I would swap with her in an instant

Most entry level jobs now will include a requirement of the skills mentioned by the PP, typing is a big part of many jobs nowadays, even manual trades need to do risk assessments, reports etc. Most places have a phone. The aforementioned assessments and reports have to be kept somewhere.

And the model comment I believe was in response to how many women are actually considered "beautiful" enough to meet that criteria.

I used to actually think this way in my 20s. I had quite a traumatic upbringing and clearly had a multitude of issues which years of counselling has helped me understand.

I used to be so jealous of Marilyn Monroe's beauty. Why would someone so beautiful take their life?

Because it means absolutely jack that's why! It is actually so liberating and wonderful to be a little bit invisible. I currently have the most horrific health problems. My quality of life is so poor. I've lost almost everything including the ability to care for my own child now. So I am alone all day in severe pain, unable to move properly and out of treatment options.

Do I now see how ridiculous this way of thinking I had when young really was. Yes. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes an obscene amount of severe suffering to appreciate what really matters.

Love how you’ve so neatly unpacked the jobs you think a ‘pretty’ woman might be good for (menial) and that the pinnacle of them all is ‘model’. Guessing the shadowy ‘boss’ isn’t one of them, or even female at all? 😂

I know someone a bit like this. She’s intelligent, but completely lacking in common sense and brings chaos everywhere she goes, which everyone puts up with because that’s how she is and of course she’s very beautiful. She’s had some amazing jobs that she blags her way through doing the bare minimum. I’ve tolerated her because it rarely causes me a huge inconvenience, I’m pretty laid back and she’s an in-law so not really up to me, but there have been a string of events recently where I just can’t get over my annoyance so I’m finally drawing a line in the sand. She’ll probably barely notice (despite the fact I’ve actually made excuses and stood up for her many times to my DH), but I think beauty only gets you so far, eventually people are annoyed/disappointed enough to have had enough (+ age catches up with all of us eventually!)

Yes, and if you buy into those superficial values, aging is much more stressful. For a woman who has traded on her looks all her life and mostly ignored character development, I'm sure it's quite devastating. Hence the popularity of cosmetic surgery, Botox, etcetera.

Someone told me a long time ago that more tears run down a pretty face than a plain one. I can vouch for that as I was young, pretty, naive and got exploited by men up to the hilt. I would love to have had what you have - get a bit of therapy!

I worked with someone that all the guys swooned at. She was tall and attractive but I didn’t get why even the married guys were paying her too much attention. She had a charming accent. She had help handed to her. She needed to be hand-held but keeps moving up. Married young to a guy with an amazing job. It all looks good on paper. Everyone seems to fall all over themselves. But when I was her line manager I noticed that she wore lots of bracelets to cover a lot of scars on her wrists. I knew she frequently vomited after eating. i also know her family put insane pressure on her.
You never know what goes on behind closed doors. I’m sure it feels like the girl you met has it easy. Have you ever met someone that was beautiful and didn’t age so gracefully or was disfigured? You never know what you’re wishing for OP.

True. Otoh, if you are average looking you probably still get harassed, just not as much as pretty or ugly women. None of us escape male aggression unfortunately.

That's wild! You would rather not have control over your life just to look 'pretty' 🤔 why don't you try to improve you, lots of beauty treatments, that you could afford out there. What is it that you don't like about yourself?

Yeh, under 30 you have the looks you were born with, over 30 you can make use of all kind of support.
Best start with the answer to the question, “Why does it bother you so much?” The kind of men who make these judgments are generally very boring. At best.

As someone on the “other side” of this, I find some of the comments on here really unfair. I have always been pretty, not beautiful, stunning or drop dead gorgeous but I have been told I have “pretty privilege”. It’s infuriating to be seen as only getting a decent job, promotions and praise because of my looks. I have been the centre of office gossip for having affairs with my male managers because they see how good I am at my job, driven and hard working I am, yet my counterparts who don’t take as much care with their appearance and receive the same promotions and praise, are never the subject of these rumours/gossip. I am bloody clever!

I think the way to look at it is that if you're average looking or on the conventionally slightly unattractive side you know that everything you have achieved is 100% down to your own ability and hard work and you can be proud of that. I always thought that I didn't want to swap places with those friends who clearly got career advantages (bestowed on them by men) because of their above average looks. I personally would hate that. I never felt ugly though - just not stunning - maybe that's the difference. Note to all of us to do our bit wherever we are to try and question this bias because it doesn't do anyone any favours and maybe we can start changing these superficial attitudes.

That's wild! You would rather not have control over your life just to look 'pretty' 🤔 why don't you try to improve you, lots of beauty treatments, that you could afford out there. What is it that you don't like about yourself?

I'm afraid ugly women get harassed too - only it takes the form of being called 'ugly' in the street by complete strangers, having howling/barking dog noises made at you; being used as banter by men to their mates - 'that one's yours" etc.

I've never, obviously, been on the other side but although neither is ideal, I think I would prefer a man stopping me in the street to tell me I was beautiful, than to tell me how ugly I am.

I almost think people are desperate to convince themselves that beauty always fades in order to feel better that they themselves are not beautiful.

For some women even if it fades slightly, they will still be beautiful in comparison to their peers of the same age or even women a decade or so younger. And some remain beautiful right into their sixties and seventies. I saw a woman like that on Instagram the other day. A grandmother with an absolutely incredible fine boned facial structure. The wrinkles detracted very little and you could see immediately she must have been incredibly beautiful as a youth. Her mid aged daughter was pretty but not so dazzling (as an aside have you noticed the impartiality of nature? Often the children of great beauties aren't particularly stunning in comparison. But two averagely looking people can have beautiful children so the next generation might win in the pretty genes stakes).

Some people are beautiful. They're lucky and they didn't earn it. Such is life. Some of us have all our working parts physically and some are born without some of them. Do we tell ourselves that our lives are perfectly peachy just because we have the fortune to be born physically more or less sound? Or do we acknowledge that we may have a physical advantage but it is tempered by other factors in life?

What the OP is wrongly concluding is that this metric defines above all else a person's life success and emotional wellbeing based on such fluffy and inconsequential rubrics as men paying more attention to her pretty 'friend'

And if it's not fishy, if all of this happened repeatedly in such a short space of time it would suggest that unwanted attention and intimidating behaviour from men is relentless in this woman's life. Even when she's so distressed that she's crying to a stranger in public.

Doesn't sound much like a blessing, to be honest. Constantly being objectified to that extent isn't flattering, it's exhausting.

The 'bizarre and backward' arguments you refer to are people merely pointing out that no one has life entirely as they want it, and if our society values superficial looks over all else we don't have to buy into the BS. We can focus on something that actually matters. In the shallow, vapid values of our shallow, vapid culture, beauty only equates with youth in any case. And youth isn't a matter of privilege. We all get the same share of it.

If you're fretting and envious over others' perceived beauty (remember this is mostly in the eye of the beholder), be comforted by the fact that when we hit late middle-age our looks are going to fade. At this point, at least, superficially we are equal.

We grow older if we are lucky. Old age is, indeed, very much a privilege; one not everybody is fortunate enough to experience.

And nothing will convince me that when a group of men in a van shout 'show us your tits' to a woman or grab the arse her arse in a bar it's because she has an exceptionally beautiful face.

Quite. I can't even count how many times this kind of thing has happened to me and I am plain as the day is long.

You met her for the first time today, and in that short span of time you managed to witness her being served first at the bar (more than once to prove it wasn't a fluke), men crossing the street to be nearer to her (somehow you knew their intentions), men holding doors open for her (when people actually hold doors open for one another all the time)?

Sorry OP, smells a bit fishy to me...

It's quite telling that you're only responding to a poster who has decided that when someone says "I had a lot of attention and I prefer not getting it" that what they really mean is "it's much better to be ugly".

Think it through, please.

Wow. You hold a lot of anger and feelings about a 6 week relationship that clearly happened over 25 years ago (unless your 24 year old daughter’s mother is this woman).

It is time to let it go mate.

I think those women are very very rare though @@SallyWD, a tiny minority of women are so beautiful it defines their entire existence. And even then, you don't often hear of the most beautiful high profile women in the world complaining of this in particular. I also find it difficult to believe that there are so many women on this thread that fall into this rare category of 'so beautiful its caused me to be harassed'. For one thing, how can they know what it would have looked like if they looked different but everything else was equal? Would creepy postman have overlooked your friend if she'd been only pretty rather than beautiful? Who knows.
And nothing will convince me that when a group of men in a van shout 'show us your tits' to a woman or grab the arse her arse in a bar it's because she has an exceptionally beautiful face.

I agree to an extent - much harassment is due to disdain and a sense of power or control. Women of all levels of attractiveness experience it.
However, I do believe that beautiful women have to endure a lot more of this shit than average women, like me.
I've known two truly beautiful women in my life and spent a lot of time with them. The level of attention they got just going to the supermarket blew my mind.
For example - on one 15 minute walk from home to the supermarket with my beautiful friend, I saw two men beeping their horns, one man in the street tell her she was beautiful, one man make a huge display of moving aside so she could pass (there was no need, the pavement was plenty wide enough!) saying "I only step aside for pretty women". When this friend was 16 and living at home the postman became obsessed with her, asking her mum if he could date her. When she moved out and lived alone in a flat, a man who lived in the street kept harassing her, repeatedly asking her out, waiting outside her home after work etc. In the workplace she was constantly being hit on by married men.
So yes, you can say many women experience these things but it was the sheer scale of what my friend endured that was shocking and unusual. I'm reasonably attractive (but nothing special) and have experienced unwanted male attention but this night be several instances a year, not several instances every time I pop to the shop.
It was very similar with my other beautiful friend. Way beyond what I'd ever experienced.

The idea that harassment and abuse is linked to attractiveness is a myth and a dangerous one at that. It's far too close to "it's a compliment! What do you expect when you're so gorgeous?" for my liking. It's not about appreciation of some women, it's about distain for all women

I agree, which is why it's so odd that OP seems to want that kind of attention and seems to view it as some kind of validation. It's really not.

The idea that harassment and abuse is linked to attractiveness is a myth and a dangerous one at that. It's far too close to "it's a compliment! What do you expect when you're so gorgeous?" for my liking. It's not about appreciation of some women, it's about distain for all women.

Exactly.