The Woman With the Body, Burdened by Those Triggered by Her Figure
The Pretty Privilege Myth and Prejudice Based on Perceived Attractiveness (6)
This is my conclusion to my recounting of childhood and adult experiences I’ve had with people regarding their treatment of me based on my appearance and the myth of Pretty Privilege.
(*All four parts of my account preceding this conclusion should be read to get the whole picture.)
It’s bad enough to be a woman of color and have to contend with sexism and potentially racism as well. But the abuse based on perceived high attractiveness is ludicrous. In fact, it’s worse. Looks are not a legally protected characteristic, which means if someone finds you too attractive (or unattractive) for their preferences, they can legally discriminate against you.
I’ve attempted to talk about my negative experiences before, and I usually get silenced or invalidated, almost exclusively by women, despite sharing my negative experiences with men as well. It seems like a guilty conscience to become irate over my own personal account that they aren’t directly involved with. Unless these women identify with the hostile women I’m talking about, none of what I’m saying should provoke antagonism.
I have challenged this made-up privilege and angered some people who desperately want to cling to this idea that looks are the end-all, be-all:
Erica proves my point exactly with her lack of empathy and callous disregard for women who don’t revel in “Pretty Privilege”. Nothing like calling child abuse and rape “petty” things to complain about. Then that “sorry” at the end. The fake concern right after saying something so evil just never ceases to disgust me. It reminded me of my last boss’s posturing about supporting me as a woman, yet she did the exact opposite.
I know I’m overlapping into misanthropy, but fuck the human race.
All I wanted was a normal life. I wanted to sit in a corner, work on spreadsheets, and mind my own damn business until I could go home and game. That had been my general routine as a high school student, college student, and full-time working adult. Do well in school, go home and game. Do a good job at work, go home and game. I was repressing myself, sure, but as long as I could make an unassuming living, I was satisfied. Being able to escape into worlds where good and moral people actually exist, and evil can be ousted from power, was enough for me. But now I realize that people are superficial assholes obsessed with image and control. That’s why racism and every other -ism still exist and will never go away.
This is my body at 112 lbs, 39–24–37.5 and a 30 US J cup (30GG UK). Put those measurements into the body type calculator, and you get “top hourglass”, .64 hip to waist ratio.
I didn’t think I was attractive to people until I was an adult and people treated it like it was something I should just know (which pisses me off). Once, I even put a picture of my face in an “ugly” group on Whisper, and people got angry and told me I should know I’m attractive. As this one person said:
In the first screenshot at the beginning of this article, I finally acknowledged that my body is an exception and that to others I have a pretty face. It took me a long time to recognize this, and still, I would never assume an individual finds me attractive unless they tell me. One person's “good-looking” is another person’s “meh”.
Even so, my experiences have shown me that naturally having a figure like mine means I don’t get treated like a regular civilian (which is what I am). I’m treated like I exist for other people. For their entertainment and commentary. So where’s my celebrity money?
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It’s one thing to be rich and famous and deal with the level of dehumanization that I’ve dealt with, but as a regular person who was working a normal job, it’s a nightmare.
Again, to summarize the points from these past four articles:
- It’s not a privilege to get incestuous comments or touching from your family members as a child
- It’s not a privilege to be bullied and ostracized by other women (aka be subject to their internalized misogyny)
- Male attention and being sexually harassed by men are not privileges
- It’s not a privilege to be a child and have adult women behave as if they’re competing with you.
- It’s not a privilege to have adult men show you inappropriate attention as a child
- It’s not a privilege to be treated with hostility just for existing
- It’s not a privilege to be told I should risk my life (all surgery carries risk) and change myself to appease people who don’t want me to exist with my body
- It’s not a privilege to deal with sexual harassment and inappropriate comments on your body in the workplace
- And for the Ericas (and Erics) out there, child abuse and rape aren’t privileges
And then there’s the prejudice and preconceived notions. I’ve gotten the assumption that I have OnlyFans because of my body. People assume I have public-facing social media. That I can’t be a gamer, that I must be a girly girl, that I’m not real, that I’m X, Y, and Z. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions based on nothing but looks because critical thinking skills are virtually nonexistent in the human race. In fact, I think people just enjoy practicing prejudice, peddling lies, and being wrong these days.
I never thought I’d grow up after a childhood of experiencing physical violence, verbal abuse, and inappropriate touching against my siblings and me from our own parents, only to be told I’m privileged because of how I look — and then mocked and silenced for trying to talk about those things.
Then sexual assault in adulthood and corporate discrimination, where my right to make a living has been compromised. I get that humans don’t actually care about child abuse, rape victims, etc; I just wish they’d stop performing care and patting themselves on the back as if they do.
Humans are not Jesus Christ or any other God known for grace and love; far from it. They’re cruel, twisted, and often apathetic to injustice. Their sympathy, empathy, and compassion are selective for those who check the right boxes, if they are even capable of them.
No one would want to deal with two decades of this psychotic bullshit. Just the thought of getting involved with people fills me with a sense of dread. I don’t want romance, sex, or friendship. I want my right to make a living without being sexually harassed and bullied just for existing with my phenotype; that’s it.
Maybe both our societies are messed up, and they each only think one type of person is really a person. And the type of person they think is really a person is allowed to show imprefections and age… whereas the type of person they think is an object should show no signs of being a person — Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands
Thank you for reading. This is the sixth publication in the series, “The Pretty Privilege Myth and Prejudice based on Perceived Attractiveness”. My relevant sources for the topic are linked below.
- Attractive women seen as less trustworthy in the workplace
- Women dress modestly to avoid aggression from other women, study suggests
- People show reduced empathy toward sexualized women, study finds
- The science of why women are critical of attractive females — MyNorthwest.com
- Behavioral and neural responses to social exclusion in women: the role of facial attractiveness and friendliness
- Women show increased aggression toward those with larger breasts, study finds
- New Jersey Woman Says She Was Fired For Being Too Busty
- Study: Men who like big breasts are more sexist
- Opinion | Sady Doyle: Megan Fox and the “unlikable” women #MeToo left behind
- Don’t Hate Megan Fox Because She’s Beautiful
- Intrasexual competition among women
- Teal Swan on the reality of being beautiful
- My playlist of videos showcasing Intra-Female Hostility
- My playlist of videos showcasing the Pretty Privilege Myth and the mistreatment that comes with being attractive to superficial people.
*edit added post publish
