Hi Ugly,
How do I reconcile not wanting to become a victim to beauty culture rhetoric with the fact that being beautiful tangibly improves quality of life? I’m an undergrad in university and it’s hard not to feel like I’ll never get anywhere professionally or romantically if I don’t look a certain way, given that it seems like all the other girls on campus seem to be able to fulfill all their dreams and also casually look like That.
– (Not) That Girl
Too late, Not That Girl. You’re already a victim of beauty culture rhetoric and one word gave it away: casually. A very small percentage of people look like That without effort. For most, That demands a significant investment of time, money, energy and brain space.
First of all, let’s acknowledge the labor involved in simply looking Blah. I’m talking about beauty work so integrated into the performance of femininity that it seems invisible or is incorrectly labeled “hygiene” – the baseline for those who want to avoid covert judgment and overt mocking. Removing body hair. Removing or lightening facial hair. Smoothing, straightening or curling the hair on your head. Grooming your eyebrows. Using whitening toothpaste or Crest White Strips or getting your teeth bleached at the dentist. Dieting and exercising to maintain a certain weight or shape, or dressing in a way that emphasizes or disguises a certain weight or shape.
The writer Nora Ephron called this “maintenance” in her book I Feel Bad About My Neck, and claimed eight hours of it a week kept her “from looking exactly like” a “homeless woman”. (Oof.)
Then, there’s the effort of looking Presentable. Professional. Many women, particularly in the workplace, are expected to show up with clear or concealed skin, a layer of no-makeup makeup and manicured nails.
Now we can get to the additional slog of becoming one of The Beautiful Ones, which has been cataloged to perfection by millions of #GetReadyWithMe and “That Girl” videos. A typical routine might involve a multi-step, anti-ageing skincare regimen (morning and night); a small arsenal of hair care products and styling tools; and a larger collection of color cosmetics for covering, highlighting, contouring, lining and glossing. Add facial massage (gua sha for the traditionalist, or NuFace for the tech enthusiast) and a collagen supplement (because, of course, beauty begins on the inside) for good measure. And that’s just daily!
On a weekly basis, That Girl may reach for a series of non-invasive, at-home devices: LED light masks, high-frequency acne wands, facial steamers, pore extractors and microneedling tools. There are quarterly appointments for facials, hair dye or highlights, keratin treatments. Botox and filler are increasingly common. And don’t forget about plastic surgery: two of the most gorgeous girls in my college cohort got summer-after-high-school nose jobs.
Making That seem “casual” also requires labor. See the recent rush of “high-maintenance to be low-maintenance” routines on TikTok, which celebrate the extreme effort that goes into appearing effortless: semi-permanent eyebrow and lip color tattoos, eyelash lifts and tints, full-coverage overnight face masks. The name – inane! oxymoronic! – suggests our visually dominant culture did indeed usher in the era of “post-literacy” that the philosopher Walter J Ong predicted in the 1982 book Orality and Literacy.
Now, for argument’s sake, let’s forget about the correlation between harsh skincare ingredients and contact dermatitis. Ditto the fact that fillers can migrate and inflate, that Botox can cause muscle atrophy. Never mind the possible link between hair relaxers and cancer, or the risk of complications – some deadly – that comes with cosmetic surgery. Ignore the likelihood that today’s That will be tomorrow’s “that?” as the minimum standard of beauty rises. (Think of it as aesthetic inflation.)
Instead, let’s assume beauty work works. You did it! You’re beautiful! Is it worth it?
I don’t need to tell you that pretty privilege exists, Not That Girl. That beauty benefits women is obvious and well-studied. But inherent in your question is an assumption that the privileges we gain from beauty are greater than or equal to the time, money, energy and attention we sacrifice to beauty. I want to contest that.
For instance, it’s true that attractive employees make more money; statistics can vary widely, but one study cited in Daniel S Hamermesh’s 2011 book Beauty Pays notes “a three or four percent premium for good looking workers”. In my opinion, a 4% salary increase is not a fair trade for all the products, procedures and aesthetic labor listed above.
Yes, the dating pool deepens for beautiful women. But you reference romance rather than, say, an advantageous marriage – and is there anything romantic about someone who demands you manipulate your body in painful and pricey ways to earn their love? I’ve said it before, but most people are, by definition, average- or below average-looking! And the majority of them have love in their lives!
Politically speaking, beauty standards are also physical manifestations of discriminatory systems. Consider the classism of Ephron’s self-maintenance, the ageism of anti-ageing, the racism of skin lightening and brightening (an $8.6bn industry globally). Perpetuating these systems through beauty doesn’t save us from them; it keeps us at their mercy. And, of course, the power bestowed by beauty doesn’t protect those who have it from misogyny. In fact, determining a woman’s value by her appearance is misogyny.
When we prioritize looks, we give up so much. Girls as young as three learn “to place a premium on their physical appearance”, Fast Company reported earlier this year, and according to research cited in the Warwick Journal of Philosophy, can go on to value their appearance above health and education. A recent investigation from Dazed suggests some people now value aesthetics more than friendship.
From this, I might conclude that beauty improves some qualities of life, and degrades others.
I know data doesn’t make for the most satisfying answer. So I reached out to readers of my newsletter and conducted an anonymous survey about how pretty privilege, or lack thereof, has affected their personal and professional success.
Of the over 3,200 people polled, about 60% identify as average- or below-average looking, of whom 74% still find their lives “fulfilling”. While 41% of total respondents believe their appearance has positively impacted their economic opportunities, only 27% feel good about the amount of time and brain space they’ve dedicated to cosmetic pursuits.
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The large majority of those surveyed doubt the benefits of beauty are worth that cost.
One woman wrote that she has a “good body” and “good face” but believes maintaining her looks negatively affects her mental health. “The pressure to keep it up and make sure it never [goes] away … causes me distress,” she said.
“I spend so much time scrutinizing my appearance,” said another who considers herself above-average-looking. “I’m terrified of becoming ugly and losing my pretty privilege.”
“I will never get back the years I’ve spent criticizing appearance,” said someone who identified as average-looking. “It haunts me.”
More from Jessica DeFino’s Ask Ugly:
“Caring about my looks has diminishing returns after the five-minute mark,” another commented. “I genuinely think my quality of life would be better if I didn’t care at all. Thinking about it too much makes me miserable.”
Many who identified as average-looking regret the financial cost of upkeep. “Money spent on [beauty] in my early 20s could have been much better invested so that I was experiencing much more financial freedom now that I’m divorced,” said one, while another noted she was “still paying off Botox injections because I had to use credit. It was a terrible decision.”
Some of the most striking insights came from those who self-identified as ugly. “Being aware of how society works starts, in my opinion, with finding out that you’re conventionally unattractive,” a participant shared. “It’s easier to get out of the system (as much as I can) when you know it doesn’t benefit you as much anyway.” Learning about beauty culture and diet culture, they said, has made them “more proactive in changing [their] life instead of just quietly adhering to societal standards”.
Plenty of people reasonably said they see participation in beauty culture as an act of survival. But, as one person pointed out, “Being the most beautiful woman in the world will not [lead to] a true, healthy inner life.”
Finally, one respondent celebrated “letting go” of aesthetic labor – and the low self-esteem that came with it. “It turns out everyone loves me the same,” she said.
I think the only way to reconcile your dual desires for interrogating beauty culture and for pretty privilege, Not That Girl, is to acknowledge the paradox of possessing beauty: it may improve your life in certain ways, but at a price.
Unfortunately, accepting this tension won’t necessarily resolve it. Beauty culture is everywhere, and it’s pretty persuasive. Knowing it exists is just the first step; resisting it is much harder. But I find the work of divesting from beauty culture has a higher return on investment than the effort I used to put into, say, memorizing the properties of cosmetic chemicals. And for what it’s worth, I earn more money now and am in a healthy relationship.
Beyond your college campus, there is a world full of less-than-stunning people leading wonderful lives. No matter what you look like, this is available to you, too.