Is life harder for unattractive people?

[CherryPicking]

I know life can be hard for lots of reasons, and that discrimination can take many forms more serious than this, but putting all other factors aside just for now, is day to day life that little bit harder for less attractive people? For example, are people less likely to be accepting of someone behaving assertively, either at work or elsewhere, if the person in question isn't easy on the eye? (I'm not much to look at myself if that makes any difference). What about things like job interviews or social situations, meeting new people?

*Seth that's very sad. When I was a teenager my mother told me I had chronic pain because 'God doesn't give with both hands! Aka I'm beau - I mean attractive so therefore I cannot also be healthy. Nice, aye? Very, very religious.

Im sorry but thats crap. I used to be very overweight at a size 28 and im not anymore (im now a 14) and the hassle and abuse i got in the street was from men not women. Post weight loss i get criticism from a very overweight woman i was at college with.

She asks me if im going to have a tummy tuck. I dont think i need one and i cant afford it anyway.

The criticism from women came AFTER i lost weight.

It was MRAs who set up fat shaming week on twitter a few years back.

And every tweet was about a woman and her weight. Their "campaign" wasnt aimed at men.

My DH is very very attractive. He has got every job he was ever interviewed for. He has a very successful sales based business. People really like him; he will meet someone casually and immeadiately they will want to be his mate. I suspect a lot of it is a kind of virtuous circle; he grew up being treated well by everyone and as a result he is a lovely, kind guy.

Me, I'm okay I guess facially. I am also disabled. Most guys wouldn't ever be interested. When we got together in our twenties, DH was like a Greek god. Beautiful women threw themselves at him constantly. I think he just got to the stage where how women looked was irrelevant to him; there was no kind of challenge in snagging a pretty one. We were friends before we got together: he pursued me, I simply thought he was out of my league so I was very natural with him.

He's in his fifties now, still gorgeous and very fit. Still totally impervious to flirting women.

Sorry Helena, I worded myself badly. I was talking about that sort of passive aggressive stuff 'friends' do when they're young (or older... I'm in my late twenties and still a lot of women doing this)
I suppose you're talking on a population level and I was talking individual.

Oh, what a shock. MRA's setting up hate for women's bodies Did you see the F4J thread on here? A sex offender was marching with them! One of the leaders has a criminal record for abuse. Yet men don't stand up and call them out on it.

SpecialAgent that is awful.

I think the only thing F4J do well at is discrediting themselves.

TBH when I hear F4J my first thought is - Men who don't have contact for a damn good reason Turns out I'm right.

And if you are genuinely a good man whose ex is using the children as pawns, why wouldn't you at the very least stop marching with them? I honestly don't get it.

Being a tall handsome man/ beautiful woman boosts your chances in life and I believe statistics say tall good looking men and women tend to earn more and be more successful.

Men do chat about about their insecurities but in a more self deprecating humorous way rather than in a please pity me kind of way. The reason for that is because other men would just be straight forward and say something like "yes your fat stop feeling sorry for yourself and hit the gym complaining about being big isn't going to help is it?"

I'm okay looking a bit better than average I would say but I have a great smile and a pretty good body but that's achievable for anyone so I am nothing special. I have my flaws but I grew to accept them and they bother me less everyday.

I did find myself wondering the other day if ageing and putting on a bit of weight comes easier to people who were never considered really attractive or pretty. Feel bad saying that but, yes I was wondering.

It is really quite a come down to have had that golden world of mico-kindnesses as someone put it and the effects so well described by garlic and then to have to come to terms with being average or heading towards invisibility.

I was never what I would call beautiful but was above average attractive. It was also all natural with me and effortless as I was never really into make up or making a big fuss about clothes. I was what I was and as it went that was considered attractive by others though I was slow to grasp that (actually I think for many of us we only really realise we were attractive and the effect that had when the peak of it has passed and we're feeling the contrast).

It makes ageing and having recently gained some weight pretty hard - I actually don't know how to 'make the most of yourself' or adopt a style or blah blah blah. I was always just natural and got away with it and now at 40 and a couple of stone too heavy and my skin looking dull and different 'natural' is a bit naff.

I know losing the weight will make a big difference but actually I kind of resent that I want and so feel the need to lose it when I see many women of my age being comfortable and ok with middle aged spread and happy in their skin in a way I seem incapable of being. I do wonder if you never experience how much kinder and easier and sunnier the world can be you don't feel the loss of it or have already come to terms with something.

Don't know and hope I won't get slated for this post.

You're probably right HoneyBadger. I'd imagine losing ones looks could be very difficult for people who've looks have defined them or their career. You only need to look at ageing Hollywood stars who've eagerly embraced plastic surgery in an attempt to halt time. This goes for men as well as women, Burt Reynolds and Faye Dunaway were the first to come to mind. Bad facelifts.

I don't think they have to have 'defined' you to feel it - how we look is a part of who we are, how we are treated, who is attracted to us, how we experience ourselves mirrored back at us by others. it's definitely a part of our identity whether consciously or not. to have all of that change suddenly in a way outside of our control is.... something. a definite 'point' in the life cycle that demands an adjustment.

I was also thinking it's maybe easier for people who've always been a bit glam and into the trimmings like make up because they just continue with that and adjust the style maybe whereas for those who were always very natural and praised for that all those trimmings that could help are alien.

I guess I'm just gonna have to learn to make more of an effort unless I cease to care - how do you go about learning this stuff at this stage in life? I'm rather cack handed with make up and it was only ever mascara and eyeliner and a bit of concealor even i did go for make up occasionally.

I also need to crack on with losing the weight as it makes such a difference to how I look and how I feel about myself.

I HATE that I care about this stuff but i do.

Yes but I still think ageing must be harder for people who've made a career out of their looks. Look at Madonna. Would she be filling her face full of ridiculous fillers if she wasn't an A List superstar who was feeling pressure to stay young? Possibly, but probably not.

"I did find myself wondering the other day if ageing and putting on a bit of weight comes easier to people who were never considered really attractive or pretty."

No. HTH.

I can also laugh hollowly that guys loved that I wasn't vain and i thought i had no vanity too. I didn't NEED to be vain when actually i rolled out of bed looking fine or could stay up all night partying and still look good in my 20's. It was nothing to be proud of that i didn't spend my life paranoid about my looks because i was lucky enough not to need to be.

Now i'm falling apart at the seams funnily enough i feel a little bit of vanity

Thanks sandy. Feeling pretty ashamed of myself.

I think with all the paranoia and body dysmorphia and other issues attractiveness 'privilege' is very easy to overlook and not realise you are benefiting from it. I look back at photos of myself as a youngster when i know i didn't feel pretty or slim enough or whatever and think bloody hell! Why didn't i enjoy that more when i had it.

Ugly people feel that too

I look back on pictures when I was less ugly with the edge taken off by youth

(I am one of those scientifically ugly, with prettiness proven to be largely down to symmetry, my face/head is quite wonky, but I could pull of "interesting looking" before I was wonky AND old)

It's totally instinctive to want to say of course you're not ugly and don't talk so negatively about yourself even though i don't know you. We're all way too focussed on this stuff.

I'd like to second the feeling that ageing isn't easier just because I was never a beauty.

I still had more future than past. I had ne'er a health concern. The very average men my age weren't miraculously dating women a decade younger than them. I had a healthy, youthful face. Youth still gives one full lips and cheeks and so on.

ps, I think ''good men'' should disassociate themselves from f4j and pursue their individual case. Any of the men I know of who've got involved with that crew were bitter controlling types.

I HATE that I care about this stuff but I do. ... Now I'm falling apart at the seams funnily enough I feel a little bit of vanity

I hear you! It's a fair guess that most women and some men feel the same way, wherever they fall on the 'beauty' spectrum.

I was a heck of a lot vainer/more insecure than you in my under-appreciated youth - and just got more anxious about taking care of my appearance as my thirties rolled towards 40. While I could easily afford it, I was spending £150 a month on skincare alone: probably about £300 in today's money. For the infinitesimal difference Clarin's could make, it really wasn't worth it.

Becoming sick, poor & old in rapid succession forced a rethink. I had to get a new attitude. Since then, I've been working on realistic values and radical acceptance - which shouldn't need to be radical at all! I hope & believe that most other women start off more self-accepting than I was, so have less of a challenging transition to make as their youth wears away. But it's still challenging. I've got to say social media support and undermine in equal measures: for every slug of shame, there's a woman urging you not to click on the sidebar :)

I agree these are massively tricky issues. Feminism doesn't ignore them as such, but perhaps we need to talk about them more inclusively.

honeybadger I know this is risks a derail and I am likely to be flamed for going all "Cosmo"...
But If you want to have more of a short term fix than losing weight, some things that immediately work are: sweating out of your face in cardiovascular exercise - it really brightens up skin and gives a healthy glow (downside - glow only lasts 2 or 3 days). Getting your eyebrows threaded has an immediate impact and you don't have to learn how to do it if someone else does it for you. Going to a top notch hairdressers who does a really good consultation with you to find out what you like the look of and how much effort you can be bothered with to maintain your hair to decide what would suit you. With clothes/style you can google images something like "big women with style" or "stylish older women" or whatever is relative to you, then save all the images you like best to get a feel for what you like and want. then choose your basic wardrobe and buy it for the size you are now. And be sure to buy yourself some nice quality 'I fucking deserve this' jewellery that suits your skin/eye colour.... and you are away...
Right - I am just going to duck for cover for the total pasting I am about to receive for saying this......

no pasting from me thanks for taking the time.

i do have my eyebrows threaded, though not as regularly as i should. i have also started treating myself to nice pieces of jewellery. hair definitely could do with some help though as i've just had a year or so of living in the sun and sea and it shows (not in a good way).

maybe i need to head over to style and beauty for save me from my baglady look advice

i will lose weight - i've started making changes and i've not been carrying it that long so i can do it. aside from that though yes i need to work out what my look is now and how to make the most of it even though i hate sounding like something out of a woman's magazine when i've despised and decried them as evil self loathing promoters all of my life.

Thanks honeybadger - but remember to buy clothes for the size you are now - there is nothing flattering about looking apologetic for straining your seams... and if they get baggy because you lose the weight it is still a win because you are meeting your goals :D
Enjoy the fabulous new you

Honey don't ask S&B! Not unless you want to be given a strict choice of smart, fitted dresses with a 'nice cardigan' or £600 leather leggings with £400 floppy silk shirts Tent's advice comes down to "figure out what suits you", which has to be far better if less prescriptive.

I'd love to hate Helen Mirren, only I can't. Being smouldering hot, rich and interesting at 70 may be slightly beyond the reach of most women ... she's the old version of every beauty icon that was thrown at us in our younger years, damn her. (I don't blame her, I blame the media who've found they can continue doing this to us into our dotage.)