I was going to write about something else today, but this bugged me too much to actually be able to write about anything else. I ran across a NPR article yesterday entitled Pretty Girls Make (Higher) Grades. It's one of those "hey, there's a new study out there with an interesting premise that says something people will want to talk about, so let's write an article about it" kind of articles. And I enjoy those. Usually. But this time, I clicked on the clickbait and opened myself up to a world of hurt.
Read the article for yourself, or don't. It says what you think it says, with a little bit more scientific caveating than the headline could deliver alone. I don't really want to talk about the article. What I want to talk about is my response to the article which, to be totally honest, was, "What do you mean, I didn't earn my grades?"
I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the dazzling certainty I had about my looks in that moment. I want to talk about imposter syndrome and how that thought fed into my worries that maybe I'm not so smart after all. I want to talk about how I shared the article on facebook with the silly silent little girl hope that people would see it and tell me that I'm both pretty and smart and not to worry about any stupid old studies, anyway. I want to talk about my disappointment in myself after I realized what I'd done. I want to talk about cultural and empirical measures of beauty. I want to talk about what's real and what's measurable and how much those two circles overlap on a Venn diagram of existence, or significance. I want to talk about how I didn't need to hear this news right now. I want to talk about whether all knowledge is useful and helpful in every situation. I want to talk about weakness. And strength.
But I don't know how to have that conversation. A friend of mine read the article and we ended up talking about selfies and getting likes on facebook and the real and hurtful discrepancy between pretty girls and everyone else. And that's a fine conversation to have, but it's not the one I want. I can't put my finger on it, exactly. I want to talk about the damage the idea of beauty does to our bodies, but I want to know where my body stands in that battle. I don't want to stand on either side in arrogance or faux humility. But it's such a slippery idea, how pretty you are, and even people who are paid for their prettiness look unexpectedly unattractive from time to time. And as much as I want to, studies like the one in that article make it impossible for me to completely dismiss the idea of beauty as a useless construct. It has a use. Just not one that I'm comfortable with or completely understand.
I worry that what I want is to be told that I'm pretty and then, out of the power given to me by my looks, dismiss the idea that prettiness makes a difference. That's a different want than I'd have if I knew I was plain and shrugged off the idea of prettiness making a difference. That shrug is a shield against the daggers aiming for my self-worth, but it's one you have to carry- prettiness can never be completely disregarded if you have to shield against it. Still, though, I don't know if those are the conversations I truly want to have. One word from one person would make all of that moot and I'm not in love with the idea of fighting for or against a concept that can be wiped away with a smile from the right source.
I think the conversation I want to have, the one we need to have, is how to fix the system. How do we talk about physical appearance frankly? Do we need to? How pragmatic should we be about beauty and its effects? How do you have that conversation without sentences that are less helpful than you'd think, like, "Yeah, some people are going to judge you based on your looks, but those people are jerks"? Those people are complex humans as well, who may not even know how they're judging those around them based on appearance, and even if they're aware and are making a genuinely douchey choice, how should we understand their actions and try to correct them? How do we avoid talking about positive personality traits like they're some kind of consolation prize? Is there a way to retrain our brains to put the lion's share of the merit we give to other people on their actions and abilities and not on their looks? Can we make that happen without sounding like a 90's after-school special?
There are two doors. One goes to somewhere you desperately want to be and one leads to a slow, painful, but certain death. There's a guard in front of each of the doors. One always lies and one always tells the truth. You're allowed one question to one guard to help you figure out which door you should pick. What question do you ask?
Imagine that society are the guards and self-worth is the place you want to be and I think you have a picture of how this problem feels to me. Now, I can science the crap out of the original riddle- not only are their behavioral postures you can look for in liars, but given the right tools and an actual, physical road leading to a location, you could do geological surveys of the area and make a map without ever having to ask either of the two guards any questions. You could make a third door and make a path connecting to the other two paths and send a robot or a drone to investigate each one. You could get a helicopter and fly out of that situation to the place that you want to be. Also, what if you have a friend? Do you then get two questions and use one to figure out who's lying and the other to figure out which way to go? These kind of things are always better with friends.
What I'm saying, I guess, is that I'm not great at riddles and I don't like problems that are framed like them. I don't want to play the beauty game and, to be real about it, I'm a little confused as to why we have to in the first place. But it seems that we have to and dammit, if I have to play a game, I want to play the best game around.
I just need to know what that is.
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