire way to obtain that privilege, it differs for people ranging from body types to hair types. As a woman on the slimmer side, I am already at an advantage because body-shaming is still ever prevailent and men tend to think with the wrong head, so by being my gender and body-type, I have the advantage of recieving what can be considered more positive attention, albiet unwanted and uncomfortable attention. As a result, I am putting all my thoughts out here from a place of privilage, so take what I off-handedly say with a pinch of salt.
If we continue to generalise it, when you are “pretty presenting”, you can use it to your advantage, regardless of gender, to have a more pleasant experience that benefits you, whether you are working and want better tips, to entering a job interview and wanting to be percieved in a specific way.
Pretty privilege does not need to be a negative thing in the way it is used however, there will always inheritantly be negative things about it.
Why does someone have to look a certain way to be treated nicely?
Why does someone have to look a certain way to be treated with more kindness and patience?
Why does someone have to look a certain way to be percieved as smarter, happier, or more successful?
There is an unneccersarily high value placed on physical appearance and it has become a minefield to navigate as we try to keep up with the latest trends. While we do not all have the tools and platforms to fight against this problematic privilege, we can change our own mindsets with how we engage with this privilege.
Do we use it to our advantage if we have it? Do we change ourselves to obtain it? Do we reassess how we treat others based on whether they have it or not?
It seems that this is more of a juggling act in determining the good and bad views, and uses, surrounding pretty privilege. So, the advice I leave you with this week is:
Consider how you treat everyday people, from micro to macro interactions, based purely on their physical attrcativeness to you
Consider whether you find people attractive because you are personally attracted to them or because they fit the description of “conventially attractive” in accordance with sociatal norms and expectations (do you feel obligated to consider them attractive?)
Finally, learn how to filter your thoughts. Is your intial reaction what you genuinely think or it what you have been brainwashed to think by the media, the older generation and/or sociatal norms and expectations? (think twice before you speak)
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That’s all for now, thank you for reading this far. I appreciate you spending your time here.
This is Ray, signing out.
This weeks one was a bit of a short one and a late one
Stay tuned for next week, we will be returning to the ton soon so it is only fitting that we discuss Bridgerton and what we can learn from it!
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