(no subject)

[randomness]

Occasionally, I get really angry on behalf of some of my friends because of appearance privilege.

Here's what I mean: I have a number of friends who are really sweet, wonderful people. They often get treated badly, however, in part because they don't fit the societal definition of what people (women, particularly--most of them are women) should look like.

On the other hand, there are a few acquaintances who get away with truly obnoxious behavior because they're conventionally attractive. (I can't think of anyone who fits that description who is actually a friend, for the obvious reason that sufficiently obnoxious behavior tends to drive me away, even when I haven't been directly affected by it.)

There's not much I can do about it except try to be a good friend, but it still rankles.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i think there is stuff individuals can do (in addition to the invaluable being-a-good-friend). like, include them in social spaces, talk them up to other people to encourage social network formation, pay them compliments about their individual excellentness to help combat the downer of being the victim of prejudice. (come to think of it i guess this extends to a lot of the excellent people who are nevertheless victims of social prejudice.)

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I was having a discussion with someone about this last week; there is someone who is intentionally acting like a brat and then almost literally doing 'don't hate me because I'm beautiful.'

I was ignored at the PolyBoston table twice at Pride, btw, for 'thinneryoungerblonder', by people who don't know me and were not ignoring me because they knew I was involved...they were ignoring me because there was 'cuter' available even though cuter was behind me...I literally *didn't* exist.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean, I tend to think those things you mention "include them in social spaces, talk them up to other people to encourage social network formation, pay them compliments about their individual excellentness to help combat the downer of being the victim of prejudice" are part of the things I think of as part of being a good friend, so I think we're overall in agreement here on actions, just categorizing those actions differently. But good to point out that it's not just the one-on-one acts of friendship, but those that help them socially, that are important.

(The subject occurred to me because I was describing a friend to another friend and talking her up in the process. But it still made me sad that she was being treated poorly.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

there is someone who is intentionally acting like a brat and then almost literally doing 'don't hate me because I'm beautiful.'

Yah. I mean, I suspect we're not talking about the same people, but the description is so accurate we could be.

[nafe.livejournal.com]

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful!

[magustenebrarum.livejournal.com]

I concur.

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. A friend and colleague of mine once commented that appearance is the basis of discrimination that is most tolerated in our society-- someone who is conventionally ugly may face more discrimination in terms of jobs, opportunities, promotions, etc. (let alone social things) than someone who is a person of color, or a minority religion, or queer, and yet there are no protections at all legally or even mostly by norms. And of course it goes beyond attractive/unattractive, but even just at that cut it has a huge effect and nobody seems to care.

I agree, btw, that this hits women much more than men. I wonder whether the US has this worse than the UK; I wonder if the UK's willingness to show less beautiful people on television makes a difference.

[marith.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear. It's one of those things I think tends to be really invisible until one is affected by it, directly or indirectly.

At a work meeting once, someone showed a slide humorously comparing our product to a photo of a fat woman's backside and the competition to a model in a bikini. Apparently it was a big hit at the organization conference in Germany.

I tartly suggested that it must be nice to be a small thin woman and be able to say such things. My coworkers froze in horror. They had no idea such a thing could be considered offensive and fell over themselves apologizing. (They really are very nice people and would never say anything hurtful on purpose - and they're tiny cute Asian women, and had never given a thought to the advantages that gives them presenting to a roomful of men.)

(Much like I rarely think about the advantages being a confident outspoken white woman gives me in every business situation. It goes all ways.)

[denyse.livejournal.com]

One drawback to being small and asian and female is that patients refuse to believe I am their doctor. They're convinced I'm their nurse and should therefore be fetching them their blankets, water, food, bedpan etc (which I will do, when not 3rd trimester pregnant and having trouble waddling around doing this while also doing my usual duties).
unfortunately, it dings me on customer satisfaction surveys because they actually think they haven't seen a doctor, no matter how many times I tell some of them I really AM their doctor. I've seen people actually walk around and past the white, balding resident caring for them, and ask me to get their mother something to drink (and I won't even know who their mother is).

[marginaleye.livejournal.com]

unfortunately, it dings me on customer satisfaction surveys because they actually think they haven't seen a doctor, no matter how many times I tell some of them I really AM their doctor.

There ought to be some kind of control question in your customer satisfaction survey for weeding out the surveys submitted by hardcore mouth-breathing idiots, so you can simply put dump those in the circular file.

[dpolicar]

(nods) So, there's two parts to this.

First, that life is difficult for some people in ways they don't deserve.
Second, that life is NOT difficult for some people who deserve it more.

About the first there isn't much to say beyond "Ayup" (and perhaps "come sit with me under this fig tree, and we'll talk about it," if one is up to the job description).

Do you want it not to rankle? Or do you just want to acknowledge that it rankles? (Nothing wrong with the latter; just asking.)

I find that, when I'm having difficulty accepting that sometimes life is difficult for me, it helps to think about the to-a-first-approximation-100% of the people who have ever lived who would do just about anything to get to live my life.

You might find a similar perspective to be helpful when contemplating your friends' lives. Perhaps they suffer for their atypical looks so much the percentage drops to 99%, maybe even as low as 97% (though I find that very unlikely), but they're still doing way better than they deserve. Good for them!

Of course, there's that second aspect. Maybe we're the beneficiaries of Grace, but there exist other people who are even more so, or who we consider less worthy of it, and that rankles.

To which, again, there isn't much to say beyond "Ayup".

[ratushebarl.livejournal.com]

> and they're tiny cute Asian women, and had never given a thought to the
> advantages that gives them presenting to a roomful of men.)

I'd question that -- I think quite a few more people don't like to admit they're working what they've got, than don't know it.

For myself, I can't imagine not knowing. My line of work has taken me into many nearly-all-male enclaves, and of course I've used that when it was an advantage. We work what we have. But I've never had to look in the mirror to know when I was the only woman present, and that it mattered.

[orichalcum.livejournal.com]

Well, I thought you were great. :) And yeah, no fetching bedpans when 3rd trimester pregnant!

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

I heard of a study where teachers were given papers to grade. The papers were accompanied by "photos of the students". When the papers were accompanied by a photo of a "pretty" child they tended to give the paper higher grades than when the child was average or less than average.

It made me feel ill, but it didn't surprise me.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

especially as thinneryoungerblonder at pride, when female, is LESS LIKELY to be interested in you if you're a boy. But the male poly community around here, even when they are genuinely into the amory over the poly, has a tendency to be very focused on the ladies in a way that is offputting.

[kabistani.livejournal.com]

It is common enough in the UK for "Coupling" to have aired an episode that makes fun of the problem.

One of the main characters who is particularly self absorbed and a womainzer (really funny as an architype, not pleasant in RL) talks with three individuals. The scene is seen from his perspective and then another character's perspective. He thinks he is talking to two pretty woman and a stout man. In the other's (more correct) reality it is two pretty women and one "ugly" manish woman.

So, no I doubt it is any better, or at least much better, in Britain. Just humans being bad humans.

"ugly"

[cthulhia]

is less of a problem than fat, from what I can tell.

In fact, it seems fat is the primary definition of ugly, especially with women.

Not that I'm not freshly embittered about this or anything.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Hah!

(I laugh because I've heard *your* rant on that subject.)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

*nods* i forget that this is ordinary behavior in our community, having lived in others with different social rules. go you :)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

that's horrible. my mom (a white woman) became a pathologist in order to avoid exactly this situation -- fifty years ago!

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Or do you just want to acknowledge that it rankles?

Mostly, it's that.

I hardly think life is difficult for me. After all, with a few zigs instead of zags in my family history, I'd be knee-deep in a rice paddy, with luck, after my family's having been sent back to the farms for the crime of having the wrong class background. That is if I'd been born at all, since my parents probably wouldn't have met. (But then the whole thing starts to get into the question of who "I" am in that context, which is a different question entirely.)

So it's not merely that my life is better than nearly all the people who have ever lived, and not merely that my life is better than nearly all the people who are currently living (both true), it's that my life is better than any number of possible lives I personally had actual likelihood of living.

In fact my original post was intended more as a "It irritates me that the monkeys are insane in this way, I would like to vent about that, tell the people on my friends list that I have their backs, and give others a place to vent about it".

---

So, yeah, summing up: First: I agree with you that life is unfair, and that people get crap they don't deserve; and second: that life is good for some of the undeserving.

But I do nonetheless want to acknowledge that this particular unfairness pisses me off, and it doesn't necessarily mean I don't acknowledge that other injustices fail to piss me off. (As a practical matter, continual posts on things that piss me off would probably get boring. I don't think I can carry that off as well as some people who have made a living doing it.)

Do I want serenity on this? Not particularly. I'm pissed off on behalf of my friends. It's probably the most okay kind of pissed off I get. :)

[dpolicar]

Cool.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

as long as you're aware of the existence of not-beautiful people, and you don't go out of your way to exclude them, sure, be as beautiful as you want ;)

[evilmagnus]

Hey! I'm standing right here!

Re: "ugly"

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

*nod*

[tyellas.livejournal.com]

I do know what you mean. -hugs- to you and your friends. This reminds me of an incident two years ago, and its two-years-later follow on:

I was spending some time with a physically attractive man, someone in the Johnny Depp line - it was an attempt at a relationship based on unusual-for-this-area compatible kink - and, feeling insecure, I asked, "Am I pretty enough for you?" He hemmed, and hawed, and said something along the lines of "Well, I'm here, aren't I?"

Two years later, we've been split up for, why, two years! And I caught up with him two nights ago. He's just turned 40, with all that implies, and is fretting about what to do next. He asked what I was up to relationship-wise. Thinking of a recent health crisis and the people who stood by me through it, and how lucky I was to have them, I said, "I've been focusing on my friends." He gazed at me as if I had uttered the secret to life itself.

Because I had.

Re: "ugly"

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Yup!

I just got back from a conference where I noticed a lot of the unattractive-but-thin-and-dolled-up phenomenon, and realized that that is DEFINITELY how some people who aren't that attractive cover for it. But that must be _really_ hard, to keep all of that up. It's a pretty serious lifestyle choice to spend time and money on the hair and the nails and the makeup and the clothing and the shoes.

Then again, there were also a lot of really gorgeous people of all sizes there too, and this made me happy even though I definitely noticed that the vendor booths were staffed by a lot of young, skinny, conventionally pretty people. They looked uncomfortable in their high heels. I felt bad for them as well, because again, that combination of choices just looked uncomfortable and boring to me, one of the chubby crazy hippie academic folks at the conference in my low sandals and loose skirts....

[marith.livejournal.com]

*gah* that sounds incredibly frustrating. I can tell you are a more caring and patient practitioner than I would ever be, because time after time you don't pour the drink over their head call them on their sexist/racist behavior. You just get them what they need and go on. That's pretty awesome.

[marith.livejournal.com]

That sounds like it was rather satisfying :)