Pretty people earn more

“In the world of women’s work, how one looks is as important, if not more important, than what one does: The existential anxiety of identity creation is also economic and social anxiety, because the penalties for nonconformity are so high. Feminine mystique becomes identity itself. The woman who does not possess it, the ugly woman, the overweight woman, the older woman, the woman of color who will not straighten her hair or bleach her skin, is assumed, in a very real sense, to be invisible. She is overlooked on the street, at parties, on dating websites, at job interviews. She is dogged by a feeling of unreality; she does not exist, and if she dares to ‘be herself,’ she is stunned to find that, since her social legitimacy is contingent on artifice, that self is not a legitimate social construct.” — Laurie Penny, “Model Behavior”

2 thoughts on “Pretty people earn more”

  1. This is the reason beautiful women mangle their faces with plastic surgery as they get older. They begin to disappear and think, If only I could go back to what I used to be, then I would matter again, then I would be part of things. They are afraid of the evolution.

  2. Witness Joan Rivers. Still funny since she doesn’t try to hide from what she did. And witness Michael Jackson. Cursed with being a white woman in a black man’s body.

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