The question is exactly what it seems like. Assume, for the sake of discussion, that the hypothetical hotties are of average intelligence and comes from a middle- or working-class background (and thus does not have the advantages of growing up rich and connected). Would you expect the hotties to have an easier time in life than the notties?
Poll in a moment. As always don’t let that stop you.
Unless they have some neurotic quirk. A ‘hypothetical hotties are of average intelligence and comes from a middle- or working-class background’ can still drink too much or drive to fast or have a fetish for taking pictures of persons who do not want to be photographed. I worked with a woman like that who had a sharp temper and did not get the positive attention for her work that she might otherwise have gotten. Such drawbacks notwithstanding, yes they do have some advantages.
My life hasn’t been that easy.
Everything else being equal, yes. But as good looks are often fleeting, dealing with that loss and perceived changes in how they’re treated by others could conceivably make things more difficult.
Kind of. There is a research study just released which says attractive people are more self-assured and less likely to be co-operative.
My observation is that, all other things being equal - average temperament, balanced personality - attractive people have doors open for them that the rest of us have to scrabble for. Still, the advantage is perhaps only 10% and life is unpredictable.
Yes and no. On one hand, it’s often easier for them to get things (whether they realize they’re good-looking or not; what matters here is that other people have a positive reaction and not whether they seek/expect it); on the other, if their beauty has been apparent from a young age they’re more likely to have attracted the kind of attention no child should be subjected to. And if they’re used to getting things because of their looks, once the looks go they stop having things just fall on their lap and can’t figure out how to get what they want because damnit, it used to just happen, waaaaaaah!
TLDR version: in general, they have it easier, but it also has specific drawbacks. And I don’t like pastries, can I have chocolate?
I think it is a double edged sword for the extremely beautiful. On the one hand you generally get cut more slack, get more attention, have a wider range of potential dates to choose from, etc. On the other hand you have fewer people taking you seriously, get more unwanted attention, don’t necessarily develop other skills you would have if you hadn’t been born beautiful, etc.
All things being equal, sure. But it’s not like their aren’t drawbacks. Relevant Cracked Article
In general, I think attractive to very attractive women have it easier in life. I generally pride myself in not treating people differently based on that, but in the past, I’ve found myself going just a little more out of the way. That said, I have met a few women who were so far beyond extraordinary in their beauty that they have sort of the opposite problem. That is, they always seem to either be so full of themselves that no one can stand being around them or most people see them as so far out of their league, even if they’re only interested in a social connection and not a romantic one, that they don’t even try to approach them except for the few envious, vindictive women or self-aggrandizing, jerk guys that treat them like crap and they end up with virtually zero self-worth.
Of course, in my life I’ve met maybe 2 or 3 women who were truly THAT breathtakingly beautiful, so I see that more as an outlier, and most of the other beautiful women seemed to have the world bending over backwards for them.
For men, I think it’s at best a wash and can often be a hinderance. I just don’t really see anywhere near the level of people going out of their way, probably generally because neither sex is as affected by attractive men. And, admittedly I’m a straight guy so it may seem sort of skewed, but I also don’t think that there’s as much potential for men to really set themselves apart the way women can. It seems to me that, even if you normalize the averages (though I do think that generally an average woman is more aesthetically pleasing than the average man), that there’s greater overall variance with women’s beauty relative to men, so you’re just not likely to see as varied behavior for men.
I still think there’s some stigma attached to men and appearance though, that men who are generally considered really handsome might be perceived as unmanly or effeminate, and thus actually have the opposite effect. As such, I voted for stonier for men, but it may have been more accurate to say neither.
I was going to write a paragraph or two but then I read Nava’s post and realized that this sentence summed it up perfectly.
My son is extraordinarily good-looking IMO. Some of the problems of less attractive people (yes, I’m talking about my own school years) don’t even appear on his radar. For example, if he wore an odd combination of clothes one day, and he does frequently, I doubt anyone would make fun of him. More likely he would start a trend.
The attractive don’t necessarily have an easier time in life. They just have a very different experience with people from those of us who are not so comely. I’m not sure I could deal with all the attention.
Really? People think of Matt Damon, Ed Norton, Tom Brady, Denzel Washington, or Michael Jordan as unmanly and effeminate?
I can’t be bothered to look this up so take it with a grain of salt, but I’m positive I’ve read popular accounts of studies where more handsome men were found more likely to be offered jobs than equally qualified uglier men.
To hear my wife tell it, there are two different sorts of male attractiveness.
There’s “pretty”, which are usually, but not always under about 30, and there’s a more rugged, masculine handsomeness that doesn’t really fade with age.
I’d think that pretty boy actors might have a harder row to hoe than more conventionally masculine looking men, but I don’t see how a handsome guy who’s also masculine would have things harder.
As for beautiful women, yeah, I think they have it easier. Being friends with a woman who, in her prime about 10 years ago, had the figure of Jessica Rabbit and was really pretty and stylish to boot, I’ve seen how people just treated her differently than the rest of us.
I mean, I got free drinks when I was out with her and our common friends. Not because I’m that devilishly handsome, but because we were with her. We got into nightclubs because we were with her. The list goes on and on.
I can’t believe that in job interviews, that the guys doing the interviewing didn’t factor her looks into things, and I can’t believe that it wasn’t a factor everywhere else as well.
The really sad thing was that one of her friends was(is!) a stunning woman in her own right, and she was constantly eclipsed by the first girl I’m talking about, and got far less male attention than she really should have.
:: pauses to don on flame retardent suit ::
If I am choosing between two candidates for a field sales job with my company, and they are equally qualified otherwise, I am more likely to offer the job to the more handsome man.
Bolding mine; I think that part is a wishful-thinking myth. My judgment is that, other things being equal, an attractive person is taken more seriously–it’s easier for them to get attention for their ideas in the first place, and people are more inclined to want to agree with or please them.
The other stuff is true, but not much of a counterweight to all the advantages.
I was speaking mostly from my personal experiences rather than using celebrities as celebrities will tend to be more beautiful in general. That said, though there are certainly more attractive men in Hollywood than in the general public, it also seems to me that you’re more likely to see unattractive men with legitimate acting talent than unattractive women. Similarly, I’m always seeing gorgeous women in movies who can’t act their way out of a paper bag, but I can only think of a few good looking guys in movies that aren’t at least passable actors.
Athletes are give or take too, sure you have a Brady who does well and is generally considered good looking, but you get plenty of average or even downright ugly guys who also perform at the same level. And, certainly, compared to a lot of other quarterbacks, I would say the Brady is relatively effeminate, though my view might be skewed because I would stab him in the neck repeatedly with a rusty spoon if I ever met him.
From my own experience, I find that women tend to find guys who are slender, softer features, clean-shaven, pay extra attention to their hair, and wear fashionable clothes, all that kind of stuff, to be considered more attractive, with the more muscled men, or ones with facial hair, or generally more rugged aren’t considered as attractive anymore. The former would be, by many men I know, considered to be more effeminate and more likely to receive some social stigma for it relative to a man’s man. OTOH, it does seem like most men will show some preference to the latter type, so I suppose there is some benefit to that, but then it seems like you’re more likely to lose out on the women.
Either way, it seems to me like there’s still more general ambiguity about what makes a guy more or less attractive where generally I don’t see that kind of ambiguity with very attractive women.
It has not been my experience that attractive women find it easier to be taken seriously in the business world. I know both from observation and anecdote that my baby sister, in particular, has a much more difficult time as an engineer because she is hot, busty, and looks a decade younger than she is.
This. I have no doubt in my mind that attractive people will have doors opened for them that less attractive people won’t. It really only has to happen once or twice in a person’s life to put you way over the top in terms of success, without ever having to put in the extra time or effort.
I knew a woman like this. She was a friend of my friend’s wife.
She was so stunning that you could literally see people’s startled reaction when she walked into a room—She was very down-to-Earth, not full of herself at all, yet she was often treated poorly by random people she would meet in her daily life because they ASSUMED that she had to be a stuck-up bitch. A group of us would walk into a bar or restaurant and you could actually hear conversations momentarily stop when people got an initial glance at her. Seriously.
Apparently she went months at a time without being asked out because she was so intimidating, and my friend told me that she had mentioned to him how she thought I seemed like a really nice guy, and he told me I should ask her out, but even with that assurance, I couldn’t work up the courage to do it.
She is now married to a nice, very ordinary looking guy, a guy who obviously had more self-confidence than I do…
(I have kicked myself for not taking a chance, many, many times over the years)