Pretty privilege

I'm afraid it's called natural selection. However very pretty attractive people have an equally hard time of it. They can never quite know if someone truly loves them for them. Or is it their looks? This of course changes as we age... it's then you realise you've given many years to someone/or many who never really knew you. Encourage their confidence in their abilities and teach them to be discriminating regarding who they let in.

I was just saying to someone a few days ago that when I was young and blonde people used to stop to help with whatever I was doing.

Now they do the same but it’s ’cos I’m old and grey 😉

Boz if it’s the same girl presenter on GB News as I think you mean , she has brains to burn as well as good looks. When the pope died she was in Rome over a few days and her reporting was terrific- her breadth of knowledge was fantastic. Don’t judge a book by its cover!
To answer the question a big YES. Beauty draws people in. They want a part of it. I call it the Princess Diana effect. I’ve seen it in action many times!

🤔

I was not responding to your post, BranduGran
It was to Pix5
It sounded more like the kind of remark a man would make 🙄

I have a friend who has always been a man-magnet due to her looks- she still looks stunning for her age but has been single for years and has no time for the men who still ogle after her, and go on about how they wish they were younger etc etc...

Men and women are often surprised there is no man in her life- though she had one failed marriage and a partner who passed away.

Luckily her friends know her for the person she is and know what struggles she still has.

What a sad world where we imprison people because we can't leave how they look, alone...

It is all very sad

I think kindness trumps so called good looks every time.

As does humility and modesty does for people who want to show off to the world how beautiful, gorgeous and special their child is.

Sounds very. shallow to me.

Like some of the posters on Gransnet today.

Remember. Beauty is only skin deep and looks fade.

Yes it really exists and has for a long time. As a none pretty woman who is friends with a very attractive woman I know 1st hand that is exists and is going strong. Strangely it's not just men either, she has women bending over backwards for her too. We've even tested it out before just to check, on one occasion we both went into a local repair shop her with a pushchair that's wheels were damaged and me with a pushbike with a broken chain and flat tyres. Not too dissimilar to repair...We went into together but not acknowledging each other. She was seen to first, 3 men appeared all very keen to help with the pushchair and offering her advice with smiles and niceties. They said they could do it then while she waited and would take about 20 minutes.
My turn came, one miserable looking bloke came out, told me I'd have to leave it and come back in 4 days. No other help offered, no smiles and just one man.

Another time which didn't start as a test... Her car had broken down and were stuck at the side of a fairly busy road waiting for the AA (or whoever she'd phoned) and as a smoker at the time I was stood near the car, my friend was sat in the car. Now I didn't expect anyone to stop and help but one car did, the bloke asked if I was OK, I told him yes we were waiting for help. Off he drove.
Then we swapped, I was cold and got back on the car, my friend got out for some air. Within 2 minutes a car pulled up, 2 men inside.. Was she OK? Yes. Off they go. Almost immediately a car with a woman driving stopped, then another car, then another.
I stood there for 10 minutes and one car stopped, my friend was there less than 5 minutes and several cars stopped and most offered her a lift home.

So yes, it's very real.

Pretty privilege isn't about drawing people in or being liked, it's being more about receiving above normal assistance, help and service because you're attractive.

So the reverse means you get treated as less if you're not attractive?
Surely that proves pretty privilege is a thing? Maybe we all do it but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It does and has been proven more than once.

ViceVersa

Maremia

It's a question being asked. Is there such a thing as 'pretty privilege'?

Exactly - and I don't see how it pushes those of us who are not pretty into 'victimhood'. I certainly don't see it that way. What you've never had, you never miss.

It might just be the use of language these days, ViceVersa but there are other " priviligeds" eg "White Privilege" being often quoted where " baked-in" advantage is used by the "dis" advantaged to complain "poor me"..... I wasn't born pretty; blond; thin; white whatever so in the area of victimhood.
Nature is neither fair nor compensatory.
I also think that beauty can be in the eye of the beholder. As teenagers the most handsome guy in our group ( a Cat Stevens lookalike) eventually married a smashing friend of mine. Before that he was utterley devoted to a short , plain, plump girl who was " all personality" as they say. He would not hear one word against her and always said , as he should " Well Ilike her.
Do people in general or men in particular still operate like that ? I wonder.

I had a stunningly beautiful workplace friend who actually found it almost a nuisance. She said that people didn't listen to what she said because they just looked at her. But she certainly got to places I never did.
What about beautiful men?

But one of my sisters has amazing vitality and has always attracted loads of attention. At work, she got favours and promotions above prettier colleagues.

Youngerthanspringtime

Oh so that's why I get ignored!

Aww! sure not.

In business, I found that I was ignored for being female, but my very pretty colleague was listened to. I became a little more forceful. However, when it came to promotion, she was never considered. Being taller I think helped, because I could make eye contact

Biscuitmuncher - this is called the halo effect, the reverse being the horn effect. Children learn about this very early on in their lives just by watching their role models' behaviour. For example, the pretty kid in class usually gets a better reception from the teacher than the not so pretty and for this reason if the class collectively wants something - like to go home early because it's snowing, they vote the pretty child to be the one to ask. The good looks create the basic thought in the observer (teacher) that the child is also good and therefore, to be rewarded. Conversely, the unwashed child in the drab clothes is considered to be less 'good' and less able, and less worthy - this is the horn effect. This is fundamental social-psychology and unfortunately it plays into much social interaction. In the three decades when I was an academic working in a university, it became appropriate to remove students' photographs from their cvs when they were applying for internships or graduate jobs for this very reason. However, many companies overseas wanted not only a full- face photo but also a full-length one of the student in business clothing because for them company reputation was not only tied in with the competence and qualifications of their employees but also their beauty!

Of course it does

Yes, I benefitted from it too but it had its downsides. Funnily enough, I think some men were intimidated. Not any more, haha! Invisible.

My DH is incredibly handsome and people often talk to him for ages before they even notice I'm there! Eventually they get bored though and discover I am hilarious despite being fairly ugly.

I don't know why some folk don't appreciate their 'cloak of invisibility'. It gives you peace, and freedom to be yourself.
If we need attention, we have 'the voice'.

Labradora how on earth was my question ragebait? Have I touched a nerve?

Yes i have seen this with one dd who is very charming and pretty and also clever.

So she gets their attention first,then goes in for the kill....😉

My DGD is blonde and pretty with huge blue eyes. I notice how much attention she gets from strangers and hope that it doesn't mean the wrong sort of men being attracted to her when she's older. She's far too young for it to be a problem at the moment as she will be only 3 next month. At least she won't outshine a less pretty sister as she has 2 brothers as of this week!
I've always been plain and realise one has to try harder if thst is the case. Sadly many people are very shallow so we have to work much harder to get fair treatment.

There is very much a ‘pretty privilege’ operating and always has been. I am no beauty, probably about a 6 and a half or 7 but I have used other means to resist being socially invisible. Those who can project intelligence, wit, a pleasing personality and are interested in the world and others have a lot to offer and generally are not overlooked. There are merit and rewards in making the best of what nature has given you.

If you look as if you have given up on the world, the world will give up on you.

jocork

My DGD is blonde and pretty with huge blue eyes. I notice how much attention she gets from strangers and hope that it doesn't mean the wrong sort of men being attracted to her when she's older. She's far too young for it to be a problem at the moment as she will be only 3 next month. At least she won't outshine a less pretty sister as she has 2 brothers as of this week!
I've always been plain and realise one has to try harder if thst is the case. Sadly many people are very shallow so we have to work much harder to get fair treatment.

This is always the worry. DGD is 18 now but she has what was once called a womanly figure, Marilyn Monroe, 1950s starlet shape, natural hour glass shape. She acuired this adult shape from the start of puberty, about 13, and her mother said she found men were looking at DGD, essentally still a child, in that sort of way when she was barely a teenager and she found it both disconseerting and worrying. I noticed it too when they came to stay

As I said she is now 18, an assured you woman, whose body shape matches her age, so it is now no more a problem than for other girls her age. But it can be a worry