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Pretty Privilege Is Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be
57 Plays3 years ago
The queens debate the benefits and drawbacks of being pretty.
Lilith's Viral Tweet on Pretty Privilege: https://twitter.com/LilithWon_FDS/status/1534380764535566336
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Transcript
Introduction: The Female Dating Strategy Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
What's up, queens?
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to the Female Dating Strategy Podcast, the meanest female-only podcast on the internet.
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm Rope.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm Savannah.
00:00:14
Speaker
And I'm Lilith.
00:00:16
Speaker
And today we're going to discuss pretty privilege.
00:00:19
Speaker
What is it?
00:00:19
Speaker
It's been a controversial topic on the FDS, I don't know, discussion boards or on Twitter for a long time.
Controversies Around Privilege Discussions
00:00:27
Speaker
I think any privilege debate is going to spark controversy purely because you'll get people who are being accused of having privilege or that particular privilege, whether that's white privilege, class privilege, pretty privilege, you know, saying that actually, no, it's not.
00:00:43
Speaker
But we'll unpack that in this episode.
00:00:46
Speaker
So you guys took opposite opinions about this on Twitter.
00:00:49
Speaker
So this is what sparked it, right?
Engagement with Tweets on Pretty Privilege
00:00:51
Speaker
Should I read out my most controversial tweet?
00:00:53
Speaker
I think this got the most engagement like ever.
00:00:56
Speaker
So basically, I tweeted June 7.
00:00:58
Speaker
Pretty privilege isn't real.
00:01:00
Speaker
The fact that women's opportunities are conditional on our appearance is female oppression, not a female privilege.
00:01:06
Speaker
And then I go into some examples of this, you know, porn and prostitution, for example, is not, you know, oh, you can make money on OnlyFans or you can get a sugar daddy.
00:01:13
Speaker
That's not porn and prostitution is not a privilege.
00:01:15
Speaker
That's female oppression and so on.
00:01:16
Speaker
Needless to say, you know, that was a very polarizing statement.
00:01:20
Speaker
It got like 8,500 likes, but it also got like almost 400 quote tweets and a lot of comments, a lot of disagreement coming from
Debating the Benefits and Liabilities of Pretty Privilege
00:01:28
Speaker
all sides.
00:01:28
Speaker
Like there was the fem cell crowd being like, yes, pretty privilege is real and you bitches have something that we don't.
00:01:34
Speaker
And then there's the men who are like, oh, like attractive women have it so great, yada, yada, yada kind of thing.
00:01:39
Speaker
And then there's others who took a more
00:01:41
Speaker
moderate approach who are saying yeah pretty privilege is real but you know there are some downsides to it for women and so on so my views have only softened ever so slightly ever since the backlash to that tweet but my opinions are pretty much the same that like you know the costs of being beautiful for women are high and that the benefits of being attractive are negligible and that it's not that pretty privilege essentially works differently for men and for women and for women it can be more of a liability i don't actually remember actually
00:02:13
Speaker
Jean was a long time ago, okay, my brain's a bit fuzzy and I was just recovering from surgery.
00:02:17
Speaker
But I did want to have this episode because even though I think me and Lilith disagree on some aspects of it, I think ultimately we overall agree, but we'll come to that in the episode.
The Halo Effect and Changes in Appearance
00:02:28
Speaker
So what I think, I'm just going to say it, pretty privilege is a thing.
00:02:31
Speaker
You have things like the halo effect, which affects both men and women.
00:02:35
Speaker
And when we talk about pretty privileged for women, we're not just talking about it in how they come across to men as well.
00:02:41
Speaker
Even other women are taken in and they treat other attractive women better than unattractive women.
00:02:47
Speaker
If you ask any woman who has changed in terms of her social desirability, for example, if she's lost weight, if she's gained weight, if she's had a dramatic shift in her appearance, any kind, they'll tell you that the way they were treated, say, before they lost weight is very, very different to how they were treated after they've lost weight.
00:03:05
Speaker
It's not necessarily on the macro level in the sense that they get more interest from men or that their career takes off or whatever.
00:03:11
Speaker
It can just be on the micro level.
00:03:13
Speaker
So I noticed that when I lost a substantial amount of weight, I would go to the supermarket at the checkout and I wasn't used to people really making an effort with me like socially before.
Oppression Faced by Attractive Women: Is it About Beauty?
00:03:23
Speaker
But I remember one occasion there was a guy at checkout, he was quite attractive, and I just dumped my things in the conveyor belt, not really wanting to chat.
00:03:30
Speaker
I was like, hey.
00:03:31
Speaker
And then he was like, hey.
00:03:32
Speaker
Then I was just like staring off into space, just waiting to pay for my shit and get out.
00:03:37
Speaker
And then he was like, oh, so you've got a cheesecake in your shopping.
00:03:39
Speaker
I was like, yeah.
00:03:40
Speaker
He was like, what's your favourite flavour?
00:03:42
Speaker
I was like, like lemon.
00:03:44
Speaker
I remember I was proper screw facing him because I was like, why are you talking to me like this?
00:03:49
Speaker
how dare you why are you making small talk but it's the little things like that that can change if you are deemed conventionally or not conventionally attractive and you know whilst people might say well that's just a small thing but if you have been say a social outcast getting that sort of treatment is a quite disconcerting but also it makes you realize just how badly you were treated before or ignored before you became more conventionally attractive and
00:04:14
Speaker
But I do want to caveat as well that pretty privilege when, and again, I alluded to this at the top of the episode, but pretty privilege does not mean that attractive women are not oppressed.
00:04:23
Speaker
And this is where me and Lilith agree, is that attractive women are absolutely oppressed.
00:04:27
Speaker
And I feel like saying pretty privilege doesn't exist because attractive women are also oppressed is sort of the same argument that people try to make when they say white privilege doesn't exist because of the presence of, you know, working class white people, white people who are subjected to oppression.
00:04:43
Speaker
And that's absolutely valid.
00:04:45
Speaker
But the difference is, is that, you know, if we take the example of white privilege, you know, white working class people are not oppressed because they are white.
00:04:52
Speaker
They are oppressed because they are working class.
00:04:54
Speaker
And that's a different form of social oppression and privilege.
00:04:58
Speaker
So in terms of like when it comes to pretty privilege, then if we look at that, I would argue that attractive women are not oppressed because they are attractive.
00:05:07
Speaker
They are oppressed because they are women.
00:05:09
Speaker
Right.
00:05:09
Speaker
Because the same issues and the same oppression that attractive women face are also faced by unattractive women just to varying degrees.
00:05:17
Speaker
So that's the argument I would make on this topic.
Does Pretty Privilege Transcend Patriarchy?
00:05:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:20
Speaker
Ro, what are your thoughts?
00:05:22
Speaker
So I think pretty privilege has some benefits, but a lot of drawbacks and really hard limitations.
00:05:30
Speaker
And one of the things that I think FDS has as an overarching theme tried to impress upon women is that like you can't pretty privilege your way out of patriarchy, right?
00:05:39
Speaker
So like a lot of
00:05:40
Speaker
what people are considering to be pretty privilege or like you would be able to have if you were prettier.
00:05:45
Speaker
And I don't consider just like physical attractiveness part of pretty privilege.
00:05:48
Speaker
It's also just like the entire packaging of like the submissive feminine woman.
00:05:52
Speaker
And you see all these like lifestyle coaches and femininity coaches trying to like capture that feminine essence because they think that that kind of
00:05:59
Speaker
performative femininity is going to grant them certain levels of privileges in society that it often doesn't.
00:06:05
Speaker
And that's why I'm somewhat skeptical of the pretty privilege discussion, because there's a lot of women that really buy into that like Cinderella story that, okay, if I'm meek and beautiful and feminine, then like some Prince Charming is going to come out of nowhere and like take care of me, et cetera.
00:06:21
Speaker
And honestly, all it does is a lot of times get them exploited and abused.
Service Industry Jobs and Financial Stability
00:06:25
Speaker
So I think when I think of pretty privilege, um,
00:06:28
Speaker
I think of it more or less like, okay, does performative femininity, what does it get you in a patriarchal society?
00:06:33
Speaker
What does it get you in our society?
00:06:34
Speaker
Well, it definitely gets you a lot of service industry jobs.
00:06:38
Speaker
But again, that's service industry.
00:06:40
Speaker
You're still in a service position, right?
00:06:42
Speaker
That's what I'm saying.
00:06:43
Speaker
It's like,
00:06:43
Speaker
To me, there's a difference in pretty privilege and how it manifests for like working class girls versus like upper class women.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I feel like a lot of working class women are always sold this fantasy that they'll end up being like upper class women if they just sort of focus on their feminine charms.
00:06:57
Speaker
But more often than not, what happens to like pretty working class girls is yes, they're relegated to hospitality industry.
00:07:02
Speaker
So if you want to be a waitress, a server, a sex worker, or like just like side piece or a mistress, like a lot of these like Instagram model types that end up sex workers or side pieces and mistresses to like to more successful women.
00:07:13
Speaker
wealthy men, they get, I guess, privilege in the sense of like, if you want to be a sugar baby or have like a transactional relationship and want to be sexually exploited by men who have means, then if you want to make money off your legs, like I guess you could call that even women in the modeling industry are treated like absolute trash.
00:07:29
Speaker
They don't make very much money.
00:07:30
Speaker
They're sexually exploited all the time.
00:07:32
Speaker
They're abused.
00:07:33
Speaker
A lot of them are prostituting to like supplement income.
00:07:35
Speaker
A lot of them are raped.
00:07:36
Speaker
A lot of them are pressured into prostitution or tricked into it.
00:07:39
Speaker
So I want to say that like, okay, does it grant you certain things?
00:07:42
Speaker
And I'm like, well, I don't even know that it grants you like above minimum wage job to be blunt, like even if you're like extremely beautiful, because models don't make that much.
00:07:51
Speaker
So when I look at it, I'm like, what does it give you as far as like tangible assets?
00:07:56
Speaker
Like if you have other skills besides being pretty, then I think being pretty obviously will give you
Attractiveness as a Liability: Exploitation vs. Exclusion
00:08:02
Speaker
a leg up.
00:08:02
Speaker
But
00:08:03
Speaker
A lot of women who like have this fantasy that like I'm going to meet like a rich six figure guy and he's just going to take care of me like more than likely they date within their social circle because class privilege trumps pretty privilege.
00:08:13
Speaker
So you'd be way, way, way better off like trying to get your education.
00:08:17
Speaker
Even if you are a model like putting yourself in the types of circles or giving yourself some kind of monetary power on your own.
00:08:22
Speaker
So even if you are a model like getting endorsement deals or some things that you can sustain.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, it gives you a little bit of a benefit, but it doesn't necessarily immediately translate into like real tangible power in the world.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, like I feel like especially if you're a woman, attractiveness privilege is like the least powerful kind of privilege that you could have, right?
00:08:51
Speaker
Like Savannah compared it to, you know, saying pretty privilege doesn't exist because attractive women are still exploited is similar to, you know, saying white privilege doesn't exist because of poor white people.
00:09:02
Speaker
The difference between that, I think, is that like whiteness, even for poor white people, isn't itself a liability, right?
00:09:08
Speaker
Whereas
00:09:09
Speaker
when you're a woman and you're beautiful under patriarchy, it's like the more beautiful you are, it also kind of puts a target on your back in a way, right?
00:09:16
Speaker
Like you just get more men that want to exploit you.
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:19
Speaker
Like unattractive women absolutely can be exploited.
00:09:22
Speaker
Right.
00:09:22
Speaker
It's not like, you know, if you're a poor white person being white is itself a liability.
00:09:26
Speaker
Whereas if you're a woman under patriarchy, being beautiful itself presents its own unique set of dangers, so to speak, or increases certain types of danger.
00:09:35
Speaker
It's the old femcel argument.
00:09:37
Speaker
I know we're going to try to leave them alone because I know we just did an episode that was controversial about femcels, but a lot of them are complaining about being romantically ignored.
00:09:46
Speaker
Some of them are actually harassed and bullied.
00:09:48
Speaker
A lot of them are complaining very similar to the insults that they're just honestly like completely ignored.
00:09:52
Speaker
Now, is that preferable to being a constant target of sexual harassment and abuse and men like trying to triangulate you and neg you and abuse you all the time?
00:10:02
Speaker
And a lot of beautiful women get a lot of that because men look at them like a trophy and then seek to control them, right?
00:10:08
Speaker
So like, is there a privilege in being somewhat invisible, right?
00:10:10
Speaker
Is there a privilege in going through life like when they call it medium ugly?
00:10:15
Speaker
Like not being the target of male, like, I don't know.
00:10:18
Speaker
There's this weird sort of contradictory thing within like the fem cell space where it's like, you know, men are dangerous, you know, men being attracted to you doesn't mean anything because they all demonic pedophiles or whatever, right?
00:10:28
Speaker
Like they think that men being attracted to you is dangerous.
00:10:31
Speaker
But at the same time, some of them think that they're oppressed because they're not getting enough male attention.
00:10:35
Speaker
So it's like, which is it, right?
00:10:36
Speaker
Do you think that men being attracted to you is a privilege or a source of danger?
00:10:41
Speaker
I'm more of the view that it's that it puts you in danger when you get more male attention, actually.
00:10:45
Speaker
If we can all agree that men are more likely to be violent than women and that men are dangerous, wouldn't it then follow that more men having their eyes on you or drawing more male attention would put you in more danger than
Social Exclusion and Invisibility vs. Harassment
00:10:57
Speaker
not?
00:10:57
Speaker
I think in the case of the femme salsa, it's not so much about wanting to get the same level of attraction as an attractive woman.
00:11:04
Speaker
But it's that element of social exclusion.
00:11:06
Speaker
Like I've said, like, I mean, if you can imagine being treated like you're literally invisible is not nice for anyone, even if they recognise that, you know, that male attention is dangerous or whatever, but to live your life being ignored or being basically mocked
00:11:20
Speaker
And it isn't even like, it's like personally, sometimes in a way, for me personally, like when I was bigger, it was better to be, I mean, not really mocked, but it was more like at least they were taking notice of you, but people will literally look straight through you like you're not even there.
00:11:33
Speaker
And that is quite dehumanising, especially if you're in a group of people and everybody's talking to your more conventionally attractive friends and everyone's ignoring you.
00:11:40
Speaker
That's not nice.
00:11:41
Speaker
And again, I'm not going to get into the oppression Olympics and say which one's worse, because I think that they're both bad in their own ways.
00:11:48
Speaker
And it also depends on the effect of the individual, because some women, they don't mind being ignored by men.
00:11:53
Speaker
In fact, they're perfectly happy just to not get any male attention.
00:11:56
Speaker
But I can see why a lot of women would feel uncomfortable with that and have that cognitive dissonance, because right from the beginning, you know, fem cells are also not immune to the patriarchal conditioning that everybody else is.
00:12:08
Speaker
Women have been told that your worth lies in whether or not a man finds you attractive or not.
00:12:13
Speaker
And femcels aren't immune to that conditioning as well.
00:12:16
Speaker
And so when they don't get that, it's not just so much that I'm not getting a man, it's the fact that I'm not even seen as a human being.
00:12:23
Speaker
Can you tell I was possibly a quasi-femcel when I was younger?
00:12:26
Speaker
No, I mean, I actually think that input is valuable.
00:12:29
Speaker
Like, I think it is important to empathize with women who had different experiences from you, right?
00:12:34
Speaker
Like, I mean, for me personally, like, I don't know how to say this.
00:12:36
Speaker
Like, it just makes me feel so fucking empty when I know that men are only being nice to me because they want to fuck me.
00:12:42
Speaker
Like this happens so many times where like men will be superficially nice when they just first meet me.
00:12:47
Speaker
And then the moment I have any kind of like boundaries or I say no, or they face any rejection, that's when they go psycho on me or lash out at me or like, that's when I face the sort of like punishment.
00:12:57
Speaker
And so it makes me feel very like, it feels empty knowing that people are only being nice.
00:13:02
Speaker
I don't want to be the kind of like, oh, it's so hard being beautiful.
00:13:04
Speaker
Like, I know that sounds really stupid.
00:13:06
Speaker
I can imagine that as well.
00:13:07
Speaker
Again, it's dehumanizing.
00:13:08
Speaker
It's just another way to dehumanize women.
00:13:10
Speaker
Exactly.
00:13:11
Speaker
Well, not just dehumanizing, but it just feels very like I'm being held hostage.
00:13:14
Speaker
Like I have to be nice.
00:13:15
Speaker
You know, men often complain about the friend zone and stuff, but I actually think that it's better for women to acquaintance zone men.
00:13:21
Speaker
Like you'll get the best treatment from men when they're like an acquaintance, if you keep them at a distance.
00:13:26
Speaker
If they think that they have a chance with you, maybe if they play their cards right kind of thing at some point in the future.
00:13:31
Speaker
But you always have to make sure that's like a distant possibility without actually rejecting them.
00:13:35
Speaker
It's like very like hard line to toe.
00:13:38
Speaker
But yeah, like, I don't know.
00:13:39
Speaker
I just, yeah, I just pretty much go through like feeling really empty that like that that sort of treatment is conditional.
00:13:45
Speaker
So the other thing too, is that the way that men treat you is also very class dependent and very race dependent, right?
00:13:52
Speaker
And this is where I say like being beautiful can be like an extreme liability.
00:13:55
Speaker
So for me, who has at times lived in extremely poor neighborhoods, what I'm saying is that there are men who literally stand on street corners and harass the shit out of you all day long that make and try to like sexually exploit you, try to pimp you, try to do these types of things because they see you as an asset that they can exploit for their own personal gain.
00:14:14
Speaker
So the thing about that is that if you're not in a safe environment where like the criminal element isn't around, so to speak for like working class and poor women, like being attractive can actually be a massive liability in those environments.
00:14:28
Speaker
And not to say that that doesn't happen to other women doesn't,
00:14:30
Speaker
say that's not like women that aren't unattractive don't experience it because like all women are going to experience that.
00:14:35
Speaker
Let me just be very, very clear about that, that all women are going to experience that to a certain extent.
00:14:39
Speaker
But like if you're looked upon as an asset to men, then they get very, very like aggressive in their attempts to try to own and exploit you.
00:14:49
Speaker
Exactly.
00:14:49
Speaker
Historically, like women used to be secluded because, you know, they couldn't just go out in public by themselves unaccompanied because they'd get fucking kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery.
00:14:59
Speaker
Right.
00:14:59
Speaker
So many like times throughout history where slavery was legal, like Scandinavia, Middle East, Ottoman Empire, you know, probably I'm guessing also transatlantic slavery, like, you know, attractive women were literally kidnapped from their homes and like forced into sexual slavery.
00:15:13
Speaker
Right.
00:15:13
Speaker
So and it still happens now with prostitution and pimping.
00:15:17
Speaker
I mean, the guys will even say things, very vulgar things like, I bet I could get X amount of money for you, right?
00:15:22
Speaker
That's disgusting, yeah.
00:15:23
Speaker
They understand what men find sexually attractive.
00:15:26
Speaker
So they look at that person like, okay, I could get a lot of money for you.
00:15:30
Speaker
And so they almost look at you like a...
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, they look at you like an asset that they could exploit or coerce.
00:15:36
Speaker
And even in countries that countries that where women are forced into marriage, it's a very similar dynamic, even though they're forced into marriage to one guy, they're also forced into that marriage because they look a certain way, right?
00:15:46
Speaker
Because like there's sort of an aggressive,
00:15:48
Speaker
need for men to control that person.
00:15:50
Speaker
So I'm not saying like you guys should cry tears for like beautiful women all the time.
00:15:54
Speaker
But I'm just saying that like, like, I feel like if you exist on the extremes, like if you're an extremely unattractive woman, and you're extremely attractive woman, like they come with actually, it's a double edged sword on both sides where it comes with like some benefits, but then also like some really, really big drawbacks as well.
00:16:08
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with being average and something like medium ugly.
00:16:12
Speaker
It's okay to be average.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
Medium ugly for the win.
00:16:15
Speaker
That's the real privileged woman who's here is the woman who's, you know, attractive enough to not be socially excluded, but not so beautiful that she'd be literally kidnapped into sexual slavery.
00:16:24
Speaker
So, you know, that's the real privilege.
00:16:25
Speaker
That's a joke, by the way.
00:16:27
Speaker
So one thing we didn't talk about yet is how does this affect your female friendships?
Friendship Dynamics and Attractiveness
00:16:31
Speaker
Because a lot of times on both sides of the aisle, you hear extremely attractive women being like, it's very hard for me to make friends because people think I'm trying to steal their boyfriend.
00:16:39
Speaker
Women feel threatened by me.
00:16:41
Speaker
People don't want to be friends with me.
00:16:42
Speaker
And then on the other hand, you have like the fem cells who will say that people don't want to be friends with me because I'm a social liability.
00:16:48
Speaker
Okay, what you said triggered me so bad because like, so recently we had a company barbecue.
00:16:53
Speaker
I met some of the spouses of some of the guys that I work with.
00:16:56
Speaker
And some of these women were just like hostile to me for like no reason.
00:16:59
Speaker
I'd never interacted with these women or barely even interacted with their man.
00:17:03
Speaker
And I'm like, why are these bitches being so hostile to me?
00:17:05
Speaker
Like, you know, like, do you think I'm going to steal your man?
00:17:07
Speaker
Or what do you like?
00:17:08
Speaker
You think I'm his work wife or what?
00:17:10
Speaker
Like, what are you thinking?
00:17:11
Speaker
Is it going on?
00:17:12
Speaker
There's nothing happening.
00:17:13
Speaker
Right.
00:17:13
Speaker
And so I'm like, yeah, there's definitely times like that where I'm like, I don't know.
00:17:17
Speaker
But then there are other times where, yeah, I do feel like people want to be my friend.
00:17:21
Speaker
I don't struggle to make friends either.
00:17:23
Speaker
Right.
00:17:23
Speaker
So it's a minefield.
00:17:24
Speaker
I do think that, you know, just like dating down is a thing, I believe that friending down is a thing, that people seek out friends who they perceive to be doing worse than them, whether that's in terms of their looks or career or their jobs or their money.
00:17:38
Speaker
So it's absolutely a thing.
00:17:40
Speaker
And again, a lot of people who have, I'll use example of like weight loss, because that's what I'm familiar with.
00:17:46
Speaker
But a lot of people who have lost a lot of weight have said their friendships have changed.
00:17:50
Speaker
Like they noticed that, you know, when they became more conventionally attractive by losing weight, their friends were just not happy for them.
00:17:56
Speaker
They would make, you know, little digs at them or they would just make it or it will become apparent that their friend then became, I guess, annoyed that they were no longer the fat friend who made them look better.
00:18:07
Speaker
That happens all the time.
00:18:08
Speaker
In fact, when you have bariatric surgery, when you're on the prep for it, they do counselling specifically around relationships because the divorce rate after bariatric surgery is ridiculously high.
00:18:18
Speaker
Why?
00:18:19
Speaker
Because of what I've just said.
00:18:20
Speaker
People change, people realise that actually this person who I was with because they're not conducive to my weight loss, because you get partners who they feel so threatened by their partner's weight loss, they'll intentionally sabotage it.
00:18:32
Speaker
The person who's lost weight might realise actually I can do better.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, okay, I can see that, yeah.
00:18:38
Speaker
But this also happens to friendships as well.
00:18:40
Speaker
Like they literally tell you like, you know, you're going to potentially lose your friendships, your relationships might change.
00:18:45
Speaker
And that's actually a real thing because of that as well.
00:18:48
Speaker
So yeah, I'd say it's absolutely a thing.
00:18:49
Speaker
People, if we accept that dating down is a thing, then like friending down is also a thing.
00:18:55
Speaker
So I always think it's interesting because I think for a lot of beautiful women, they wouldn't necessarily, unless they're extremely shallow people and there are extremely shallow people, a lot of people just want to be friends with people just to be friends.
00:19:06
Speaker
And sometimes it comes across to them that it's not that they're trying to like befriend down.
00:19:12
Speaker
They just want to hang out with people they find interesting, but then they're perceived as a threat wherever they go.
00:19:18
Speaker
Right.
00:19:18
Speaker
I don't know.
00:19:19
Speaker
I just love women.
00:19:19
Speaker
I just instinctively want to be friends with all women, whether she's more attractive than me or less attractive than me.
00:19:24
Speaker
And then I don't really think that much about that.
00:19:26
Speaker
But then it's like other people think about it more than I do.
00:19:29
Speaker
I don't know.
00:19:30
Speaker
I mean, some people, it just comes down to their security level because I definitely been part of like
00:19:34
Speaker
School, work, whatever, someone else comes to the job and they're attractive and then it's like the established social order gets like their panties in a bunch, right?
00:19:43
Speaker
About like, I bet she's stuck up.
00:19:45
Speaker
I bet she's like this.
00:19:46
Speaker
I bet.
00:19:47
Speaker
And like they put all these like imaginary traits on somebody that don't exist because they look a certain way because they're ultimately like insecure and threatened.
00:19:55
Speaker
I've experienced it.
00:19:56
Speaker
I've also been a part of a crowd where like I was already established in that crowd and then you're seeing someone else come new and then like how the way that some women just like immediately start attacking other women for basically no reason.
00:20:07
Speaker
And if you watch reality TV, like you see that kind of stuff all the time, like
00:20:11
Speaker
women tend to just eat a new person because they feel like they're attractive or anything and they're not immediately like extremely meek and nice then like they feel like oh that person's a stuck-up bitch they're trying to steal your man like they basically describe every single negative trait a woman could possibly be to a woman because she's beautiful and she's not like quiet or stupid or something that they can feel superior about immediately
00:20:34
Speaker
So, okay, what you're describing, there's a similar thing with like goat hierarchies.
00:20:38
Speaker
I've mentioned like I have relatives that have goats and I love observing goat hierarchies because there's a similar thing where like there's the established social order, you know, with the does, the females, they're all kept in like one herd, right?
00:20:51
Speaker
And so they have a sort of established social order.
00:20:53
Speaker
And then if they bring in a new doe from another farm or something, or if one of the does leaves the farm for a while and comes back later, there's almost always like a giant, like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
00:21:03
Speaker
And they're like headbutting each other to try to figure out who's the alpha female kind of thing, right?
00:21:08
Speaker
Like there's always conflict.
00:21:09
Speaker
Whenever a new doe is introduced or reintroduced, they got to figure out what the social order kind of thing.
00:21:14
Speaker
And so I don't know, goats are intelligent and social animals.
00:21:17
Speaker
Humans are intelligent and social animals.
00:21:19
Speaker
So I mean, maybe that's just...
00:21:21
Speaker
normal, you know what I mean?
00:21:22
Speaker
Like, that's just sort of to be expected with animals where there's a hierarchy, you know, they're social, and power struggles are real, and so on.
00:21:30
Speaker
So, I definitely know what you mean, where I talked about this a bit in the Surviving Office Politics episode, like the catfight episode, where...
00:21:37
Speaker
You know, my tip when you're entering a new office environment, new working environment, it's really important to like present yourself as non-threatening and not as a target of other, you know, if you want to win it off as politics, you have to have as many allies as possible.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, sometimes I do kind of present myself as like meek and non-threatening when I'm in a new social situation.
00:21:54
Speaker
It's not until later that people realize I'm not maybe so nice and non-threatening, but you got to have a good first impression, I guess.
00:22:01
Speaker
But it is something to be aware of as a woman, like, you know, going into a new social situation like that.
00:22:06
Speaker
You know, I actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it actually kind of pisses me off that I have to be meek and not present myself as meek and non-threatening just to like not be attacked, right?
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:15
Speaker
That's a specific type of sexism that I don't think people realize.
00:22:18
Speaker
Like, I can't just be myself.
00:22:19
Speaker
What do you mean?
00:22:20
Speaker
I don't know if you found this to be true or not,
Challenges of Assertiveness for Attractive Women
00:22:23
Speaker
Savannah.
00:22:23
Speaker
I feel like you've heard about this or like where women who were overweight and then lost a lot of weight, like their personality is not acceptable on a beautiful woman.
00:22:31
Speaker
on a thin woman.
00:22:32
Speaker
That certain aspects, like being kind of an asshole or speaking your mind, I wouldn't even call it being an asshole.
00:22:38
Speaker
I think being an assertive woman or being a woman who sets boundaries is like more accepted.
00:22:44
Speaker
Accepted.
00:22:44
Speaker
So yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.
00:22:47
Speaker
If you're not conventionally attractive, if you start to get like more attractive and people just like descend on you, like you're a problem.
00:22:54
Speaker
I think that's a function of misogyny and patriarchy where like they need beautiful women to be like submissive.
00:23:01
Speaker
And it's like women who are both attractive and assertive get so much more hate than women who are just one or the other, but not both, you know?
00:23:07
Speaker
So that's the other thing.
00:23:08
Speaker
It's like you're seen as more of a threat if you're attractive and assertive at the same time, which again, I feel like it's a great liability to women because this doesn't apply to men, by the way, like a man who's attractive and assertive is seen as more respectable than a man who's one or the other.
00:23:22
Speaker
And to be fair, like you don't get people saying, so who's an attractive?
00:23:26
Speaker
Oh, Chris Hemsworth slept his way to the top of Hollywood.
00:23:29
Speaker
But how many attractive actresses have been accused of that, even if it's not true?
00:23:33
Speaker
Exactly.
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:35
Speaker
And I wonder, I mean, because that assertiveness tax, maybe we'll call it the assertiveness tax that's placed on attractive women is placed by both men and by women.
00:23:44
Speaker
We know why men do it.
00:23:45
Speaker
Men do it because they want to control the woman.
00:23:48
Speaker
And then women do it because I think they also ally women.
00:23:51
Speaker
with the men.
00:23:51
Speaker
And that's why it can be somewhat dangerous.
00:23:53
Speaker
You're an attractive woman trying to be friends with pick me's because they're so male identified that they want to, you know, they want to attack you too, because the men want to control you or like bring you down a notch.
00:24:03
Speaker
And then it makes them feel better to bring you down a notch.
00:24:05
Speaker
Well, the pick me's want like male validation, right?
00:24:08
Speaker
And so if they're like, I'm one of the good ones, I bully women like Lilith, they're bitches, and they deserve to be humbled.
00:24:13
Speaker
And like, they get a lot of positive male attention for engaging in that.
00:24:17
Speaker
So I don't know, office politics tip though.
00:24:19
Speaker
So then if you're an attractive woman, you have to be two-faced, honest to God.
00:24:23
Speaker
Hard mode is trying to be an attractive woman in an office full of like misogynist males and pick me women because you would have to build allies with women who are instinctively gonna dislike you from the jump.
00:24:33
Speaker
And so you would have to try to like make it so that they realize that
00:24:37
Speaker
by being your friend.
00:24:39
Speaker
First of all, first you'd have to like make it seem like being your friend would give them a better shot with the men.
00:24:44
Speaker
And this is a tactic I've used a couple of times if I had the ability to, where if I knew one of the guys was attracted to me, because like they're so predictable.
00:24:52
Speaker
Pickneys are obnoxious.
00:24:53
Speaker
This is like high school type drama, but it really honestly translates to the real world too.
00:24:58
Speaker
But like if there's like a quote alpha male or a male who's like attractive in the office and he happens to be attracted to
00:25:03
Speaker
to you for whatever reason, like you have to try to get in his good graces because then the pygmies will fall
Office Politics: Allies and Threats
00:25:09
Speaker
in line because then they realize like, oh, well, they'll get mad at you at first.
00:25:12
Speaker
Meaning like they'll hate you.
00:25:13
Speaker
But like if they realize like she's going to have access or it's like sorority rules, right?
00:25:17
Speaker
Like if you're the alpha female and you're going to have access to like the men, then they all want to have access to.
00:25:22
Speaker
So then they'll try to be your friend or like they'll at least publicly try to seem like they agree with you so that they can be on in the in group because they have no loyalty to each other as women.
00:25:31
Speaker
they immediately are going to have loyalty to whichever woman they think is going to get the most respect from the men.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah, and that kind of hierarchy is very unstable.
00:25:40
Speaker
And I have like no respect for women who follow it.
00:25:42
Speaker
That's the problem.
00:25:43
Speaker
The problem is when it works, I just have zero respect for the women it works on.
00:25:46
Speaker
I'm like, you're a dumbass.
00:25:49
Speaker
That's the problem.
00:25:50
Speaker
I hate the feeling of insecurity.
00:25:51
Speaker
Like, first of all, playing to these kinds of politics, like makes me feel dirty, even though I do it all the time.
00:25:57
Speaker
And secondly, it's very anxiety inducing knowing how unstable your position of power is.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:26:04
Speaker
That's the thing with pretty.
00:26:05
Speaker
So I guess that's another discussion about pretty privilege is like, I guess it can work for you if you're in an environment full of pick me's and misogynist men and you can get the attention and well, you get the attention because you're pretty, but you still have to do the work to like gain boundaries and respect from the men.
00:26:21
Speaker
Then you can basically control all of the other women in that environment because they're dumb followers.
00:26:25
Speaker
And like the queen bee is always the woman who they feel like is going to get the most attention from men because they're pick me's.
00:26:31
Speaker
And that sort of leads into my next thought about, and this is the point that I think the fem cells completely miss, is that pretty privileged, as we've touched on towards the top of the episode, it doesn't guarantee better treatment from men.
00:26:43
Speaker
And also Lilith went into it in more detail, but just like Roe,
00:26:47
Speaker
touched on just now, it ultimately comes back to your boundaries and your standards and your ability to walk away from poor treatment, which is why FDS, generally we don't talk so much about looks maxing as perhaps other female spaces do, purely because ultimately it doesn't make a difference.
00:27:05
Speaker
If your standards are still shit, it's not going to make a difference, ultimately.
00:27:08
Speaker
And you'll still end up entertaining the sorts of men that you really should have cut off from the jump, ultimately.
00:27:13
Speaker
I mean, basically pretty privileged where it absolutely doesn't translate to, which where it doesn't exist, I would say, is into relationships with men.
00:27:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:22
Speaker
I mean, if you see a lot of mean girl dynamics where to tie the two concepts together, the one I gave about like being the queen bee among pick me's is that a lot of times the queen bee among pick me's tolerates a lot of shit to keep that position.
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
From men and women.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:27:37
Speaker
So they look the other way whether man cheats.
00:27:40
Speaker
I mean, a lot of the women who are being treated the most poorly in their relationships are women who are married to like powerful men or in relationships with powerful men for whom that's now become their seat of power or their source of identity.
00:27:50
Speaker
Their only power in the world is funneled through them having the approval of this man.
00:27:54
Speaker
And it's precarious because then the men know that and they abuse it all the time, right?
00:27:59
Speaker
So then like the women want to keep the image that they're powerful.
00:28:01
Speaker
So they'll just look the other way.
00:28:03
Speaker
They'll deny, they'll deflect.
00:28:05
Speaker
That was kind of similar to when we were talking about the anatomy of a scandal show where all of her power comes through her husband.
00:28:10
Speaker
She has like the position of being the wife of a very powerful man.
00:28:14
Speaker
So she's got to keep up appearances.
00:28:16
Speaker
She's got to look the other way when he does really crappy things.
00:28:19
Speaker
And then all the other women, more or less, like she wants to maintain that position of like people looking up to her and having perceived power, but she doesn't have the power.
00:28:27
Speaker
She only has the power through the man that she's associated with.
00:28:30
Speaker
And that is precarious.
00:28:31
Speaker
You can lose that.
00:28:32
Speaker
Like, and a lot of women do, right?
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:34
Speaker
Like if your power is based on your proximity to powerful men, that's not real inherent power.
00:28:39
Speaker
You can lose that at any second.
00:28:40
Speaker
Also, if he just decides to leave you.
00:28:42
Speaker
And the other point I wanted to make about attracting as being a liability is that there have been studies about how attractive people, men and women, do experience more opportunities in their career.
Assumptions in Male-Dominated Fields
00:28:53
Speaker
The one exception is attractive women in male-dominated industries.
00:28:57
Speaker
And I work in a male-dominated industry, and that's been very true for me.
00:29:01
Speaker
Like, men tend to assume I'm less confident, or they mansplain, or they talk down to me.
00:29:06
Speaker
Or it's very frustrating, because, like, sometimes I actually have to sort of play dumb just to not be abused.
00:29:12
Speaker
And that's what I mean about, like, attractiveness and power for women is a very complicated relationship, and it's often more of a liability than a privilege, because...
00:29:20
Speaker
If I were to go into the office and just be my regular, assertive self and not trying to play dumber, I almost feel like I have to downplay some of my accomplishments and be pretend modest and stuff just to not get a target on my back, right?
00:29:34
Speaker
As soon as I start more openly bossing people around...
00:29:37
Speaker
Here's the other thing is like, I basically have to be manipulative.
00:29:39
Speaker
Like it actually sucks that like, basically the only way to get shit done as a woman in a male dominated industry, when you're attractive is to low key.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, you kind of have to be manipulative.
00:29:49
Speaker
You can't just like openly make demands the way that a man in power would because, you know, people think you're a bitch, people think you're a cunt, like no one wants to work for someone like that.
00:29:59
Speaker
You know, if you have a leadership role as a woman in that kind of environment, you
00:30:02
Speaker
And it really just sucks when, yeah, men just assume you're dumb and you're put in a situation where you have to play along or play dumb or else you get attacked.
00:30:09
Speaker
And so that's another reason why.
00:30:10
Speaker
And I think that if you've never experienced what that's like, you might not believe that or you might think it's not a big deal or whatever.
00:30:18
Speaker
It's never nice to be undermined in the workplace in any way, shape or form, especially because of the way you look ultimately.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:25
Speaker
So definitely I empathize with women who feel like being invisible has limited their opportunities and so on.
00:30:31
Speaker
And I guess what I'm kind of hoping for is that, you know, women who have not had the same experiences as me, that maybe they'll feel, they'll empathize with my experience and that maybe, you know, we can work together to overcome patriarchy.
00:30:42
Speaker
That's like what I would like.
00:30:44
Speaker
That's like my...
00:30:45
Speaker
That's what I want, but it's unfortunately not always realistic.
00:30:47
Speaker
A lot of women, regardless of their looks, just don't have any loyalty to other women.
00:30:51
Speaker
And that's what it comes down to because you have both groups pointing at each other.
00:30:55
Speaker
I mean, it's a divide and conquer strategy, right?
00:30:57
Speaker
If they pedestalize certain types of women and those women, especially if they're
00:31:01
Speaker
power hungry, like Serena Joy types, if you've ever seen Handmaid's
Privilege Dividing Women Against Patriarchy
00:31:05
Speaker
Tale.
00:31:05
Speaker
So like you have like the Serena Joy types who like revel in their, this power position, even though it's limited and dependent on the men in their lives, they're very antagonistic and they weaponize their pretty privilege against women who are less attractive.
00:31:18
Speaker
They want to be the queen bee.
00:31:19
Speaker
They want to exploit other women.
00:31:20
Speaker
They like being there.
00:31:21
Speaker
And I don't,
00:31:22
Speaker
The irony of this is that part of the reason why feminism is constantly like losing ground, even by purported like feminists on the left, is that because women at the top of the hierarchy and both these situations, actually, I feel like a lot of liberal feminists, as well as like conservative types do this all the time.
00:31:40
Speaker
Like it's a way for them to have a certain level of privilege that they can weaponize against other women.
00:31:45
Speaker
That's how like the hashtag girl boss type of thing came about.
00:31:48
Speaker
where it just became about women doing these multi-level marketing schemes where it's based on their looks, et cetera, and then not really walking the walk when it comes to actually empowering women by any type of means.
00:31:59
Speaker
Or they just want to look and sound like a feminist, but not actually make any real tangible change.
00:32:06
Speaker
And those types of women tend to get elevated within institutions that have men at the helm of them, right?
00:32:11
Speaker
You have a lot of women that talk feminist, so to speak, but ultimately they're in it for themselves.
00:32:16
Speaker
They don't see women as a class.
00:32:18
Speaker
And that's the difference between like liberal feminism and radical feminism where and when we were talking to Dr. Gail Dines, which she said very similarly, like there's a certain level of feminists.
00:32:25
Speaker
They're always like, I got mine and fuck the rest of my sisters.
00:32:28
Speaker
Right.
00:32:28
Speaker
And then like, I think conservatives are a little bit more open about the fact that they're like that.
00:32:33
Speaker
Although like they look at it more like from the perspective of like marriage where like a lot of these women like to be, they get leadership roles in the sense of like they're the PTA mom and they have this and they have that.
00:32:43
Speaker
They want their kids to have the best and they want their family to have the best.
00:32:47
Speaker
They don't really care about
00:32:48
Speaker
women outside of their group.
00:32:49
Speaker
I just think that tendency for women who are at the top of the hierarchy, whether it's class privilege or beauty privilege, to weaponize it against the West of women is why we don't get anywhere.
00:32:58
Speaker
And then the women at the bottom, the women who don't have those things, sometimes they're a little bit overzealous because of like the shitty women who are like that.
00:33:06
Speaker
And then like they attack any woman who they think might be a threat because they think she's attractive or she has this.
00:33:12
Speaker
And so she's automatically going to be against me and she's automatically going to be a problem.
00:33:15
Speaker
They just like look at a woman and they find excuses to tear her down immediately.
00:33:19
Speaker
Right.
00:33:19
Speaker
So like those two factions are always warring with each other.
00:33:22
Speaker
Instead of with men, who are the ones oppressing all of us?
00:33:26
Speaker
Instead of with men.
00:33:28
Speaker
There we go.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:29
Speaker
And that's why I think pretty privilege is really like the crux of like maybe a lot of feminist fights.
00:33:35
Speaker
Or perceived pretty privilege.
00:33:36
Speaker
Because again, like I feel like the people who don't experience pretty privilege, they vastly overestimate the benefits of
00:33:42
Speaker
And they don't seem to realize the hazards that are associated with it, or they minimize those hazards.
00:33:47
Speaker
And so that causes them to just feel less and less, you know, there's this belief like, oh, if you know, this sort of fight the power thing, oh, if you have more power than me, if you have more privileges than me, then it's okay for me to attack you.
00:33:57
Speaker
But then it just, again, it just creates that infighting within women.
00:34:00
Speaker
And it also takes out the nuance that pretty is subjective.
00:34:04
Speaker
There are people that will look at Beyonce and say she's not attractive.
00:34:07
Speaker
Like, it's not a one and done thing.
00:34:09
Speaker
But it's actually true.
00:34:10
Speaker
Like, there's not... I remember Anthony Joshua, who is, like, a really hot boxer in the UK.
00:34:15
Speaker
He was accused of sleeping with Amir Khan's wife.
00:34:18
Speaker
So Amir Khan was a fellow boxer.
00:34:20
Speaker
And his wife is, you know, your typical, I guess...
00:34:23
Speaker
Instagram baddie almost.
00:34:24
Speaker
He's had a lot of plastic surgery, like hair extensions a lot.
00:34:27
Speaker
And he basically, Anthony Joshua was like, yeah, now I prefer BBWs.
00:34:31
Speaker
And everyone lost their minds over it.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:33
Speaker
And this is, if you Google Anthony Joshua, like he is, I would say a very, very attractive man.
00:34:39
Speaker
He's very tall.
00:34:40
Speaker
He's very rich.
00:34:40
Speaker
And even he was like, I prefer BBWs.
00:34:42
Speaker
So it's just like this whole concept of even pretty and attractive is highly subjective anyway.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:34:48
Speaker
I'm watching, I'm looking, actually both Amir and Anthony Joshua are quite handsome.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah, his wife is very thin.
00:34:54
Speaker
Your typical Instagram baddie, right?
00:34:56
Speaker
Basically.
00:34:57
Speaker
Insta baddie look, yeah.
00:34:58
Speaker
And he was like, yeah, nah, I prefer BBWs, LOL.
00:35:01
Speaker
Eyelashes to the gods, darling.
00:35:04
Speaker
So yeah, it is subjective.
00:35:05
Speaker
And also you can age out of it.
00:35:07
Speaker
That's the other thing.
00:35:08
Speaker
That's the other elephant in the room is that you can age out of your pretty privilege.
00:35:12
Speaker
And so the women whose entire power... Oh, we got to be careful with this because when we talk about the episode where I said like,
00:35:19
Speaker
Oh, some of these toxic queen bees, they age out of being fuckable.
00:35:21
Speaker
For some reason, like a bunch of women over 40 took that as like me saying, you know, women over a certain age are objectively unattractive.
00:35:28
Speaker
I don't think that.
00:35:29
Speaker
I think there's a lot of beautiful women of all ages, right?
00:35:33
Speaker
My grandma's like almost 90 and she still has suitors, right?
00:35:36
Speaker
Okay, so the attractiveness as a woman doesn't end like when you get older.
00:35:40
Speaker
What I'm saying is we're talking about like what males idealize and males... Under the rules of patriarchy, yeah.
00:35:45
Speaker
Under the rules of patriarchy, yeah, like men do favor younger women, unfortunately.
00:35:50
Speaker
Like, that's just the reality of it.
00:35:52
Speaker
But also, like, the older you get, the less men are older than you, right?
00:35:56
Speaker
Like, so... A lot of guys are into MILFs, though, and cougars.
00:35:59
Speaker
So, I mean, there's that.
00:36:01
Speaker
MILFs and computers, but I'm just saying like, if you think of the average company, I don't know what the average age of like a person who's like the CEO of a company, they're probably going to be like somewhere in their 40s or 50s.
00:36:11
Speaker
So like if you end up in your 40s and 50s, then there's just not as many men.
00:36:15
Speaker
It's like there's if you're 20, then there's like, there's men who are 30 years older than you all along those type that have power, etc.
00:36:21
Speaker
If you're 40,
00:36:22
Speaker
There's not as many men who are like 50 to 70, right?
00:36:25
Speaker
Or like 40 to 70.
00:36:27
Speaker
So it's like, to me, like you don't necessarily stop being beautiful, so to speak, so much as that like the population on the other side of your age and the upper age becomes smaller than the population that's younger than you.
00:36:37
Speaker
So that's just...
00:36:38
Speaker
That's just what happens.
00:36:39
Speaker
It doesn't mean like you're suddenly like ugly.
00:36:41
Speaker
It just means that like, you know, kids want to date kids.
00:36:44
Speaker
People tend to date people their own age.
00:36:45
Speaker
And also men die younger, right?
00:36:47
Speaker
So as a woman, the older you get, the smaller your dating pool if you're looking for men the same age as you, because yeah, again, men die younger.
00:36:52
Speaker
So yeah.
00:36:53
Speaker
point about like aging out of pretty privilege is like, okay, if you have all of your power is dependent on a man, it's going to be dependent on how long he can maintain that power and how long you can maintain, you can be associated with him.
00:37:04
Speaker
If you get divorced, which a lot of people do, like wealthy people, if you get divorced, then it's kind of like Jacqueline.
00:37:12
Speaker
I keep like referencing shows.
00:37:13
Speaker
People watch all of these shows on Netflix.
00:37:15
Speaker
But it's like Jacqueline from the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, right?
00:37:18
Speaker
Like all of her power in that high-powered society came through her husband.
00:37:22
Speaker
And now she has a little bit of money from the settlement.
00:37:24
Speaker
But like she can't necessarily like right away use her pretty privilege.
00:37:28
Speaker
She has to use her class privilege.
00:37:30
Speaker
And she has to like rely on the money that she got from him to try to start her own agency to get back into that social circle.
00:37:35
Speaker
Because it's going to be harder to be a power couple.
00:37:38
Speaker
Have you already had your kids?
00:37:39
Speaker
You've already been divorced and you've already like gotten your money.
00:37:42
Speaker
You essentially like can age out of a such situation where you're able to weaponize being beautiful to like on other women and be queen being in the office.
00:37:51
Speaker
Like if you're no longer with that man.
00:37:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:53
Speaker
So yeah,
00:37:54
Speaker
I think to like start to wrap up this episode and like couch it, I think we did a good discussion about the drawbacks of pretty privilege.
Class Privilege vs. Pretty Privilege
00:38:01
Speaker
It does exist to a certain extent, but also comes with like some severe caveats.
00:38:05
Speaker
But I also thought it'd be good to talk about perceived class privilege can actually be for a woman who's like not necessarily has quote unquote pretty privilege, how that can actually does sometimes have some benefits.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker
I think generally in the privileged discussion, whether it's race or attractiveness, like class isn't spoken about anywhere near enough and got such a huge impact on people's trajectories, regardless of if they're white or if they're black or if they're attractive or if they're not.
00:38:32
Speaker
That's just not really spoken about.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:34
Speaker
So for me, especially like going from being working class to like going to white collar jobs, like I had to learn all the like basic bitch white collar job language and grooming, et cetera, that I didn't know before.
00:38:48
Speaker
Maybe I shouldn't say basic bitch.
00:38:49
Speaker
I had to learn all of them.
00:38:54
Speaker
When I say basic bitch, you know what I'm talking about, right?
00:38:56
Speaker
Like someone who like shops at like Tory Burch, right?
00:39:00
Speaker
And
00:39:02
Speaker
And it's also the stuff that you couldn't afford to do before as well, you know?
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't afford to do it.
00:39:07
Speaker
Maybe I shouldn't call them basic bitches.
00:39:08
Speaker
But like the pumpkin spice latte drinking, Ray Dunn, like it's become like a trope where like there's an image that certain like middle class, mostly white women who come from like specific types of educated backgrounds,
00:39:21
Speaker
that's how they look a certain way, which is like a world of difference from a person who comes from my background came from.
00:39:26
Speaker
So like one of the things that I had to learn was how to physically like change my wardrobe or my dress that I fit in with this environment, but also looked authentic to myself.
00:39:37
Speaker
And this is when we talk, that's where a lot of people who are not of that demographic talk about like how hard it is to be like be professional.
00:39:44
Speaker
And there's been controversies and discussions about like different types of hairstyles that are appropriate for work.
00:39:48
Speaker
Because if you don't look a certain way,
00:39:50
Speaker
you know, if you don't have like straight long hair, you know, that's always like considered the most professional, but if you have curly hair, you know, obviously if you have kinky curly hair, if you have natural hair, what kind of things you have to do to look a certain way to get that privilege.
00:40:03
Speaker
So like you can be really pretty, but you'll never get access if you don't have certain class signifiers, which is really hard to understand and swallow unless you've been part of that circle.
00:40:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:14
Speaker
This is also part of the reason why that when I was on recruitment panels, I would always disregard what the candidate was wearing, unless it was like deeply inappropriate or offensive where they came like naked or something.
00:40:24
Speaker
But if they weren't dressed in a suit and a tie or business suit, it wouldn't count against them in my mind because that shit's expensive.
00:40:30
Speaker
But all those sorts of factors, it's now common for that to potentially work against you if you're not dressed properly for an interview.
00:40:37
Speaker
But we don't think, well, actually, the candidate even afford to dress well for an interview.
00:40:41
Speaker
We don't think about that sort of, I guess, class oppression enough as well.
00:40:46
Speaker
And it's very real.
00:40:47
Speaker
And a part of it is because so many of the like white collar jobs, especially if they have a public facing aspect to it, like if you work sales, or you work consulting, or you work finance, you work something where you're interacting with people all of the time, they want you to be perceived as an authority, and they want to project the image of success.
00:41:07
Speaker
And like, as a woman, they want you to look like a trophy or as a person who is someone who could be a Fox News anchor.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:41:15
Speaker
They want you to look a certain way because they want that class privilege for it.
00:41:19
Speaker
They want you to look like you're above the other people they're basically trying to sell things to or scam, right?
00:41:24
Speaker
So that's where I'm saying like the pretty privilege aspect of it.
00:41:27
Speaker
And you'll see stuff like this with women that have like have multi-level marketing schemes or Tupperware or like even Mary Kay.
00:41:32
Speaker
to a certain extent, like, you know, they want you to project that I'm being successful for Mary Kay.
00:41:37
Speaker
So they want you to dress a certain way.
00:41:38
Speaker
They want you to look a certain way.
00:41:39
Speaker
They put a certain amount of products, et cetera.
00:41:41
Speaker
And that is to give you like a certain level of class privilege and perceived privilege over other women.
00:41:47
Speaker
So it's like just being pretty, quote unquote, isn't necessarily just the key to like a successful, like the class markers and the ability to afford the things, like you belong to a certain social circle and a certain economic demographic actually becomes a lot more
00:42:01
Speaker
important because overall you don't see men like going to Walmart and like trying to clean up a girl who works at the checkout aisle right and that's like where I'm saying the pretty privileged thing is so limited that's why you see a lot of women now trying to like invest in their Instagram and like if you're wearing Fashion Nova you're probably not going to be in that circle they start buying fake designer bags though like why do you think the fake designer movement is so the fake designer market is so big
00:42:25
Speaker
I support fake designer, honestly.
00:42:27
Speaker
I think, fuck those companies.
00:42:29
Speaker
Why are you charging $5,000 for a purse?
00:42:31
Speaker
Honestly, if they can make the same exact purse in China for like, uh, $30, you know, pennies and then charge you $200 for it instead.
00:42:39
Speaker
Honestly, good for you.
00:42:40
Speaker
I, I think I support that.
00:42:41
Speaker
I support scamming these or undercutting these companies for rich people.
00:42:45
Speaker
Fuck them.
00:42:47
Speaker
The knockoffs are probably being made in the same factory and then someone's sneaking it out and selling it for slightly above cost because there's no scarcity in half of these bags.
00:42:56
Speaker
It's all class privilege.
00:42:57
Speaker
It's all luxury privilege.
00:42:59
Speaker
Yeah, like Louis Vuitton like burns their merchandise instead of, you know, selling it on clearance because they don't want poor people to have it, you know.
00:43:05
Speaker
So I actually support the fake designer market for that exact reason.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah, fuck the rich.
00:43:10
Speaker
I think it does exist.
00:43:11
Speaker
This is my closing argument.
00:43:13
Speaker
I think pretty privilege does exist.
00:43:14
Speaker
But like Ro and Liff have pointed out, ultimately, you know, women who are attractive are still bound by the same, you know, patriarchal constructs and oppression as women who are not deemed conventionally attractive.
The High Costs of Beauty
00:43:30
Speaker
So ultimately, we're still all in the same pit of shit together.
00:43:34
Speaker
I agree.
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah, my closing argument is pretty much similar.
00:43:37
Speaker
It's like pretty privileged as a woman.
00:43:39
Speaker
It all comes down to cost benefit analysis, like the cost of being beautiful are high.
00:43:43
Speaker
And oh, and I didn't even talk about the cost of all the actual material costs of all the beauty products, all the money I've probably spent over the course of my life on, you know, hair, makeup, nails, clothes, everything, right?
00:43:53
Speaker
The actual cost of being beautiful for women are so high socially, financially, and so on.
00:43:58
Speaker
And the benefits are pretty minimal.
00:43:59
Speaker
Like what?
00:44:00
Speaker
Free drinks.
00:44:01
Speaker
You get more male attention.
00:44:02
Speaker
I feel like for women, pretty privilege is very much overblown and it's more of a liability.
00:44:07
Speaker
And I keep making that argument for plastic surgery.
00:44:09
Speaker
Just the amount of women who are putting all of their life savings to get plastic surgery for minimal life benefits.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:17
Speaker
Unless you're like a celebrity, why are you getting plastic surgery?
00:44:20
Speaker
That doesn't make any sense to me.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
I know it's getting a lot more affordable, but like it's affordable and it looks cheap and affordable.
00:44:27
Speaker
You can tell the difference between affordable plastic surgery and celebrity plastic surgery.
00:44:32
Speaker
Affordable plastic surgery.
00:44:34
Speaker
Exactly.
00:44:34
Speaker
So it's getting more affordable, but it's marginally.
00:44:37
Speaker
Like I know that they have all this like lines of credit you can get to get certain procedures done.
00:44:41
Speaker
And I'm like, well, first of all, how are you going to pay that back working how you work now?
00:44:44
Speaker
And realistically, a lot of them are still dating the same types of men that they were dating before.
00:44:49
Speaker
So you're not even seeing them like
00:44:50
Speaker
get a bunch, you know, a man who has more money so that like he can pay for your now plastic surgery that you went into debt for.
00:44:56
Speaker
And it doesn't really increase their career prospects either.
00:44:59
Speaker
So again, it's not like the surgery will eventually pay off itself.
00:45:03
Speaker
Unless there is like legitimately a sex worker or a stripper.
00:45:07
Speaker
And also sex workers have even said it doesn't really change how much they can charge for because, you know, most other strippers and sex workers have had some form of surgery.
00:45:15
Speaker
Like, because the field is so saturated, if a guy wants the BBL look, he can easily get it.
00:45:20
Speaker
And oftentimes he can find a woman who is going to be cheaper than somebody who thinks that they can, you know, whack on an extra thousand dollars just because they've got silicone in their tits now.
00:45:30
Speaker
Like, it doesn't even guarantee that.
00:45:32
Speaker
Facts.
00:45:33
Speaker
It's true.
00:45:34
Speaker
And the cost of your health is really, really high.
00:45:36
Speaker
So once again, pretty privilege has its limits.
00:45:39
Speaker
The pressure to be pretty costs a lot and doesn't necessarily give you tangible benefits or power in the real world.
00:45:46
Speaker
And it exists as a entity in which women can weaponize it against each other to keep men in power.
00:45:52
Speaker
So both the women who feel unattractive, who just immediately antagonize and ostracize women who they perceive as
00:45:59
Speaker
to get more attention from men, from them, cough themselves.
00:46:02
Speaker
And then also the women who are like thinking that their power and proximity to a man and then use that to weaponize against women who are less attractive or have less privilege than they are.
00:46:11
Speaker
So in conclusion, what do we want to say?
00:46:15
Speaker
Pretty privilege is a thing, but it's not the thing you think.
00:46:18
Speaker
Yeah, the costs are higher, the benefits are minimal, and instead of fighting over pretty privileged ladies, let's just all come together and realize we're all being fucked by the patriarchy and overthrow it as a team.
00:46:28
Speaker
Let's go.
00:46:29
Speaker
Facts.
00:46:30
Speaker
And stop giving men's opinions so much airtime, which is essentially what this debate is about, ultimately.
00:46:35
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:46:38
Speaker
All right.
00:46:38
Speaker
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00:46:39
Speaker
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00:46:44
Speaker
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00:46:47
Speaker
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00:46:51
Speaker
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00:46:53
Speaker
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00:46:54
Speaker
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00:47:03
Speaker
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00:47:05
Speaker
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00:47:15
Speaker
Thanks for listening, Queens.
00:47:17
Speaker
And for all you scrotes out there, U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi.
00:47:20
Speaker
You ugly.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, you ugly.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:47:25
Speaker
Die mad.
00:47:25
Speaker
See you next week.
00:47:27
Speaker
See you next week.