Pretty Privilege is Real, But False and Fleeting.
You can still have a remarkable life without being conventionally attractive.
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For the uninitiated, Pretty Privilege, according to urban dictionary, is “A person who has more opportunities, and becomes more successful in life because of how attractive they are.” There are copious Tik-Toks, and Youtube videos made on this topic. Conversations on this topic often leave women feeling worse about themselves. You are either fortunate enough to have Pretty Privilege or not, and if you are a member of the latter, you have to spend an inordinate amount on beauty products, routines, and hair extensions to grasp on some semblance of beauty.
I have a completely different perspective when it comes to Pretty Privilege. I believe that Pretty Privilege is a false sense of power relegated to women to keep us preoccupied and subjugated. No, I am not some ultra-liberal, ivory tower educated woman who only speaks in -isms and supremacies. I am a regular woman who came to this realization after observing the world around me. To fully explore my opinion, we must first examine beauty. What does it mean to be beautiful?
What is Beauty?
Some 2,500 years ago, in ancient Greece, it was discovered that when a line is divided into two parts in a ratio of 1: 1.618, it creates an appealing proportion. This ratio is known as the golden ratio, the divine proportion or phi (named after Phidias, a Greek sculptor, and mathematician who used this ratio when designing sculptures). Since the Renaissance period, artists like Botticelli and Leonardo Da Vinci have used the golden ratio in the sketching of their paintings, such as Monalisa or Birth of Venus. During modern times, the golden ratio has been applied to facial beauty and adopted as a guideline for aesthetic treatments.
The unfortunate result of the golden ratio is that it confines women into these very narrow dimensions of what can be defined as beautiful. Knowing the dimensions and ratios that define “beauty”, we have essentially created an assembly line that churns out products that are meant to help women fit into those dimensions. As with all commodities, we have to make the consumer believe that they need it. So, we sell women's beauty products as an “investment”.
Female Investments
Of all the things that I hate about the beauty industry, I have a particular disdain for beauty as an “investment”. With the plethora of actual finance information and tools on the market, how can we even remotely compare “beauty” to an investment? We fail women when we tell them that depreciating assets such as beauty treatments are assets that will eventually generate some revenue or utility. Real assets are stocks, bonds, and real estate. However, there seems to be an asset class that is pushed primarily on women in the form of plastic surgery, laser treatments, botox, and other physical alterations.
Women have more wealth currently than we have ever had in recent history, why is so much of that money spent on looking desirable for a class of people that has significantly more wealth than we do. Instead, our wealth should be spent on actually productive assets such as investing in companies that we believe in.
Additionally, I abhor how confidence for women is neatly packaged and purchasable in the newest youth skin serum or rhinoplasty. Confidence for men is gained via estimable activities such as starting a business and contributing to your community. This “beauty-as-confidence” locks women in a perpetual cycle of insecurity and consumerism. You are at the mercy of no longer being attractive if you miss the latest regional cream.
Why “Pretty Privilege” is False Power
Whenever I think of the “privileges” that beauty affords women, I realize how little power women actually have. I am a woman who makes a decent salary as an engineer, so I am not won over by the gifts, trips, and trinkets that are given to conventionally attractive women. If beauty was so powerful, do you think men would have let us have it? Men globally knew how to deny women access to actual sources of power such as education and finances. Instead, the gave the fleeting, illusory form of power known as beauty.
When you are beautiful, you get the power “trinkets”. You get free gifts, kind gestures, and even career opportunities. If you are very beautiful, you could even land on the cover of a fashion magazine. However, the beauty door does not go very deep and does not stay open for much longer. Beauty is always in constant competition with time, and will always lose to it. Beauty is in constant collaboration with novelty and makes every attractive woman know that they are replaceable.
Beauty also does not give you actual power. The sex goddesses of every generation, Marilyn Monroe, Anna Nicole Kidman, Megan Foxx, and Kim Kardashian, are used as cannon fodder for the press and tabloids. Even, when Forbes goes through the list of the most powerful people on earth, there are few women on that list and none of them are known for their beauty.
Power for women will never be found in the bottom of beauty serums and sprays. It has to be taken forcefully. However, that power to create the life that you want for yourself is already available to you. The question is, are you willing to use that power?
Turning 33 In Photographs
I have a friend who turned 33 two years ago. She is a twin and comes from a close-knit family, so there was a party to celebrate at the apartment patio. I have a DSLR camera and decided to take pictures to commemorate the event. To give some context, my friend was a very beautiful racially-ambiguous woman who worked as the receptionist at the “luxury” building that we lived in. All the 3 black women in the buildings were friends with her and attended the party also. My friend, let us call her Jenny, never lacked when it came to male attention, especially from black men. She also had baby daddy issues. So all her male lurkers friends thought they had a chance because she and her baby daddy were “broken-up”. Also, prior to her birthday, she had gotten breast implants. She was able to afford them by getting into some debt. I subtly advised her not to get them, since I had recently heard about “breast implant sickness”. However, even that and her mother's breast cancer remission were not enough to stop her from getting the procedure. At her party, my high-resolution camera was able to capture everything, even the aging lines on her face. While I was reviewing all the pictures, I realized that beauty was the greatest asset this woman had and it was going away. From an early age, she had known that she was beautiful and was deeply invested in it. All the men around her had given her gifts because she was beautiful. Her beauty was a convenient and consistent thing for her to rely on. It then made sense why she got breast implants.
I am writing this essay to remind people that pretty privilege is not a prerequisite to living a great life.
Jenny had a unique ability to make friends and talk to new people. She was a receptionist/leasing agent at our luxury apartment building. Wit and empathy were parts of her job. If she were highly strategic, she would have become the Head of People/Culture at a tech startup, since we lived in the tech capital of the world. Also, to live in my building, you had to make over a certain amount of money. So, she had access to the financial statements of all the tenants in that building. I had mentioned that option to her but was shrugged off. However, she had not learned how to leverage that skill at a higher level. Her beauty had been good enough for her to ride on, but what about now? What happens now that she is getting older?
“Pretty Privilege” also isolates pretty women. One of the black girls in the building was obviously jealous of Jenny and all the attention that she got from men. She was mean to Jenny in subtle ways. One day, while high on marijuana, I told Jenny to stop talking to her.
Other Privileges Women Have
I am not trying to undermine the distress and invisibility that is caused by not being “conventionally attractive”. I am also not saying “everyone is beautiful”. Partly because we all know that to be true, but also because that statement is patronizing. I am writing this essay to remind people that Pretty Privilege is not a prerequisite to living a great life. Whenever the conversation of Pretty Privilege comes up, it leaves unconventionally attractive women defeated. However, I know that any woman, with the right actions and mindset, can have a remarkable life. I also know that Pretty Privilege, contrary to what you have been told, does not guarantee a life of comfort, love, and happiness. I am also here to offer up some privileges that women have but often undermine due to their hyper-focus on beauty. How do I know this? from exploring the lives of history’s most adventurous and scintillating women.
Wit Privilege
There are a plethora of women in history who have the unique gift of the spoken word. Whether it is Wendy Williams, Christina Amanpour, Joan of Arc, Joan Rivers, or even Cardi B, these women know how to skillful wield their words and create a reaction from others. This skill is what allowed Cardi B to leverage her small role in Love and Hip-hop into becoming a cultural icon.
Notoriety Privilege
These are the women with the gift of being their own PR agents. These women understand the culture and have an uncanny way of inserting themselves into it. Off the top of my head, we have Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, and Trisha Paytas. Some of these women might fit into the cultural beauty standards. However, so does every Victoria's Secret model. These women know how to revive their relevance at every point.
Authenticity Privilege
These are the women who make a robust life living authentically. They know how to tone down the voices that cause us to shrink ourselves and allow their most vibrant ideas to come through. These women include Rihanna, Emma Chamberlin, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Hard Work Privilege
These women have an obscene capacity to work. They know how to put in the necessary hours to achieve a certain outcome. The are focused, determined, and undeterred by failures. Some of these women include Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Beyonce, and Serena Williams.
Ingenuity Privilege
These women know how to manifest and problem solves at the deepest level. These women create companies by solving problems that society didn’t know that they had. They find the failings, and injustices in society and act open them. These women seduce society by giving it an unmet need. These women include Sarah Blakely, Amal Clooney, and Martha Stewart.
Love Beyond Pretty Privilege
I want to remind everyone that the women who get radical love and devotion are admired for more than their looks. These are just some examples. Notice the dynamic between some of these couples. The men love their intelligence, communication, compassion, and wit.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Martin Ginsburg
George and Amal Clooney
Denzel and Paula Washington
Alexis Ohanian and Serena Williams
Sterling K. Brown and Ryan Michelle Bathe
Stedman Graham and Oprah Winfrey
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Breast implants are one of the worst plastic surgeries available. They basically guarantee the patient will need expensive future surgery. This is because implants can leak, tear, harden due to the surrounding scar tissue, cause autoimmune issues even years down the line, cause cancer, cause permanent loss of sensation, droop out of the pocket created by the surgeon, or stay unnaturally perky while the rest of the breast tissue droops with age. Implants can last 20 years for those who are very lucky, but usually need replacing much sooner than that. Each subsequent surgery is more complicated and more extensive due to prior scar tissue, of course.
There was a sad story in the news of a woman who had received implants that turned out to be toxic and were recalled. Despite her implants leaking, doctors still encouraged her to breastfeed her new baby, who later developed a brain tumor and died. Still, even after all the trauma she suffered, the woman got her implants replaced with a new pair.
Many women who are finally fed up with all the problems caused by their implants eventually get them removed. But that often leaves them with sagging skin and an even smaller bust than they had started out with (because all the scar tissue surrounding each implant needs to be removed too). Ladies, if anyone you know is considering implants, at least try to steer them towards a breast lift or fat transfer, procedures that are one-and-done and don't introduce hazardous foreign materials into the body.
haha! "while i was high on marijuana" I love reading your articles. I really appreciate this post. I'm liking the new format with videos at the end, it's so refreshing to see men who really love their wives. Keep up the great work! "the highest human achievement is to inspire" and I am hella inspired reading your work :)