Mirror Mirror On The Wall
-Mrunmayee Mainkar
FY BSC 2024-28
Estimated reading time – 5 minutes
One day while scrolling through YouTube Shorts, I came across a video of a creator talking about “pretty privilege”, or what millennials used to say, “ugly duckling privilege”. From the name itself, I could make out what it was about, but I still decided to watch the video. The creator talked about how some people think being pretty isn’t a privilege. She said that people who have had a “glow-up” or a “glow-down” know that it is true. What used to be considered weird about some would be regarded as cute about others. Whether it’s receiving better treatment, or being offered new opportunities, beauty does play a part. “Swans” get all the attention while the “ugly ducklings” hope to be them.
In the comments too, people were whole-heartedly agreeing. The general feeling was that if someone was not pretty, it was as if their presence used to irritate people. If they became pretty in the physical sense, people willingly sought their company. In a comment, a girl stated that whenever she and her conventionally attractive best friend went out, people would hold doors for her best friend, buy her drinks, and ask her to dance, while the commentator was mostly ignored. I personally have noticed that people are much nicer to me now than they were a few years ago, although only a few things have changed about me. I noticed this change, especially after losing weight and body tan after the pandemic. This begs the question, why does this occur? What drives people to behave so?
There is something known as the ‘Halo Effect’, also called the physical attractiveness privilege. A cognitive bias makes our mind associate physical attractiveness with other positive qualities like competency, intelligence, leadership, confidence, etc. This effect is nothing new. In ancient Egypt, the beauty standard was tall, with brown hair, a slender frame, long limbs, and almond-shaped eyes. This can be found in other civilizations as well. This effect tends to have a significant impact on children’s minds, especially when they can understand the difference between how people treat them and their peers. Children observe this discriminatory behavior from adults and unknowingly internalize it. They too start believing that treating people according to their looks is the right thing to do. People who don’t grow up being conventionally attractive understand this better than anyone. When they observe the same set of people treating them differently as compared to someone attractive, they subconsciously start thinking that their social standing and self-worth are based on looks, that they can only be treated properly or accepted by society if they fit in the beauty standards. This leads to body image issues like body dysmorphia, anorexia, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, etc. They might even replicate this behavior unto others by treating them according to how they look. In school, teachers unknowingly show favoritism to attractive students and associate their beauty with higher intelligence. Pretty privilege is more prevalent in the US, where white supremacy is dominant and where the beauty standards are generally white, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a thin frame. Even though tanning is considered exotic there, being Caucasian gives you an edge. Having a skin color apart from white might be unique, but ultimately white people have the upper hand. This is quite common in the corporate sector as well. Attractive candidates have a higher chance of getting selected and being promoted. Women, who invest in their appearance and fit the beauty standard are generally more respected than others.
Over time, the perception of what is considered beautiful also changes. An excellent example is body types. There was recently a trend where the dream body type was what Kim Kardashian has, extremely curvy with a thin waist. In the 2000s, having an hourglass figure was considered desirable. In the 90s, having a zero figure was the ultimate dream. Even earlier, for instance, in ancient Greece, having a plump body was attractive, and in ancient Egypt, a slender figure was appreciated. Constantly changing standards for body types give rise to insecurity, leading to women feeling pressured to get botox injections and plastic surgeries. In South Korea, which is referred to as the cosmetic surgery capital of the world, the cosmetic surgery industry is valued at approximately $11.8 billion in 2021. In 2023, over 6 lakh people went to South Korea to get cosmetic surgery done. This shows that their cosmetic tourism industry is being promoted but for not a very positive reason. Pretty privilege also gives rise to racism and discrimination among communities. The idea that being “Aryan” or blond and blue-eyed is the ultimate form of beauty and purity is what gave rise to Hitler and his fascist ideology. To this day, we hear hate crimes being committed against people who are not Caucasian. In India too, we hear about people preferring to marry fair-skinned and slim women or fair, tall, and fit men. In Bollywood, the lead actor and actress are always someone who fulfill those conditions and are portrayed to be the ideals, which is ironic considering that the majority of our population does not fit those standards. On a related note, we see actresses getting lesser roles as they age but actors still get the lead roles even when they cross the age of 50. Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan are 59 and 58 years old respectively but still get the lead roles, while as soon as actresses approach the age of 40, they don’t get such roles. Women are expected to age gracefully and are encouraged to look younger than they are, but for men, it’s just about getting “manlier”.
Beauty should not be a measure of other qualities. There is no denying the fact that being attractive is leverage and as humans we tend to give attractive people more attention. However, merit, charm, charisma, personality, etc matter a lot as well. Rather than focusing obsessively on looks, it is better to focus on the latter because we all know that first impressions last. Look beyond how people look and you will notice the real them.