Beauty May Not Pave The Way To Success

Elle (print edition, p. 119) ^ | February 2002 | Elle

[MarkWar]

It's Not Easy Being Pretty

Beauty may not pave the way to success.

A University of California, Berkeley, study of college kids found no link between a woman's looks and her social status. By "status," the researchers meant influence, respect, and prominence within a group, and while status was raised by extroversion -- a fancy term for being outgoing -- good looks, at least in women, had no effect. (Handsome young men, however, did tend to have higher status.) Looks matter in men but not in women -- how can that be? The researcher have only hypotheses: Beautiful people do get more dates (psychologists actually took time to verify this in a 1992 study). For men, the getting of umpteen dates seems to raise status; however, countless swains may not -- for some yet-unknown reason -- add to a woman's respect in her community.

[MarkWar]

This little one paragraph story raise so many fun points that I don't know where to begin.

Political correctness insists that men and women are exactly the same, yet here we have actual "evidence" that men and women aren't the same and do not treat each other the same.

People in general don't necessarily respect pretty or popular women, yet the magazine itself always has a pretty woman on the cover, and the content is nearly 100% geared toward helping a woman make herself "pretty." Is the magazine saying that being pretty (for a woman) is more important than respect?

How might this respect/popularity dynamic translate to online interactions? (Would women who post threads that get lots of responses ("popular" women) not necessarily get status here, but guys who post threads that get lots of responses get accorded status?)

The only "trait" listed as being pivotal for women is "extroversion" (but tempered by not going out on too many dates). It IS tough being a woman...

Mark W.

[Maceman]

Back when I was a senior executive in a company that I co-founded, we had a position open for corporate counsel. The nature of my management function was that I would be working very closely with this person, and the hiring decision was entirely mine.

One of the candidates was a breathtakingly beautiful woman in her early thirties. In fact, she was one of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen, and I was immediately smitten. She was as qualified as any other candidate, but I declined to hire her, because I knew she would drive me to distraction.

So sometimes, a woman's good looks can work against her.

[MarkWar]

TGIF ping...

Mark W.

[Snuffington]

One of the candidates was a breathtakingly beautiful woman in her early thirties. In fact, she was one of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen, and I was immediately smitten. She was as qualified as any other candidate, but I declined to hire her, because I knew she would drive me to distraction.

I have had similar experiences where I work. I haven't actually made such a hiring decision myself (in technical fields it's rare to have any woman show up for a job opening). But I have frequently been relieved when a particularly "distracting" woman was passed over in favor of a plainer, but just as qualified, candidate. Keeps the work environment more business-like and less like a junior high classroom.

[jacquej]

Well, I guess those of us who are breathtakingly beautiful better learn to put our hair up in mousy buns, wear out-of-date glasses, put a few fake zits on our faces, and wear frumpy clothes when we go for job interviews...

[Snuffington]

Well, I guess those of us who are breathtakingly beautiful better learn to put our hair up in mousy buns, wear out-of-date glasses, put a few fake zits on our faces, and wear frumpy clothes when we go for job interviews...

Oh, I think these things balance out. For every job opportunity lost by beauty, I'm sure another is created. The point of the article above wasn't that beauty is a detriment. It's that beauty wasn't a determining factor either way.

Besides... beautiful women trying to look frumpy can't usually pull it off. They end up making "frumpy" the hot new fashion trend. So I'm afraid you're stuck. :-)

[ken5050]

There's an old line from somewhere, the author of which I cannot recall: It goes something like this:

"Everytime I see an absolutely gorgeous woman walking alone I am comforted by the fact that somewhere there's a guy who didn't want her."

[ken5050]

Whant you mean to say is that your wife wouldn't like it...

[Billthedrill]

Handsome young men, however, did tend to have higher status...

Oh, piffle - us staggeringly handsome men are just as downtrodden as anyone else. Trust me.

[TRY ONE]

Beauty may not pave the way to success......because Beauty is only skin deep...but ugliness goes to the bone!

[MarkWar]

>Well, I guess those of us who are breathtakingly beautiful better learn to put our hair up in mousy buns, wear out-of-date glasses, put a few fake zits on our faces, and wear frumpy clothes ...

I was hoping someone would bring up that transformation...

Mark W.

[Maceman]

What you mean to say is that your wife wouldn't like it...

Not really. I wasn't married at the time (although we were dating). I just know that given my reaction when that woman walked into my office, I knew that it would be very hard for me to stay focused on the work with my knees all wobbly.

[koba]

Average and below-average looking people tend to work harder in college and a carreer.They generally were not as popular so generally they don't have as many distractions as good-looking people. I noticed that the educated immigrants the U.S. gets from India are usually below-average looking. Yet when I went to India there were beatiful looking people all over the place. The below-average people, at a young age, probably realized that it is only through education that they can make themselves successful whereas the good-looking people are "successful" (i.e. popular, sought-after socially) at a much younger age. They don't crave for "success" like the below-average looking people because they had it and took it for granted. Even in college in this country, the people I saw in in the library were average and below-average loooking. Most of the beautiful people were out on dates, at parties etc. No matter where you go in the world, on some things at least, people are fundamentally the same.

[ken5050]

Here's another dilemma for you to ponder...would you hire a plain looking woman who just happened to have an incredible large pair of breasts, which would cause distractions in the workplace?

[ken5050]

Here's another dilemma for you to ponder...would you hire a plain looking woman who just happened to have an incredibly large pair of breasts, which would cause distractions in the workplace?

[Codie]

You really believe this?

[PoisedWoman]

I knew that it would be very hard for me to stay focused on the work with my knees all wobbly.

I know what you mean. I worked for a foundation looking for a PR person, and when an unusually gorgeous woman walked in, the boss took one look and whispered, "get her out of here." We were all glad to see her go. The women in the office would have crucified her and the men would have turned into babbling idiots.

I did hire a beautiful young woman to do PR at a company, and THAT boss found 1273985 reasons a day to go into her office. She finally quit. I was sorry to see her go, as she was enormously competent.

[koba]

Oh yeah, that's what I saw. When I thought about going to law school (I didn't go, bought a business instead, although I may go later) and toured some good schools (George Washington, Georgetown, etc.) the vast majority of women I saw were rather plain-looking. That's about what my cousin said when he went to Johns Hopkins Medical school, that's what my uncle said when he went to Yale Business School etc. Obviously there are going to be exceptions and I am talking about generalities. The further I went up the education ladder, generally speaking, the worse the women looked. I thought that Indians were a pretty below-average looking group because of what I saw here, who generally were the educated elite that the U.S. wanted and recruited. When I saw "real" indians, average Indians, in India, they pretty much looked as good as any other group.

[Maceman]

Here's another dilemma for you to ponder...would you hire a plain looking woman who just happened to have an incredibly large pair of breasts, which would cause distractions in the workplace?

Since you asked -- I would not consider such a woman to be a distraction, and would have no problem hiring her. I like breasts in all sizes, but I don't find them consistently distracting in and of themselves. I'm mainly into faces, smiles, eyes, legs, voices and generally nice proportionality -- all in one package. Breasts are way down the list of what floats my boat, and would never cause me to be attracted to a woman who was otherwise deficient in the aforementioned attributes.

BTW I wonder if this kind of discussion is what JR had in mind when he started FR. I'm guessing not.

[MarkWar]

>BTW I wonder if this kind of discussion is what JR had in mind when he started FR. I'm guessing not.

"Pop culture is the politics of the 21st century."

-- Gale Weathers

Mark W.