The myth about pretty people

I am starting to feel that May is a rather long month! Although I have been caught up with so many of my other passions yet time does not seem to fly by and hence I feel obligated to write another piece on this space because I’m trying to avoid too many dry spells here!

I did not have the slightest clue as to what I should write about. “What do I feel strongly for?” I asked myself and the answers were many “women’s rights, gender discrimination, corruption, jugad, female foeticide, the ironies of life, consensual sex, the Third gender, education, freedom of speech, practising any religion etc. etc.” however I chose this topic today to talk about because I wanted to share how I feel when most of my peers and colleagues have this notion in their mind that pretty people have it all perfectly in place just because of the way they look.

Right from the very start, from the time my memory empowers me, I remember to have been blessed (or should I say otherwise) to be perceived as beautiful.

Now before I can embark upon my premises leading to the conclusion, I want to clear out that this piece is not directed at drowning pretty people in self-pity. As for me, I do not have any qualms about the way I look or am treated but this is just a humble effort to break the myths that associate beautiful people. I will enlist the myths as follows:

v  Beauty is power redefined:

  Well I do not think so. Opinions may differ. But belonging to a society where everything rests upon your looks and people judge you based on your external appearances can only spell disaster especially for females. Your worth is weighed by the complexion of your skin, length and texture of your hair, presence of dimples and other ridiculous things. No woman, beautiful or otherwise can win in this subject. This cripples intellect. Sometimes you do get the perks of having a pretty face but not always.

v  Beautiful people have it easy: 

 In this age of cut-throat competition, how can any sane person think that being pretty will get you everything easily. I remember most of my friends claiming “Oh don’t you worry you will get a job, one look at your face and the interviewer will hire you” well NEWSFLASH!!!! The very perception is demeaning!

v  Pretty people are so popular: 

  For those of you who do not know, popularity comes at a cost. Beauty often has to survive the backlash of haters. My bet is that almost everybody harvests a secret hate for any popular person in the nearest vicinity. While it may seem that popularity breeds friendships but mostly it breeds jealousy and contempt. Now who would want to be on the receiving end of those? Sometimes in reality beautiful people are the loneliest of all. Think about that if you can.

v  Beauty puts you constantly under the microscope: 

  Thusly you cannot pick your nose or have a bad hair day or sneeze in public or put on a few Kgs. Simply put you cannot be yourself in any way for fear of being caught and then interrogated and embarrassed about it. What the hell I say!

v  Pretty people have it rough too:

   A friend of mine said “I used to be one of those kids whom nobody would pick on their team because they thought I was ugly”, I said, “Well that makes two of us” to which she contorted her face and blurted “but you are so beautiful!” exasperated I say “simply because I am not athletic and I always made my team lose. I was a liability”. My point in sharing this is to show how this stupid myth about beauty blocks people’s common perspectives.

v  Beauty is equal to dumb:

  This is the worst of all. People judging the content of your intellect by the colour of your skin. Does that make sense at all? We often dismiss the opinions of beautiful people on the basis that he/she must spend all their time in self-grooming, what would they know about the world economy, politics or history!?!

v  Beauty begets love or at least a good marriage:

 Oh really? I feel ridiculous when mothers say “Thank god my girl is beautiful otherwise I would have paid through the nose (dowry) to get her a good “well-matched” boy!” wtf! Seriously? <Also taking beauty and fairness cream ads into the context> I know lots of beautiful women and even you can think of tons of famous personalities who went through messy divorces and break-ups. Those facts alone are enough to break this myth that beauty gets you love or marriage.

I would not delve more into the realms of the stereotyping that beautiful people suffer from. Taylor Swift’s beautiful composition “The lucky one” perfectly sums up the consequences of beauty. Somehow and sadly if I may, it reminds me of Marilyn Monroe in more ways than one. "Everybody loves pretty... everybody loves cool!!"

These misconceptions about beauty have put barriers between people. They need to be pulled down, for us to really connect.

"Sometimes people are beautiful

Not in looks

Not in what they say.

Just in what they are" - Markus Zusak

LOVE :)

To no more judging. Cheers!

ADITI