Why is beauty not far better considered in the race against prejudice?
Along with beauty, charisma are two personal traits which interest me because of their influence on “developing full potential”. I think the wording chosen is unfortunate because the selection of beauty and charisma is at least somewhat separate from “workplace skills” so it isn’t quite a case of “developing full potential” as really being selected. In other words, it’s an extrinsic not intrinsic consequence brought about by socialising which is independent of skill.
It’s interesting to me not only because beauty and charisma are independent of skill bit because I believe their affect on social selection, especially within specific domains, is probably far greater than skill.
I hate to target a group, but as far as beauty is concerned, in the real world the place I see it most is being a customer in cafeterias where the choice of staff is clearly geared very heavily towards beauty and physical attraction. It annoys me because I get a bit cheesed off with being served by pretty girls who are impolite and manually unskilled. There is also a personal dimension to why I particularly sensitive to it because I am neither beautiful nor charismatic. I believe the consequences of the social selection process lead to introverted and solitary behaviours, so the problems of socialisation tend to accumulate rather than dissipate. I like maths, computing, reading, writing, music. What they have in common is being pastimes which can be pursued in comparative isolation.
They are also much of the pursuits which are thought of an “intellectual”. This is interesting because one might suspect those who are also social outcasts to not only develop those same skills but to laud them by giving them a positive label and using their writing powers to popularise the idea they are highly desirable qualities.
In reality it seems to me that social selection happens in essentially the reverse of what one might considered sensible:
1. Beauty.
2. Charm.
3. Skill.
Even in my job, which, surprise surprise, is one which requires little in the way of personal beauty and personal skills, it occurs to me that this doesn’t reverse the fact that others would still rather spent their working days with the beautiful and charismatic than people such as myself who have to compensate by being among the most hard working and reliable members of the team.
In fact, the most charismatic members tend to be among the schemers who tend to do less work because they have the social leeway provided by the fact they remain desirable, as others enjoy working with them, despite the fact they don’t have the best work effort. I have a history of jobs and positions I have vacated after months of effort which did nothing to remedy my sense of isolation in the workplace. The explanation is simple: Why go out to work? If I am going to be alone in the workplace I may as well be alone at home by myself. At home I can drink tea, listen to music, do more of what I like to do and still do what I need to do.
I don’t know if such a survey exists but I would really like to see some good data on a large group of people each of whom are measured according to beauty, charisma and skill and to plot that against career, wages and job satisfaction.
I have worked for small businesses with heterosexual male bosses who have appointed beautiful women in the positions close to them who are essentially carried by the business. Cute girls are far more likely to be forgiven and supported, even of they have poor personal skills and are crap at their job and disruptive. I would also like to see how beauty correlates with narcissism. Cute girls are more likely to be accustomed to getting more for doing less and can often get what they want quite easily simply by complaining they don’t have it. They are more likely to be able to manipulate people around them as in any troublesome interpersonal relationships it will always be the less attractive person who is thought to be the problem. If this sounds like me getting all twisted up about it, it is, but the halo effect of beauty, and reverse effect of ugliness, is documented and real.
I also wish there could be some way (perhaps using lifelike AIs) to be able to transfer varying personalities and levels of intelligence into people with different physical features. For example: What would happen if the personal skills of an ugly people and a beautiful people were swapped? Would the beautiful person still enjoy the same, or even better, social privileges and the ugly person still suffer the same handicaps?
I wonder if there are statistics validating the “airhead” stereotype? Is it reasonable to suppose there are people who thrive purely on beauty and attraction and do well despite having very poor personal skills and intelligence?
It’s epitomised in TV programs I hate like “Love Island” in which everybody is buff, stupid and feral. It’s a strange phenomenon in the present era because by reducing everybody to their most primitive characteristics it overturns all the gender development we are supposed to have achieved.
What enrages me more is that charisma and beauty are rarely considered in the identity politics of privilege and victimhood. Yes, “pretty privilege” is discussed and as ever, with debates which invoke polemical responses, there are journalists who deny there is any such thing (when obviously there is). Feminism doesn’t deal with the issue well or at all. There is bra burning, the body positive movement, discarding hair and makeup routines, and I am not objecting to those movements really only adding that it doesn’t deal very well with the phenomenon of beautiful people getting a bigger slice of pie for less contribution except for being everybody else’s love or friendship interest.
Beautiful charismatic themselves also become selection filters as they have more choice of friends, social groups often cluster around them, and because they have a greater choice they can deselect boring ugly people from their group thereby excluding boring ugly people from networking and recreational opportunities.
What enrages me most is I would bet money that beauty has a far larger impact on social and economic progress than race, even though racial prejudice gets a vast amount of press. I’d bet money beautiful or handsome people of afro Caribbean descent have better workplace prospects than ugly white people. It isn’t that beautiful black people won’t experience prejudice, it’s just that, what prejudice there is, the beautiful person will find easier to circumnavigate.
I’d like to see where ugly white males congregate, professionally, because I bet they cluster in horrible basic manual labour positions.
I’d like to see if there is an inverse correlation between skill as the independent variable and looks and charm as the dependent variables because I bet boring ugly people are forced to compensate with a high degree of professional competence.
It bothers me more and more every day that the interplay of looks, charm and competence in the fields of job description, social life, morale and salary is so far down the list of media interests and yet, I believe, very high in the list of personal characteristics largely affecting personal progress.
