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Pretty Privilege: Why Bias Is Real and What We Can Do About It

What is pretty privilege?

In a world where we are constantly told what products to buy, what clothes are the most flattering, and what foods not to eat, it becomes clear that we are expected to be nothing short of beautiful. Beauty is of course subjective, however, it manifests itself in varying ways through societal beauty standards. Beauty standards are fluctuating ideals with extremely narrow criteria, ensuring that only a few can actually attain them (Saltzberg & Chrisler, 2006).

Those who happen to meet these standards often experience social advantages and better treatment by those who perceive them as attractive. These unearned benefits were defined by psychology researchers as вЂњbeauty premiumвЂќ, but are more commonly referred to today as вЂњpretty privilegeвЂќ (Mobius &В Rosenblat,В 2006). Essentially, unattractive people experience significant disadvantages in comparison to attractive people. In fact, they describe these disparities as comparable to the income gap between genders or ethnicities (Mobius &В Rosenblat,В 2006). In the end, someone is receiving unearned benefits as a result of their physical appearance.В But what exactly does this skin-deep path to success look like? Here are 3 ways pretty privilege produces greater successes in life.

1. Pretty privilege can mean being seen as a better employee

Attractive people are seen as better workers by their employers. In the same research that defined the term вЂњbeauty premiumвЂќ, a study was conducted to determine the effects of beauty on the hiring process. Within it, employers viewing photographs of potential employees were inclined to increase salaries by nearly 10.5% to attractive people (Mobius &В Rosenblat,В 2006).

Similarly,В the Halo Effect implies that we subconsciously assume peopleвЂ™s appearances are a reflection of their overall characters (Nisbett & Wilson). With this in mind, it is unsurprising that physically attractive individuals are perceived as more вЂњsociable, dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, intelligent, and socially skilledвЂќ (Feingold, 1992). Attractive people often benefit from this bias from an early age, resulting in greater confidence as adults. Researchers suggest confidence translates into successes as self-assured individuals are more likely to step out of their comfort zones (Mobius &В Rosenblat,В 2006).) Asking for higher wages or even a greater willingness to take on job opportunities are some ways in which confidence can translate to professional success.

2. Pretty privilege can mean earning higher grades

Pretty privilege doesnвЂ™t just translate to work success- it also produces many academic advantages. As mentioned previously, attractive people are seen as more intelligent in addition to many other positive traits (Feingold, 1992). That being said, research has also shown that pretty privilege can also give way to better grades.

A study was conducted to test whether or not physical attractiveness plays a role in unobserved productivity by comparing attractiveness to grades in college courses (HernГЎndez & Peters, 2017). Variables were manipulated through two groups: groups of students whose appearances were directly observed by instructors and groups of students whose appearances were not. The study found that appearances did indeed matter, as attractive female students earned higher grades than unattractive ones (HernГЎndez & Peters, 2017).

3. Pretty privilege can mean romantic success

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 вЂњgood-lookingвЂќ as an essential quality (Chapman University, 2015). While other factors such as personality are bound to play a role in who we find attractive, it is impossible to ignore the influence of physical attractiveness within the realm of dating and romance.В

Research also shows that attractive people are seen as more sociable which in turn fosters better communication skills and more potential relationships both platonically and romantically (Heckman & Rubinstein, 2001). Essentially, pretty people are granted more opportunities for romantic success through othersвЂ™ perceptions of specific positive traits. Social skills might just be the best predictor of lifetime success.

Beauty standards and self-esteem

Mental health impact of upward comparisons

Comparing yourself to others who you perceive to be better than you, or upward comparisons, can be extremely detrimental to your mental health. Research has shown that the amount of benefits we grant to attractive people can leave those left out desperately comparing themselves to others (Li, 2019). Upward comparisons can cause other negative feelings including shame, inferiority, and depression. With the abundant social comparison opportunities today via social media platforms, it is crucial to understand ways to alleviate these negative effects.В

What can we do about pretty privilege?

While we have established that pretty privilege exists, itвЂ™s time we talk about ways to manage it and prevent some of its negative consequences like upward comparisons.В

Untraining pretty privilege bias

В Pretty privilege may be something that is seemingly engraved into our society. At this cultural level, researchers have suggested that the main way to combat these privileges is to untrain the bias we have towards physically attractive people. Studies have been conducted to show the effects of counter-stereotype training. In one such study, researchers found counter-stereotyping significantly reduced implicit bias (Burns, Monteith & Parker, 2017). They also found that when participants became aware of their own biases, they began feeling motivated to self-regulated. Untraining your biases not only makes you more aware of yourself, but this new awareness creates well-being. We have also discussed the ways self-awareness can cultivate work-related well-being as well.В

The body positivity movement

Feeling comfortable in your own skin is also a huge step in combatting the effects of pretty privilege and upward comparisons. The recent rise of the body positivity movement has been proven by researchers to increase female confidence and better their mental well-being. Defined by researchers as вЂњreferring to social media content that challenges status-quo beauty ideals by portraying and promoting diverse physical appearances, are suggestive of mental health benefitsвЂќ, the movement has been associated with significantly more positive effects than negative ones (Stevens & Griffiths, 2020). В

In a study of female undergraduate students, participants were asked to complete a week-long assessment on their level of body satisfaction in comparison to body positivity exposure (Stevens & Griffiths, 2020). They were then asked to report what social media platform they experienced the most body positivity content. The results showed Instagram accounting for 46.1% of body positivity exposure, with participants feeling the most positive feelings there. Likewise, viewing body positive content was associated with greater body satisfaction. Researchers concluded that viewing body positivity content daily can benefit psychological well-being as it protects and enhances oneвЂ™s body image. Scrolling through Instagram might not solve pretty privilege, but this new wave of positive images is heading in the right direction towards combating socially engrained stereotypes of beauty.В

Building self esteem with self awareness app LIFE Intelligence

LIFE Intelligence is a DIY therapist, career coach, and relationship counselor in one. Its goal is to help you self-manage your self, career, and relationships through scientific studies, in order to cultivate your confidence and self-awareness.В The app is comprised of a 9-step program, a journey that begins with managing your mind and emotions, walks through goals, decisions, communication, and conflict resolution, and finally, ends with leadership.

Mission (topic)В 4.6В addresses the pros and cons and social media, and in particular, how upward comparisons lower self-esteem. With 86% of people on social media experiencing upward comparisons, chances are you have felt negatively at one point or another on social media.

In Mission 5, learn to manage your biases toward those withВ or without pretty privilege in Mission 5, so you don’t judge a book by its cover. Then, learn to support friends through body image in Mission 6. You can even manage your anxiety, insecurity, or frustration through immediate mood management exercises. This toolkit makes LIFE Intelligence a useful self therapy app. So you can develop and radiate real confidence, from the inside out.

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Why Are People Talking About Pretty Privilege?

Oftentimes fitting conventional, beauty standards gets you more opportunities in life. Here’s how this concept affects young adult women.

By Imani Benberry, Columbia University

Thoughts x September 27, 2020

Why Are People Talking About Pretty Privilege?

Oftentimes fitting conventional, beauty standards gets you more opportunities in life. Here’s how this concept affects young adult women.

By Imani Benberry, Columbia University

There is a psychosocial phenomenon that being more physically attractive gets you more opportunities in life. This “pretty privilege” encapsulates our bias in favor of those that are considered beautiful, and because beauty is socially constructed, it can thrive off of existing beauty standards that devalue individuals from marginalized groups. Here’s how pretty privilege shows up in real life, and how you can better check your personal biases.

Defining “Pretty”

Beauty is of course subjective, but that doesn’t mean perceived beauty doesn’t have real social and economic consequences. 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.”

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. Though diversity in media today is improving and expanding in some sectors to represent a range of ethnic backgrounds and body types, billboards, movie posters, and beauty and fashion campaigns still send the message that whiteness and those who best approximate whiteness are prettier.

Early racial theorists not only insisted that white people were superior mentally, but that “Caucasian” was the most beautiful of the races. 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 a post-colonial Western society, white, cis, able-bodied individuals lay claim to beauty and thus reap its social and economic benefits.

Scientists across many fields, from psychology to even economics, have dedicated studies to the ways beauty can act as a kind of social currency.

Pulchronomics, for example, is the study of the economics of physical attractiveness. 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. Even in the classroom, teachers have higher expectations for better-looking children, and attractive students get higher grades. Employees with above-average looks get above-average pay. 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 in Everyday Life

In everyday moments like making friends or choosing whether to be polite to someone, pretty privilege benefits some. 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. 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. 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. Despite the fact that users only see them in 15-second bursts, good-looking TikTokers are deemed friendly, fun and cool.

TikTok, the purported “feel-good” corner of the internet, perpetuates the inequalities of pretty privilege through its For You page. At one time the company advised moderators to keep certain body types and lifestyles — mostly fat and poor — out of the For You section. Videos displaying bodies that fell into the following categories were to be cut: “Abnormal body shape, chubby, have obvious beer belly, obese, or too thin.” Moderators were to also hide people with “ugly facial looks.” Users with pretty privilege were able to rise to the top of the app simply by meeting conventional beauty standards.

The easy virality of these videos points to another aspect of pretty privilege — success on social media. Social media popularity can lead to a range of opportunities, such as brand deals and sponsorships, a successful merch line, or the exposure to start a lucrative, unrelated business, like a make-up line or clothing brand. 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.

Disrupting the Inequalities Produced by Pretty Privilege

“Being considered beautiful can help you gain access to certain spaces, or increase your power in certain settings. By the same token, a perceived lack of beauty, or a refusal or inability to conform to certain beauty standards, also has really tangible consequences,” podcast editor Leah Donello explains in the episode.

Some might ask the question whether expanding our idea of beauty or disregarding beauty as a “precondition for respect” altogether is more productive. I would argue that both are powerful ways of resisting toxic standards and uplifting women, especially women of color.

Beyonce’s “Brown Skin Girl,” for example, simultaneously embraces Black women, particularly dark-skinned Black women, in its conception of feminine beauty while rejecting colonial beauty standards. 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. 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.

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. The idea that beauty is necessary or especially significant is in itself harmful. What would it mean to be happy and believe that you are not beautiful?

Pretty privilege reinforces social inequalities by privileging white, thin, able-bodied individuals. Interrogating and deconstructing biases against those that don’t conform with Western beauty standards can help create a more equal society. It will take de-centering whiteness, and maybe even dismissing facial beauty as meaningful in the first place.

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Pretty Privilege Is The Most Useless Privilege

Attractive people earn 3% to 4% more than their peers. (University of Texas, 2011)
Attractive workers are (wrongly) considered more able by employers. (Harvard, 2005)
Women who wear glamorous make-up are seen as more competent and likable than less attractive women without make-up. (Harvard, 2001)
Teachers give good-looking high school students better grades than their peers. (University of Miami, 2009)
Attractive real estate brokers make 12% more money than their peers. (Middle Tennessee State University, 2012)

It must be a fantastic privilege to have, right? But all that glitters ain’t gold — pretty privilege is a sh*tty privilege and comes with a hefty price tag. The price is so high; we shouldn’t consider it a privilege at all.

As an able-bodied, white, straight, cis person, born in a rich European country with universal healthcare, I ooze privilege.

Is my life hard? Yes! But none of the hardships I deal with are because of my skin color, ethnicity, health, or sexual orientation. The only “bad” hand I got dealt with is my gender — way too often, I have had to deal with misogyny and sexism.

But thanks to my white privilege, I don’t have the same struggles as my Black and Brown sisters, who have to deal with their own brands of intersectional sexism.

None of my privileges have any downsides.

There are no downsides to being white in a Western country. Reverse racism doesn’t exist. And even if it did exist, people of color discriminating against me does not affect my life. As long as most governments, board rooms, judges, and police officers are white, I’m privileged. Whether you like it or not, white is the default and, therefore, a major privilege in many countries.

Neither are there any downsides to being able-bodied. And if you are one of those people who whine about disabled people having the best parking spots, please, eat a bucket of broken glass. And just because there are disabled parking spaces doesn’t mean that the actual buildings are accessible. Not having to think about accessibility is such a huge privilege; most able-bodied people aren’t even aware of it.

The same goes for being straight — no downsides whatsoever. I can marry any useless man I want, and people will be happy for me. I can order my wedding cake everywhere. I can hold hands with my partner without having to be afraid to get assaulted. I won’t be classified as mentally ill because of who I love. I won’t be shunned by my family or forced to undergo conversion therapy.

Ditto for being cisgender. I have never questioned my gender. I have never had to think about how I identify and why. I don’t always like being a woman, but I am one, no doubt. My machinery matches my gender identity. And when I see my trans friends’ struggle, I realize what a massive privilege that is. There are no downsides to being cisgender because cisgender is the default.

I acknowledge my privileges and use them to advantage the people around me who are less privileged. There is, however, one privilege I have wrestled with since puberty — pretty privilege.

Growing up, I was a plain-looking kid. Because my brother and sister were both ridiculously good-looking children, people were always kind of disappointed when they saw me, and I deduced that meant I was ugly. I felt ugly.

I had crooked teeth, a lisp, small eyes, virtually no eyebrows, which gave me an alien-esque appearance, and I was so tall I always slouched over not to stick out like a sore thumb. I was bullied relentlessly in school, which didn’t help with my self-confidence.

And I was okay with it. I enjoyed being overlooked. My shy and introverted self wanted to be invisible. I didn’t mind being ugly because I felt smart. My books were my best friends. I would never win a Miss World contest, but I would do anything in my power to have a shot at a Nobel prize.

And then, when I was 14, a miracle happened.

My braces got removed.

I discovered the magic of the eyebrow pencil.

All the kids in my class had a growth spurt, so I wasn’t the only tall one anymore.

Seemingly overnight, my body transformed from awkward girl to full-blown hourglass woman mode.

Some of the boys in my class confessed they had a crush on me. I thought it was a practical joke. There were so many pretty girls in my class; why would they pay attention to a cave troll like me?

At first, when my breasts started growing, I was happy. But then they didn’t stop. Suddenly, boys wanted to carry my bag and help me with my homework. I saw boys and grown men staring at them. Staring at me. I hated it. I started wearing my brother’s old t-shirts to hide my body.

But in the oversexualized 90s, girls were encouraged to show some skin. We complain about girls being hypersexualized nowadays, but in the 90s, we went to school wearing low-rise jeans, showing off our thongs, and grinding to LL Cool J’s classic “Doin’ it.”

My unflattering clothing made me stand out. I was painfully insecure, and I wanted to fit in. So slowly, I branched out and shopped at the same stores as my newfound friends. My tight clothing and make-up gave me attention, and it was a confusing experience. The more I tried to fit in, the more I stood out.

It is still hard for me to call myself pretty because I’ve spent my formative years being okay with being ugly. I’m not very invested in the way I look. I don’t think I am all that.

But I am not blind. I see how people react to me. And I am very aware that I am treated differently from my not conventionally attractive friends.

I don’t know if I make more money than my peers because of my looks, but I do know that I’ve never had any trouble finding a job — even though I’m a college drop-out. I like to tell myself that employers hire me because of my skills, but there is a possibility my looks have helped me more than once.

I can’t deny looking conventionally attractive has advantages. These advantages come with a price tag, though:

Unwanted to dangerous attention from men

Judgment from women

It’s temporary; beauty fades, and there is a lot of pressure to preserve your good looks.

When I was 18, a photographer invited me to come to the Autosalon in Paris, France, to pose with the newest and sexiest cars — all expenses paid. He tried to take upskirt pictures and booked only one room in a hotel, for the two of us.

I have been groped. I have been assaulted. I have even been followed down the street by a man who didn’t want to leave me alone because I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

I am not alone in this. Many of my friends share these traumatic experiences.

Unwanted attention from entitled men isn’t the only price I pay for pretty privilege.

I’ve had altercations with women because they thought I looked “arrogant.” A woman tried to beat me up because her boyfriend approached me, which was apparently my fault, not his.

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When I got my first big promotion, my female co-worker told everyone I only got that promotion because of my tits.

A male co-worker got into a fight with his live-in girlfriend because she felt we spent too much time together, and there had to be something going on — yes, a major international project we were both had key roles in.

Even though studies show that attractive people are seen as more competent, many people assume I am dumb or naive. Because a woman can’t be pretty and smart, right?

Beauty fades, and there is a lot of social pressure to stay pretty. Marketing campaigns aimed at women have an unambiguous message: if we’re not pretty, we need to become pretty. And if we are considered pretty — for the love of God, don’t ever age.

I am not saying marketers and magazines caused my body dysmorphia, but they didn’t help, either.