[Alison H.]

Have you ever experienced pretty privilege? Maybe you have witnessed someone benefitting from their looks or perhaps you were the one who benefitted?

In this article, I researched pretty privilege and interviewed folks who have experienced it. I would love to hear from you on your own thoughts and experiences!

Pretty privilege certainly seems to be a real thing for people of all ages, so I also researched a bit about things we can do to age gracefully.

You can read the entire article here:

https://www.womens-health.com/pretty-privilege

[jns]

From my point of view, marketing has a lot to do with the societal norms of beauty. Individual understanding of beauty is more changeable, where a close relationship, possibly with intimacy, can change a person's ideals to be more like their companion.

[Alison H.]

From my point of view, marketing has a lot to do with the societal norms of beauty. Individual understanding of beauty is more changeable, where a close relationship, possibly with intimacy, can change a person's ideals to be more like their companion.

I absolutely agree that marketing shapes what society considers to be beautiful. It’s especially interesting to look at beauty trends and how they’ve shifted over the last century (or longer), particularly as a result of advertising, and how quickly the general opinion of what’s beautiful has changed over recent years in our everything-must-be-marketed-at-all-times culture. Unless a person lives in a cave 100 miles from anyone else, they cannot escape marketing. It’s impossible.

And you’re right. A close relationship with someone can change a person’s ideals to reflect (and prefer) the qualities they find in their companion(s). Familiarity breeds beauty.

[Ashlee T.]

I absolutely agree that marketing shapes what society considers to be beautiful. It’s especially interesting to look at beauty trends and how they’ve shifted over the last century (or longer), particularly as a result of advertising, and how quickly the general opinion of what’s beautiful has changed over recent years in our everything-must-be-marketed-at-all-times culture. Unless a person lives in a cave 100 miles from anyone else, they cannot escape marketing. It’s impossible.

And you’re right. A close relationship with someone can change a person’s ideals to reflect (and prefer) the qualities they find in their companion(s). Familiarity breeds beauty.

So true! I love looking at the comparison photos of each decade of men and women and how the standards of beauty have shifted so greatly. I think the most important message those pictures give us is.... take it all with a grain of salt because, in ten years, it'll be different anyway.

One area in this article I found of particular interest is how the pretty privilege ties strongly in with just being a woman. In career, I've always been so focused on my brain that I never gave much thought to my appearance. I learned very quickly that no matter how hard I worked and no matter how much I deserved a pat on the back or a promotion or whatever it was, it would ALWAYS be discredited by someone who proclaimed "He only did that for her because she's pretty." And the saddest part is that it was almost always women to say those things. My response, "Oh, so this must mean YOU think I'm pretty? Aww, thanks...." :-\ The assumption that just because you think someone pretty means everyone else does is just silly.

Anyway, great article on an interesting topic, Alison!

[Emily D.]

Great article, Alison! I loved how you went in-depth about how focusing on appearances, especially for women, can be costly financially and costly in other ways. It's also so interesting how the definition of pretty or beautiful changes over time.

[Alison H.]

So true! I love looking at the comparison photos of each decade of men and women and how the standards of beauty have shifted so greatly. I think the most important message those pictures give us is.... take it all with a grain of salt because, in ten years, it'll be different anyway.

One area in this article I found of particular interest is how the pretty privilege ties strongly in with just being a woman. In career, I've always been so focused on my brain that I never gave much thought to my appearance. I learned very quickly that no matter how hard I worked and no matter how much I deserved a pat on the back or a promotion or whatever it was, it would ALWAYS be discredited by someone who proclaimed "He only did that for her because she's pretty." And the saddest part is that it was almost always women to say those things. My response, "Oh, so this must mean YOU think I'm pretty? Aww, thanks...." :-\ The assumption that just because you think someone pretty means everyone else does is just silly.

Anyway, great article on an interesting topic, Alison!

Thank you!

It’s kind of bizarre to see how beauty trends have changed in comparison photographs; some of them have been extreme. I feel kind of bad, too, for those who adapted their look to fit one trend, only to suffer permanent damage that makes it harder to fit into another trend as it emerges later.

(Like eyebrows… women who did the super-thin eyebrow thing back in the day and can no longer grow normal eyebrows. I know a couple of people that has happened to and while I pluck a little bit myself, it’s really just to kill those rando strays that don’t belong. I’m terrified of over-plucking and doing permanent damage.)

And I agree: so much of what that article talks about is relevant to ALL women, not just the “beautiful” ones.

Honestly… women do seem to be far more apt to go the “she got that thing because she’s pretty” route. I wonder if that is something men have experienced much… like if a man is promoted by a woman or receives something from a woman, do other men say things like, “Well he’s attractive so of course she promoted him or gave him a discount on his television.”

[Alison H.]

Great article, Alison! I loved how you went in-depth about how focusing on appearances, especially for women, can be costly financially and costly in other ways. It's also so interesting how the definition of pretty or beautiful changes over time.

Thank you! It was pretty eye-opening, actually, researching the financial cost. I’m kind of a cheapskate where cosmetics are concerned but when you think about it, even if you don’t spend that much, it still adds up to a lot over a lifetime!

And it’s true that the definition of beauty changes as time passes and trends really are nothing more than trends. What kills me is just how far women will go to adapt, to stay “beautiful” based on what society has decided is beautiful this week, or this month, or this year. It’s a lot of pressure that I think many women struggle with, and social media doesn’t help the situation.

[Ashlee T.]

Alison H. - I was totally thinking about eyebrows as I responded! When I was growing up it was wax wax wax wax and more wax! Now, it's "the bigger the better!" and I'm baffled almost daily by the squared-off drawn on eyebrow look that is in style currently. So much so that people are getting them tattooed in that way! And a few years ago I found myself wishing for fuller brows after waxing the heck out of them for so many years. Now, like you, I only pluck a few random strays and otherwise leave them unmanaged so I guess in my own way, I'm morphing with the trends too.

[jns]

Honestly… women do seem to be far more apt to go the “she got that thing because she’s pretty” route. I wonder if that is something men have experienced much… like if a man is promoted by a woman or receives something from a woman, do other men say things like, “Well he’s attractive so of course she promoted him or gave him a discount on his television.”

I like to think that most of the women I worked with were promoted due to competence rather than for some other reason. I had two women bosses. The first was the company owner's daughter in a family company so her managing was a given. The second was technically competent, fair and a good boss at a different company. She relied on her own smarts to come up with decisions after gathering the facts. I liked working for her. The rest of the women I worked with (not for) were equally as competent as the men I worked with.

[atskitty2]

Maybe it's the field I've been in for the past 15 years, but I've never observed what I thought would have been anything close to "pretty privilege". Outside the workplace, yes, many times.