Your Beauty Isn’t Just Yours, It’s A Social Weapon

Pretty privilege exists, but its rules aren’t written in stone, they’re written by society.

Hear me out

While scrolling through X’s toxic feed, I came across a post from a girl that caught my attention. She posted a picture of herself in bikinis and captioned it “Being Pretty = Being Privileged”.
In her comment section were people crashing out. In other words she was being objectified, her credibility reduced and she was tagged ‘entitled’.

Now what was concerning to me wasn’t her caption, what was concerning that had me pondering after reading some very brutal comments was the drawbacks of the so called “pretty privilege” that most people turn blind eye to.

Physically, the girl in question is attractive and a drawback of being attractive is being valued for looks over skills. I actually found myself asking if pretty was the new nepotism?

I’ve been in a situation where someone told me I got what I got not because of hard work but because of my looks. I wasn’t really pleased with the statement because I felt it came from a place of bitterness. I literally worked hard for whatever I earned that day and him coming up to discredit my efforts got me infuriated. I don’t think anybody likes hearing that their success might not just be hard work.

Pretty privilege exists, no doubt. It’s exciting and a catchy headline but there’s a debate, bigger and tangled underneath it that people tend to ignore.

They ignore the cultural construction of ‘pretty’, the mental health effects(both from those who benefit and those excluded). They also ignore the fact that it’s a social currency shaped by patriarchal and capitalist systems. In other words, beauty benefits are tied to male approval, market profit, and historical bias not just individual charm and that absolutely sucks.

Pretty privilege is real, very real, but it’s far from universal no matter how people try to stretch it. No doubt conventionally attractive people often enjoy better treatment, more opportunities and social leniency yet what counts as “pretty” is shaped by shifting cultural standards whether we like it or not. Pretty privilege isn’t just about appearances. It's about power and the way society decides who gets it. It isn’t just about faces but about power structures that of course benefits from those faces.

Some beneficiaries are victims of beauty culture. The same standards that reward them also pressure, objectify and limit them.

That being said, not all beauty advantages are conscious or intentional. Many beneficiaries don’t realize they’re being treated better especially in work spaces but where I have a big problem with this concept lies where those who think that because they have a certain face/body type, all doors should automatically open up for them. They go entitled and are like “oh, I’m pretty let me shop for free.” Lmao.