What does beauty mean to you? Is it a concept unique to humans, or is it an evolutionary imperative aimed at enhancing survival?
We appreciate beauty in our surroundings, in sights, smells, taste and touch; soothing sounds indicate solace while shrill noises prime us for peril and cold-hearted combat. Presumably our primitive forms needed a way to hardwire environmental cues into our core, so when we see food of a certain colour we are either attracted or repulsed by it, like the putrid stench of faecal matter that tells us we definitely do not want to consume that. Dogs clearly have a high threshold or perhaps they’ve evolved to be able to utilise the nutrients from another dog’s stinking hot mess.
That brings me to pretty privilege, the ubiquitous phenomenon where the good-looking creatures and people receive a disproportionate amount of attention and goodwill and all manner of societal rewards and accolades. Why should we worship people simply because they are handsome or smoking hot? Does being physically attractive correlate with mental or social intelligence?
I’m not knocking the pretty people out there – I am simply saying is it right for us to assume that just because someone is good-looking that they are competent and refined in nature? Why do we have a tendency to trust and believe the babes and chiseled jawliners?
Certainly there is evolutionary appeal in selecting a mate with supple unblemished skin and symmetrical features, indicators of health and fertility and all that. But where do we draw the line? Should we toss out our merit system in favour of pretty people? At what point should we start to question the pertinence of pretty privilege?
Pretty privilege is at best a precarious matter for parley, an innate advantage that everyone silently acknowledges but some love to hate. You could argue that like any talent should it not be put to its best use?
Marilyn Monroe had a role in which she remarked:
“Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty?”
Do you feel being pretty is a talent? Is not a man’s ability to make money a talent?
If we concede that a man or woman’s earnings come from their ability to work, and their proficiency at their job is a talent, then isn’t it the same as a pretty person who can earn a living off their good looks and fine features?
On a significant level, our genetics define our ability to work just as they do our physical appearance. Some are more able-bodied than others, more agile or adept at carrying out complex equations. Why is your intelligence attributed to your hard work, when it is largely tied to your intrinsic mental acuity? And why is your flawless features only attributed to your genetics, when you could make the case that through nutrition and rigourous skincare regiments you have transformed your once lacklustre and pimple-plastered face into a pristine snowy tundra?
So is it wrong to exercise your pretty privilege, to accept the favours and effusive outpourings that come your way even though you never once asked for any of it? Should we condemn those who dare to flex their magical charm and muscle to get ahead in life? Or like race should we all become blind to beauty and pretend everyone we meet is a crash-test dummy?
They look like they’re having fun!
So in conclusion if a women is rich she should be respected because she toiled many a long weekend to earn it, but if a man is bone-hurtingly hot he’s clearly gay?
No respect for the cute, ditzy girl or the handsome corporate leader because they clearly just coasted by on their good looks and did nothing to deserve their fortune?
I wonder how our animal friends appreciate beauty, what they perceive as mighty fine or smoking hot? Clearly in humans there is some advantage to being a giraffe to reach those high value fruit and vegetables, but none to being really skilled at mining or bending over in the field tending to the earth.
Pick the tall ones, ladies – unfortunately your children will still be average height thanks to your genetics.
That sounds a little sour. Hey ladies, we know that you know that size matters – the size of our wallets. And skin moles.
