Is Pretty Privilege real?
Is Pretty Privilege real?
Some real advice for the Uglies and on the essence of Charm
Pretty Privilege is the idea that the world will treat you better if you are more attractive as a woman. You are more easily trusted, you get more attention from (all kinds) of men, you get jobs more easily.
However, other (immature) women hate a very pretty girl a lot more quickly. Their jealousy, consciously or unconsciously, compels them invent or imagine negative things about a prettier girl, in order to assuage their feelings of inferiority. People automatically assume you are promiscuous or narcissistic because of your beauty. You get more unwanted sexual attention. You must be very careful about whom to trust.
Of course everyone would love to be more beautiful. It's stupid to deny it! But is prettiness everything?
Most people don't care about YOU; they care about how you make THEM feel! This means it doesn't matter if you're pretty or ugly. If you make people feel good being around you, it doesn't matter if you have the ugliest mug on the planet, people will like you. This is called charm and it is more powerful than prettiness all day, every day. So if you are ugly, or even "mid," and you spend all your time being insecure about it or even thinking about it, you're going to make yourself insufferable to be around. This is very similar to the objectively pulchritudinous who are unfortunately obsessed with their appearance. Very annoying!
Everyone loves someone who pays attention to them and not to themselves. The uglies need to be told this, and not the molly coddling lie that they are just as beautiful as Miss World. Sorry, that's just not true for 90% of women.
The social skill that the uglies, mids and pretties all must master in order to develop charm, is to stop thinking about their appearance at all and focus on how they are making the person in front of them feel.
This is both a remedy for vanity, and the essence of charm. It matters how you look, but really, how you make the people around you feel, matters much more.
As charming a post as I have ever read. It occurred to me as I read it that this is in many ways equally applicable to men. Of course, the man obsessed with his appearance is generally, in my view, more debased and shameful than a woman with a similar obsession, possibly just because physical beauty is more legitimately the lady's domain. The obsession with self, whatever form it takes, is the truly repellant thing, which makes any type of beauty or virtue repellant.
'Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, whose daughters you are if you do good and are not afraid with any terror.
Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.
Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.' -third chapter of Peter's First Epistle
I am aware of how our society views the ideas of submission and the 'weaker vessel' but isn't the unwillingness to see those things what has made our world such a miserable place?(literally a place without blessedness) True greatness, for any of us, consists in the ability to put another ahead of ourselves. The details are different for different people, but the principle is universal.
As I thought about your post, I realised that I want my daughters to hear it so I will crosspost to my tiny audience.