On (Societal Standards of) Beauty

We’ve all heard it before: blondes have more fun.

From the cool girls at school to the cool girls in movies, the “it” girl usually ends up being a tall, skinny, white, blonde girl. I guess it really doesn’t help my perception of the matter that I grew up in Everyone-is-a-White-Skinny-Girl, MA and then moved to a country that once acclaimed blonde, blue-eyed people.

Whether you like it or not, it’s hard to ignore that looks matter. Good looking women are more often to get their way, meet more people, be valued more in society, and overall have to “work” less than an equally as competent but worse-looking peer. Again...harsh, but true.

So let’s talk about society’s standard of beauty. In addition to being relatively thin (but also curvy), blemish-free (without the help of makeup), and well-kept (this one I have no argument against, apart from what it means from person to person), I’ve also come to realize that for most people, being white + blonde gives you an edge over others. Just take this AI bot-generated image of "hot OnlyFans girls" - when prompted to create girls that men would pay to see we are provided with an image of...surprise surprise... white, skinny, blonde girls.

Now, I’m not saying that if you’re not blonde, you’re automatically considered unattractive (we have Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox, and plenty more women to prove us wrong) but I am saying that white blonde women definitely have won the looks lottery for the most part.

Real Life Pressure & Comparison

I realize that we are influenced by the way celebrities and influencers look, but we’re also smart enough to realize that celebrities and influencers have the help of lighting and makeup to make them look airbrushed and effortless. Where this white/skinny/blonde combo really starts to mess with me is when this societal standard bleeds into real life. When I realize that no matter how much I follow the trends, do my hair & makeup, and stay fit & healthy, I’ll always come second to girls who are white, blonde, and naturally skinny. And this isn’t just comparing myself to women like Margot Robbie or Elsa Hoyt, it’s me against real-life people I work with and socialize with. It’s sometimes just exhausting to know you don’t even come close to fraternizing in the same arena as women who were born genetically more “gifted” looks-wise.

Ok, why am I writing a whole blog post about this? I know complaining doesn’t change my reality - I look like what I look like. I know that the world is not a competition of me versus everyone else (it’s me against yesterday’s me - I know). I also know that writing all of this probably ruins any and all credibility I had in the “self-confidence” category and that it’s all very unattractive. Trust me, I know.

Life is not fair and we need to accept the cards we're dealt!

But I write this because sometimes I feel like someone (read: me) needs to publicly come out and say how freaking unfair this feels. It feels useless for me to spend time getting ready every morning to face the world, when I know that my boyfriend finds our blonde friends more beautiful than me (and that it “doesn’t matter” because he “loves me and not them”). It feels unfair that given the choice (and if we take society’s beauty standard to be true) that most men wouldn’t pick me out of a crowd. And if we take the celebrity example, most men would pick a Scarlett-Johanssen-type over a Deepika-Padukone-type. Why does this even matter? It technically doesn’t, but sometimes it feels like it does and that hurts.

It feels like it does matter when I have a conversation with a guy about another girl and the first question he asks is, “what does she look like?” It feels like it matters when someone makes a comment on the appearance of my friends. It feels like it matters when the girls who are labeled as “pretty” all have the same features - features I wasn’t born with. It feels like it matters when my boyfriend confirms that our blonde/skinny/blonde friends are objectively better looking than me. I know it shouldn’t matter, and I shouldn’t care about these things, but I do. So sue me.

I’ve surveyed most of my girlfriends about this topic and some of them have come around accepting this. They’re ok not being in the top 10% of good looking women. To which I say (with an eye roll), “easy to be OK with it when you know you are already in the 10% of good looking women.'' I know that beauty is not the end-all-be-all of one’s character. I admire plenty of women who have so much more to offer apart from their looks. They tell me that when you develop yourself outside of what you look like (through work, hobbies, other friendships) that this feeling of inadequacy goes away. But I am doing these things and still feel…inadequate. So I wonder…does it ever get better? Do you ever stop wondering what the hell your boyfriend is doing with you? Do you ever get over the fact that you might be the DUFF of the friend group?

It frustrates me that at 26 years old, I still struggle to get over something as basic as “appearance.” That I can’t ignore this basic tenet of being and I let it get to me and my mental health so much. As I write this, I realize how ridiculous it sounds, but it also makes me wonder if I should surround myself with people who make me feel more beautiful than I do now. Is it a matter of my environment, or is that just living in a bubble and not facing the reality that I’m never going to be in the top 10%? Why is it so important to be in the top 10% anyways? Don’t we all age and get rusty one day? I guess it’s because it’s hard for me to ignore that at the end of the day, looks will always matter. And some people are lucky and are more naturally blessed while others have to put in a lot more effort into their looks. I can stay whining that I fall into the latter group, or learn to deal with it. I haven’t quite made it past the moping part of the situation, but I hope that one day I will.