October 12, 2013

TED Talk: Looks Aren’t Everything

If you’ve never heard of TED talks, then stop reading this and visit this link. You’re back already? Don’t you feel smarter?

TED talks are brilliant. They encourage creativity and innovation in politics, religion, and culture in general. Yesterday I saw the one titled ‘Looks aren’t Everything. Believe me. I’m a model.’ and I squealed with delight (not really). But I didn’t know just how relevant it would be to this blog. I have been trying to put my specific purpose for this blog into words and here it is via Cameron Russell’s closing statement in the above video:

“If there’s a takeaway to this talk I hope it’s that we all feel more comfortable acknowledging the power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived failures.”

That’s what I want. Like I said yesterday, we will never get 313.9 million individual Americans to forget about outward looks. We are biologically programmed to be attracted to and to respond better to physically beautiful things. But I think that we often ignore this issue. Sure we talk about the cruelty of the modeling business on girls’ self-esteem. But that’s about it. What about bias in the workplace? in dating? in receiving free stuff? in getting a traffic ticket? in getting frisked at the airport? Just because there isn’t a solve-all solution doesn’t mean an issue isn’t worth exploring and trying to understand.

Still don’t think it’s a real world issue? Listen to a few of Russell’s current statistics. In 2007 a student counted 677 models. Only 27 were non-white. “Of the 140,000 teenagers that were stopped and frisked [in New York], 86% of them were black and latino.” I know I’ve mainly been talking about the benefits given to attractive females, but there it is. This problem is so much bigger than most people are willing to acknowledge.

I want to leave you with another quote that I found particularly insightful and will be making a full post on later this week:

“There’s very little that we can do to transform how we look. And how we look, though it is superficial and immutable, has a huge impact on our lives.”

October 11, 2013

Society is the Problem, But We’re Society

People blame society and the media for all the self-esteem issues in the world. However, we as individuals make up society and control the media.

Society is a group of people who can be grouped together based on religious beliefs, culture, and geography, right? So if the American society needs to change, that really means that the 313.9 million individual Americans need to change. Ah, so that’s the problem. How do you convince 313.9 million individuals, who each have their own frame of reference, to not judge people based on looks, to greet everyone with enthusiasm and treat everyone with politeness no matter if they are old, young, big or small.

Can you imagine a society made up of individuals who were literally blind to beauty? I have a dream. . .

So, as a society, we individuals also control the media. How? By deciding what to spend our money on. When individuals buy magazines with size 0 models on the cover, they contribute to that magazine’s revenue. Add a couple hundred thousand more buyers and boom that magazine is doing good business. As soon as enough individuals stop buying celebrity gossip magazines, they will go out of business and disappear. Same for teen pregnancy shows, celebrity gossip sites, etc.

If a trashy television show has a lot of viewers, advertisers come running because they want their ad to run on a show that has the most viewers. Naturally, they want a lot of potential customers to see the ad that they paid someone to make. So, if you complain about these things, make sure you yourself aren’t contributing to their success.

I chuckle to myself when I hear everyone in the U.S. denying that they watch “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” because both shows are obviously doing well. Somebody is watching. And by somebody I mean millions (including me maybe). What?

Okay great, that’s depressing. What do we do about it? First, realize that you will never get 313.9 million sinners to forget about outward looks. We are naturally attracted to beauty. I mean hey, I’m writing this blog and I struggle with that. Second, know that the things you watch and read affect your mind. Your mind controls what you think and talk about. If you find that all of your conversations start with “Hey did you see what *insert celebrity name* did?” or if you find that all of your thoughts center around “I wish I had her *insert body part*” then you should clean out your media intake. No need to beat yourself up about it. Just make a simple clean out of your computer, television shows, movies, etc. Protect your mind like you protect your heart.

October 2, 2013

Do Attractive People Earn More Money?

Okay I won’t make you read the whole post to find out. Yes! Pretty people earn more than ugly people. Don’t believe me? Check out this short article “The Economics of Good Looks: The Line of Beauty.” In particular, I would like to focus on this revealing paragraph:

“Physically attractive women and men earn more than average-looking ones, and very plain people earn less. In the labour market as a whole (though not, for example, in astrophysics), looks have a bigger impact on earnings than education, though intelligence—mercifully enough— is valued more highly still.”

I had always known that pretty women get better treatment in everyday life, but I didn’t know that their privileges had extended into the work place. Is there nowhere that less attractive people can rule in peace? Oh, right. Astrophysics. Yay.

Let me further infuriate my fellow less attractive readers with the following excerpts:

1. “Homely NFL quarterbacks earn less than their more comely counterparts, despite identical yards passed and years in the league.”

2. “A Chinese study confirms that the husbands of unappealing women earn about 10% less than those of their dishier counterparts.”

3. “Attractive people also have an easier time getting a loan than plain folks, even as they are less likely to pay it back.”

4. Attractive people “receive milder prison sentences and higher damages in simulated legal proceedings.”

5. “In America more people say they have felt discriminated against for their appearance than because of their age, race or ethnicity.”

These facts seem silly and incredibly superficial, right? That’s what I was thinking as I read the article. I mean this is The Economist, right? Then why do I feel like I’m reading People magazine? We are so used to talking about salaries in a formal, business-like manner, attributing higher salaries to the intelligent and hard-working employees. But, then this article comes out, and it throws me off guard. We typically ignore this part of our society, sweep it under the rug, pretend it isn’t actually how things run, etc. We pretend that we are an unbiased society that is able to look past the exterior when judging others. But we aren’t.

The reality is this: we, as human beings, are hardwired to respond more positively to beauty than to comeliness. It’s rather embarrassing in some ways. We don’t want to be considered shallow, but we can’t change our brain’s software.

So, while these sobering facts about the fate of less attractive people are disturbing, we can’t necessarily point fingers at anyone. In fact, if you simply insist on pointing a finger at someone, point it at yourself because, at some point in your life, you have treated someone better simply because they were attractive. Don’t even try to deny this one.

For myself, I think about the fact that I favor the cuter toddlers in the nursery. This is something that I became aware of a few years ago. At first, I admit, I was appalled that my bias behavior extended to little kids. But, since then, I have worked on my shallow behavior, and can honestly say that I walk into nurseries with an unbiased mindset. Each child has a blank slate in my mind. If little Janie throws a temper tantrum, I make a mental note, and her slate gets a frowny face. But, if little Janie gives me a hug and says I’m her favorite, the frowny face gets replaced with a smiley face, and she gets some extra Cheerios. Oh come on, I kid. But seriously, I know I’m not the only one who struggles with a bias attitude toward the cuter kids.

So, if there’s no one to point a finger at, what do we do about this? Nothing. Maybe my soapbox is losing it’s power, but that’s the truth of the matter. There’s nothing you can do. Pretty people, enjoy the free bonus. Ugly people, it’s not fair, but suck it up and deal with it. Welcome to life: it’s not fair. I know this is a harsh place to leave on, but don’t be too mad at me because I have a post coming up from someone who goes out of his way to hire ugly people rather than pretty people. Sound intriguing? It is. Stay tuned.

September 23, 2013

The Hypocrisy of “Beauty and the Beast”

La Belle et la Bête is the classic fairytale turned Disney princess movie that boasts a lasting moral lesson on the importance of inner beauty over outer beauty. The Beast was once a handsome Prince until he refused to care for an old lady, who unfortunately turned out to be a fairy with the ability to turn him into a hideous beast. This curse of ugliness could only be lifted if he could find someone to love him in spite of his outer unfortunate visage. When the beast captures an old man, his beautiful and bookish daughter Belle comes along to rescue him. After some time, Belle chooses to love the beast in spite of his abundance of fur and set of horns. And they of course live happily ever after.

Now that that’s done, you will have to pardon me for looking past the surface of this innocent story to the real theme: outer beauty is more important than inner beauty. Let’s begin with this snippet from the opening prologue (note: I have printed the full prologue for your enjoyment, but I will just be focusing on the highlighted part):

“Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind. But then, one winter’s night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away, but she warned him not to be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within. And when he dismissed her again, the old woman’s ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress. The prince tried to apologize, but it was too late, for she had seen that there was no love in his heart, and as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast, and placed a powerful spell on the castle, and all who lived there. Ashamed of his monstrous form, the beast concealed himself inside his castle, with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his twenty-first year. If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time. As the years passed, he fell into despair, and lost all hope, for who could ever learn to love a beast?”

This last highlighted part dealing with the fairy’s ultimatum to the Beast states that he “must learn to love another.” This beast learned to “love” the first beautiful girl he saw. She is literally so beautiful that her name means “beauty” in French, yet we say that he has learned the importance of inner beauty. How does this follow logically? He simply fell in love with the thing that he had always loved: beauty. Nothing changed for him. If, instead, Belle had been an ugly old pig of the fairy tale witch type then I would admit that the beast had indeed made a full heart transformation. But, sadly, that is not the case.

Instead, Belle is the character who must look past outward appearances in order to fall in love with the Beast (though what she saw of inner beauty I cannot say). Belle is beautiful both inside and out, and she is the one who successfully loves the ugly and unwanted, not the other way around.

But before I step off my soapbox (is that someone throwing an orange peel at me?) I want to say that this small fracture in an otherwise beautiful tale reflects the way the world deals with beauty. We say that inner beauty is more important than outer beauty, but is that true? Or, like the popular theme of Beauty and the Beast, does it just seem that way? I’d like to use this blog to explore that question further.

For me, I would say yes, it’s just a nice saying to make people feel better. Think about it. What’s the first thing anyone asks when someone says they’re dating? “Is he/she cute?” “Can I see a picture on Facebook?” Then, once we see a picture of them, if that person is less attractive than the other half, we say “He/She could do better.” How do you know that? How do you know that this less-attractive person isn’t extremely smart, interesting, nice, and funny? Maybe this less-attractive person could do better. You cannot judge someone by their unchangeable outward appearance. And I’d like to use this blog to try to prove that to you.

Feel free to disagree with me in the comments.