Is Pretty Privilege Real? My Pretty Privilege is a movement to join socially conscious women and fashion enthusiasts that understand and use clothing as a form of self-expression and empowerment. The blood-testing product she claimed to have created never actually operated in the way she said it would. Being attractive and getting that pretty privilege is one party beauty, two parts mentality, and a shit ton of effort and hard work. There’s even a whole field dedicated to this: pulchronomics, or the study of the economics of physical attractiveness. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});While anyone can be beautiful, in a society where notions of beauty have for so long been bound to whiteness — an “all-American beauty,” for example, is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl —white women are more likely to experience and benefit from pretty privilege. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women Studies,” qtd. AL wonders why we don't hear more about pretty privilege, and wonders if it's really worse to be desired by gross people than to be gross and undesired. Beauty is of course subjective, but that doesn’t mean perceived beauty doesn’t have real social and economic consequences. On an episode called “Is Beauty in the Eye of the Colonizer?,” hosts of NPR podcast “Code Switch” note “the body positivity movement and the fat-acceptance movements have . You've likely heard the term "privilege" being thrown around without exactly knowing what it means. Interrogating and deconstructing biases against those that don’t conform with Western beauty standards can help create a more equal society. Pretty privilege explains why the pretty girls get to be homecoming queen, class president, and girlfriends of athletes. Pretty privilege is the shallow notion that one can attain opportunities, wealth, status and life’s best offerings all based on looks. Pretty privilege is not something that is not necessarily talked about, and yet it is acknowledged — almost like an open secret. I think the thin and beauty privilege “benefits” depend on your personality. It’s a term that’s used to refer to the special treatment that a girl (or a guy) might receive because she’s pretty or attractive. Take Addison Rae, a TikTok star with 56 million followers. Images of white beauty permeated television, magazines, and billboards. 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While Tiffany's physical beauty may open certain doors for her, as a non-white woman who was not raised in wealth, her pretty privilege may have limits. ‘Cis privilege’ relies in the assumptions that all ‘cis’ women experience no discomfort with the sexist expectations embedded in the female gender role. White privilege does NOT mean you don't face other barriers to access and opportunities in our society. In general, we seem to be against admitting (publicly) that we think we're hot. Melissa 09 Apr 2012 08:04 am. According to Wikipedia, intersectionality "is a qualitative analytic framework that identifies how interlocking systems of power affect those who are most marginalized in society.". My friend, whom I will call Diana, a VP of Marketing, recalls the looks she gets when she tells people her title and responsibilities. privilege meaning: 1. an advantage that only one person or group of people has, usually because of their position or…. It helps with career advancement in many professions (not all, mind you, but enough to point to … Very few of the people we consider ideally attractive actually exist. For every Black face I saw, 10 to 20 white examples followed. But just because your life doesn’t fit the idealized prototype people think of for a particular privileged group doesn’t mean you aren’t a part of that group, nor should you stop being grateful for what you have. For every story I hear of a woman getting a free haircut or more attention at lounge because of appearance, there is someone who says they are not heard or taken seriously because of their beauty. privileged definition: 1. having a privilege: 2. It’s just ugly girls getting jealous that they can’t get a boyfriend and I can,’ said a rather irritating girl in my English class at school. Attaining pretty privilege is one party beauty, two parts your mentality, and a whole lot of effort. I started wondering what other benefits a woman who looks like Joy Taylor might experience simply due to her physical appearance. RELATED: What Being Paralyzed From The Neck Down Taught Me About White Privilege. In a post-colonial Western society, white, cis, able-bodied individuals lay claim to beauty and thus reap its social and economic benefits. Again, if you give privilege to a pretty person it is you not them who are empowering them so any complaints need to be seen through that lense November 21, … And that’s what privilege is really about. Employees with above-average looks get above-average pay. Even in the classroom, teachers have higher expectations for better-looking children, and attractive students get higher grades. It is impossible to discuss pretty privilege without acknowledging how race plays a major factor. In modern pop culture, beauty is viewed through a very linear lens. We know that it exists, but to admit it would point to a failing in our society that many people refuse to acknowledge. I don't have to "believe" in "pretty privilege", because it is already understood in behavioral psychology. He has also appeared on Al Jazeera's The Stream and delivered a TEDx talk about his childhood stuttering. What is pretty privilege? Pretty privilege skeptics will often tell you to ask a pretty girl how many times she has been insulted for turning someone down or to ask her what she’s really gotten out of her looks. To a degree, it is true. Being a pretty woman, people automatically think you are not smart.”, Diana describes a time in a meeting where people were shocked at how she looked, “People would walk into the meeting and assume that I was there to take minutes. As someone who was pretty as a child (seriously, at a friend’s wedding, a mother of another friend came up and went on for 10 min to my husband about how pretty I was as a child) and had a lot of male attention in HS and college, I hated it. I’ve seen both sides of this in my own life, as I was a fairly awkward, unattractive kid who grew up to be a conventionally attractive woman. Real women discuss the pressures of needing to feel pretty. As a white person you may also belong to other historically marginalized groups like being a woman, being LGBTQIA, being non-Christian, being an immigrant or descendant of immigrants, or having a disability or low-income status. She then said, "hashtag pretty privilege!". . There’s actually been good research into the advantages of beauty. How about more serious benefits, like in employment or housing? The World Health Organization reports that skin bleaching, the practice of lightening one’s complexion, is popular in many African countries and is an 18 billion dollar industry in Asia. Social privilege is a theory of special advantage or entitlement, used to one's own benefit or to the detriment of others. Wrote Mr. LA Tours: ‘Pretty privilege is highly intertwined with white privilege and referring back to another of Matt Dempsey’s videos, his most controversial one. Pretty privilege. I realized that I had leverage and that I could get things. It would be dishonest for us to not acknowledge the degree to which beauty impacts the way people are treated — including myself. There is a long history of associating beauty with whiteness, and divorcing concepts of beauty from non-conformative bodies — such as those belonging to women of color — in order to maintain privilege and control. In romanticizing dark skin, Beyonce’s love song to brown-skinned girls invites women historically considered not beautiful into the power of taking pride in one’s beauty and desirability, something that’s always been offered to white women. For instance, racism and disability may intersect to cause a person of color who uses a wheelchair to have even less access to certain opportunities than either an able-bodied person of color or a white person who uses a wheelchair. RELATED: 5 Foolish Things White Feminists Need To Stop Doing. It is a key that can gain you access to opportunities, choices, and doors that may be denied to others. 4. But, in addition to my race, I am 6’2, slim and fairly muscular, and I've been called “generically handsome” and I often wonder if there are times I received faster service or a discount on food because of my appearance. Well, in Henry's video, a stereotypically attractive gay man (played by Eduardo Sanchez-Ubanel) was under the impression that pretty privilege, which he described as "a … But when I realize how much society has given to those that are deemed pretty and those aren’t? Just take a look at those with the most Instagram followers. What's so interesting is how extremely rare the "ideal" attractive appearance is, considering that the average woman in America is a size 16, and men measure in at 5’9 and 192 pounds. Talking about pretty privilege with “pretty people” is an interesting endeavor. Privilege: Unearned access to resources (social power) that are only readily available to some people because of their social group membership; an advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by one societal group above and beyond the common advantage of all other groups.Privilege is often invisible to those who have it. We need to question why we react the way we do to people who don’t, can’t, or won’t fit that mold. Because those who can conform with white beauty ideals will be identified with beauty sooner and more consistently, internet fame in many ways reinforces inequalities already present in society — such as white, able-bodiedness as a precursor for success. It’s something to be grateful for. TikTok, the purported “feel-good” corner of the internet, perpetuates the inequalities of pretty privilege through its For You page. What does pretty privilege mean and who has it? The reality was that while one, maybe some, of those potential charges were abated by looks, the reality was that other factors stopped it (e.g. One 2010 study even found that blonde people were more likely to have a higher household income (including their wages and their spouse's wages). 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While investing heavily in one’s appearance may be judged as frivolous, there’s nothing light-hearted about the potential consequences of “lacking” beauty. Pretty Privilege also known as beauty privilege, beauty bias or beauty premium — is a term that encompasses all of the social advantages one receives as a result of being physically attractive. ‘Pretty privilege is bullshit. Only seeing whiteness represented informs the populous that this is what attractiveness is. Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the now-defunct health technology company Theranos who was proven to be a fraud, embodies this. For women 'cis' privilege is the privilege to be expected to wear high heels and make up and to be cat-called and to be mansplained at, apparently. You can't choose your race, your disability, or your age. We've all witnessed department store clerks tripping over themselves to assist the beautiful thin woman who wants to try on the latest designer jeans, waiters running across the restaurant to refill the water of the young woman who looks like a fashion model, and bartenders ignoring money-waving patrons in order to pour an attractive young person a shot. Privilege is, according to Wikipedia, defined as a specific advantage experienced by only one group of people that can be "based on age, education level, disability, ethnic or racial category, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and social class" and it is powerfully linked with inequality. Of course, there are privileges that are less-often discussed, such as ability, sexual orientation, or gender identity at play, too. Through specialty and personalized apparel and accessories, My Pretty Privilege provides women a fashionable platform to speak their truth in what “pretty” means to them. consistently pushed back on the idea that thin, young, white, able-bodied women are the epitome of beauty — or that beauty should be a precondition for respect to begin with.” These movements have called attention to the beauty bias, which is entrenched in a preference for bodies and facial features that conform with conventional standards of femininity. At least in an abstract sense, most people agree that judging a person based on their sex, race or religion is unfair. Why Are People Talking About Pretty Privilege? But beyond hoping and wishing, we all must work to stop perpetuating this culture of “pretty privilege,” and refrain from giving things as trivial as outward appearance an undeserved power. DEFINITIONS. That’s a privilege. Check out this comic to see what we mean. These groups can be advantaged based on social class, age, height, IQ, disability, ethnic or racial category, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion. Learn more. We need to pay attention to our reactions to people who may not fit the standard Western beauty ideal. Blonde-haired people make up only 2% of the world’s population. Pretty privilege usually includes feature such as being thin, able-bodied, cisgender, and possessing balanced and symmetrical facial features. In other words, we need to understand that pretty privilege doesn't necessarily supersede other oppressions people may also have faced. Think of the cliche of “tall, dark and handsome”. Pretty privilege is a term that’s been around for quite a while now. This is such a tough thing to look at in oneself because we all want to believe that our successes are based entirely on merit on our hard work or something else that runs deeper than our appearance. Is Online Learning the Future of Higher Education? Here’s how this concept affects young adult women. Again, if you give privilege to a pretty person it is you not them who are empowering them so any complaints need to be seen through that lense November 21, 2019 at 2:11am Comments are closed. How to use privileged in a sentence. Why do I keep asking so many questions? "What's all the talk about 'white privilege'? The easy virality of these videos points to another aspect of pretty privilege — success on social media. When I spoke with a close friend, whom I will call Tiffany, about pretty privilege, she recalled growing up and seeing the advantages that came with being attractive. You… Being beautiful can make getting a job easier, make you more popular (thus giving you more social capital), and earn you a lighter sentence if you are convicted of a crime. In America, as well as around the world, blonde hair and light eyes is still treasured. Many fans call out the concept of “pretty privilege” when a attractive influencer is quickly forgiven. There is no such hardship a “pretty” woman can avoid by just being “pretty.” It’s never happened, and it never will! To be looked at as beautiful means that life may be, in many ways, simply easier — including in finding employment. The phenomenon of benefiting from a system where white women experience certain advantages and protections at the expense of others. © 2021 by Tango Media Corporation All Rights Reserved. These groups can be advantaged based on social class, age, height, IQ, disability, ethnic or racial category, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion. “People assume that I got this position because I have a pretty face. It is also often tied to whiteness and colorism. Pretty privilege comes in handy, but it's disastrous in dating. Find him on Twitter for more. This is the same girl that was described as hot, while wearing hot pants on the school Spain trip, whereas any girl ranked under a 7/10 by the local fuckboys were told to change into something more respectable. On the video-sharing app TikTok, for instance, posts will go viral as users fawn over the video’s “aesthetic,” often one that is created by the original poster’s outfit, body or good-looking face. any of the fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizens of a country by its constitution. This is why, when talking about privileges, it's important to mention intersectionality. In addition, in every way that we can —whether it is just in our personal lives, or whether it’s at work—we need to do away with unrealistic beauty standards and granting people special privileges because they are "hot". A study from Chapman University discovered that out of desirable traits for a long term partner, 84% of female participants and 92% of male participants reported “good-looking” as an essential quality (Chapman University, 2015). Just imagine being well-regarded or known as an expert in your field, and whatever you have to offer is disregarded because people think your position was attained not because of hard work or intelligence, but because of your physical appearance. On the surface, it seems harmless. What would it mean to be happy and believe that you are not beautiful? Janet Mock, an author and trans activist, wrote in her Allure article “Being Pretty Is a Privilege, But We Refuse to Acknowledge It”: “‘Pretty’ is most often synonymous with being thin, white, able-bodied, and cis, and the closer you are to those ideals, the more often you will be labeled pretty — and benefit from that prettiness.” Eurocentric and fatphobic ideals are entrenched in how we perceive beauty and desirability in others. But when it comes to discriminating against people based on other aspects of appearance — like attractiveness — we often don’t acknowledge these slights; we even find appearance-based discrimination permissible. Without meaning to, people treat pretty girls better. In some instances, cis men have claimed to have been "tricked" … in Racial Equity Resource Guide). “Being considered beautiful can help you gain access to certain spaces, or increase your power in certain settings. We all know that looks are subjective , so it’s difficult to understand how something like pretty privilege can be a thing. This beauty standard also shares another attribute — they are white. Some might ask the question whether expanding our idea of beauty or disregarding beauty as a “precondition for respect” altogether is more productive. Pretty privilege can give way to popularity. Since its release last year, and the premiere of the song’s music video in Disney’s “Black Is King,” “Brown Skin Girl” has been an emotionally stirring tribute to Black beauty. LeRon L. Barton is a writer and speaker who has published essays about race, mass incarceration, politics, business and dating. As with most social privileges, it starts with how the world sees you and determines how far you can advance. This is pretty privilege. “I remember being treated differently when I was younger. Those who are deemed physically attractive are often thin or muscular, slim with muscle definition. RELATED: If You Think #BlackGirlMagic Isn't For All Black Women, You're Doing It Wrong. As a society, we like to think of social privilege as unearned, something that you were born with. For men, the ideal was considered an "inverted pyramid with broad shoulders and small waist, while the female ideal is an hourglass with a small waist-to-hip ratio," as reported by Today.com. For example, colorism within communities of color gives light-skinned people of color benefits that dark-skinned people don’t have. | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples Joy Taylor is a beautiful woman, by mainstream Western beauty standards. Is Body Neutrality the Alternative to Body Positivity? Pretty privilege comes in handy, but it's disastrous in dating. Having Privilege Means Your Benefits Can Be Conditional. ‘Pretty privilege is bullshit. It makes you more popular, in real life as much as in social media (which, in turn, makes it easier to gain money). Well, like the name suggests, it directly means that your attractiveness is an advantage that will get you ahead of other, less beautiful, people. Here’s how pretty privilege shows up in real life, and how you can better check your personal biases. Who decides what is pretty ? The poster above talking about getting out of DWIs six times, empirically speaking that would almost be impossible. Pretty privilege exist, let’s be real: No One Likes An Ugly Bitch *Literally* The cliché is true, an ugly personality does make an ugly face. Life was just different for me.”. If you like the show or have any thoughts on pretty privilege comment or let us know at www.drunkndeviant.com. Having privilege doesn’t mean that’s not part of your truth. No matter how nice the guy is, in the back of my mind I'm always thinking that he wouldn't like me if I was still fat. Seeing this with my own eyes, I can’t help but laugh. The phenomenon of benefiting from a system where white women experience certain advantages and protections at the expense of others. It is because of these legitimate benefits to being considered attractive that we should consider what individuals consistently align with our culture’s ideas of “pretty.”. Also, I have to acknowledge my own pretty privilege. That’s not privilege, it's a form of denying of who you are. 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Look it up now! pretty privilege Someone who gets clout , opportunities, and becomes more successful in life because of how attractive they are "She's so pretty , that's why she gets all the guys " "it's just pretty privilege" Examining the Theranos story, you have to wonder, what did the predominately male investor group see in Holmes? I’m kind of the textbook definition … Pretty privilege is not the strongest privilege that there is. Why do some people get treated differently than others? Before you say, “Get out the smallest violin,” it’s important to understand this is another form of erasure. Learn more. He wouldn't waste his time or energy initiating that first contact to a girl who didn't line up our world's normalized version of pretty. I asked Tiffany if this was fair, being treated differently because you are beautiful. On TikTok, it’s not unusual to find a string of comments requesting in on the friendship of a group of above-average looking girlfriends. A 2012 study performed in the United Kingdom studied what a group of heterosexual men and women considered the ideal body type. source: Pinterest . So, other than investing in a pretty young woman, what would the attraction be? "It's a curse as much as it is a blessing to be pretty." the right of a lawyer to refuse to divulge information obtained in confidence from a client. Body image is also a very important component to pretty privilege. Pretty privilege is absolutely a real thing. Class privilege or white privilege , for example , is easier to understand because it relates to the way certain elements of the identity that seem to be more easily measured. Yep, I’m pretty sure it did. "They're just a bunch of spoiled, privileged rich kids." However, despite the brutal reality of this pretty privilege, I will continue to hope and pray for a world that this is not the case. But let’s get to the more commonly talked about forms of privilege. Even Beyond Cheerleading, ‘Cheer’ Tells a Story of Value and Purpose, ‘Fluidum’ Shows the Nuances of the Roles and Fluidity of Gender, ‘A Ghost Story’ Uses the Supernatural To Examine Grief and Isolation. In a world that is already so imbalanced, with so many people with limited access to the most valuable resources due to race, gender, class, or gender or sexual identity (just to name a few), pretty privilege is one of the few systems we can actively fight against, and the first step toward doing that is learning to recognize this type of privilege in ourselves. What Fashion, Music, Technology and Lifestyle Trends Will 2021 Bring? Unless you’re naturally gorgeous (which IS a thing), then you’re probably gonna have to put some work into this. In everyday moments like making friends or choosing whether to be polite to someone, pretty privilege benefits some. Why Do Many People Feel Anxious About Eating in Front of Others? It can be a pretty hot topic word nowadays. People hate me because I'm beautiful," she said. Pretty privilege can give way to popularity. Perhaps it’s the case that others want to benefit from the association of being friends with the pretty/handsome person. White-passing and lighter-skinned women of color experience privilege within their own communities, sometimes being put on a pedestal, whether intentionally or not, for approximating Western ideals. Check out more awesome BuzzFeedYellow videos! Intersectionality, a term coined in 1989 by law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how different privileges and oppressions interact when defining identity, is helpful in understanding this complicated network of problems. Pretty privilege usually includes feature such as being thin, able-bodied, cisgender, and possessing balanced and symmetrical facial features. We are a culture that prides itself on meritocracy and rewarding hard work, and the existence of pretty privilege proves how untrue that can be. But when it comes to discriminating against people based on other aspects of appearance — like attractiveness — we often don’t acknowledge these slights; we even find appearance-based discrimination permissible. In that way, the app can feel much like Instagram, where in many instances astronomical differences in likes are in proportion to a person’s perceived facial beauty. the right claimed by any of … In this comic strip below, privilege meaning turns more into a psychological subject, rather than the material one. Acknowledging my pretty privilege means holding the complexity of my relationship with my own appearance with compassion. It’s a short story called “On A Plate,” and it’s been “liked” more than 200,000 times. Michelle laughed and commented, “Like a woman who looks like that would pay for her own coffee anyway." Women who are thought of as attractive usually are tall, slim, and blonde. It means holding my heart with heavy hands as I acknowledge that my cuteness was one of the reasons I was targeted as a child to be sexually abused. Honestly, I didn’t even realize I was doing it until the concept of pretty privilege was presented to me. In an essay published in The New York Times, Megan Nolan reflects on a time in her life when she asked herself “What if I tried accepting that I will never be beautiful, and that I do not need to be?” She argues that body positive movements have gone further than stating that every kind of body can be beautiful, to insisting that every person is beautiful.