Are looks really that threatening?

[Halloweenmaz]

I am very prepared to be flamed. I remember a thread a year or two ago where a lady said she felt she got dirty looks from other women as she was pretty. Well this is kind of the same.

I feel like us women as very much in contest with each other and instead of supporting and building each other up we will make snide comments, stab each other in the back and tear each other down.

IME women who i have been friends with and considered my best friends have stabbed me in the back. Bullying me, leaving me out, going after my exes, talking behind my back. Maybe i am too nice, maybe they feel threatened by me. I dont know why because well my life is far from perfect.

This is not a stealth boast but i have been told im a pretty woman, but i lack confidence, self esteem and have bad anxiety. Women assume i should be outgoing and judge me, therefore i get called stuck up. Are women really that threatened by looks? Because obviously there is more to a person than just the outside.

AIBU to feel sad that this has happened to me and i feel my "friends" are not truly there for me?

Yes I've seen it happen many times. Sone women are so bitchy, they dislike beautiful women. Think you just have to accept it and try to make friends with beautiful people like you, who wont get jealous.

This happened to my grandmother! She is attractive and slim, and has been widowed 15 years.

One of her friends said to her that the reason she didn't want to see her as much was because her husband might get interested 🤦‍♀️

I think we have it drilled into us from a young age that looks are so important and that makes many women feel threatened.

I hope this is changing with the next generation.

If I’m being totally honest, I’ve been friends with lovely, normal, and also very beautiful women and none of them have seemed to have this problem. The few I’ve met who have done the whole “oh women don’t like me because they’re jealous of how pretty I am” thing have, in fact, had terrible personalities.

In my workplace it’s fairly visceral. If a woman is young, combined with slim and attractive, the are resented by, and awfully treated by, senior/middle aged female colleagues.

Should they get on well with male employees and dare to progress, aspersions are cast.

And should they dare to have children and seek flexibility upon return, it’s vengeance time.

And it’s not isolated, it’s an observable pattern. Honestly, the only people I see keeping women down in the modern workplace are other women. I’ve come to the view that these behaviours must be in some way or to a degree hard wired.

I think it comes down to attitude. I have lots of pretty friends (and I guess I'm pretty too though it feels a bit pathetic saying it) but one in particular absolutely knows it, and she's had bitchiness from others outside our group, whereas the others don't love themselves so don't bother other women. I freely give them compliments to boost them, but less so to my other friend as she really doesn't need it as much as I love her 😂

Unfortunately you can't talk about this openly without people wanting to rip you to shreds, we're supposed to pretend this doesn't happen, so get your hard hat on.

^^
Agreed. God forbid you a. Admit to being attractive and B. Mention that other women treat you negatively because of it. You'll just be shouted down on here.

In my workplace it’s fairly visceral. If a woman is young, combined with slim and attractive, the are resented by, and awfully treated by, senior/middle aged female colleagues.

^

This. You're basically utterly fucked. Which says a lot for female camaraderie. There are not women who choose to be friends with beautiful women.

• There are not many women, that's supposed to say

I think a lot of women judge other women for pandering to sexist beauty standards by having boob jobs and lip injections. It's really not very strange if you think about it. I don't think naturally beautiful women have this problem.

I never had nasty looks or been betrayed by any friends. Admittedly, I don't have very intense, confiding friendships but I've never seen evidence that many women are really competitive with one another.

It’s not so much threatening as jealousy. Nobody likes people who are significantly better looking than them, unless they’re the opposite sex and they want to shag them.

“ It’s not so much threatening as jealousy. Nobody likes people who are significantly better looking than them, ”

I can honestly say that men don’t really think that way about other men. Beyond “lucky bastard” they train of thought pretty much ends.

Is that you Samantha Brick

There’s always one on thsee sorts of threads. 😴

FWIW, I don’t think OP is talking so much about jealousy as assumptions being made about someone. I’ve definitely had people assume I’m stuck up, an ice queen etc when in actual fact I’m very shy and underconfident.

When you are significantly more conventionally attractive than average, you have to be twice as nice, accomodating, friendly and self deprecating than other women. Or you will find it hard to make and keeo friends.
This is my experience as well. If you dare to be a bit quiet and reserved or on the contrary, too self-confident and happy in your skin when you first get to know another woman, 90% of the time you will be branded a bitch. Most people automatically assume beautiful women will be stuck up and look down on other women, there aren't that many exceptions. The exceptions are always kind people though, so yes, you do need to surround yourself with nicer people.

@StreetwiseHercules

Do you work same place as me?

I wouldn't say I'm a horrible person. I'm normally the person who listens to other people's issues and tries to be there. However I usually get stabbed in the back of whatever, obviously see my kindness as a weakness. I've had "friends" go after my exes straight after we have split. I've had "friends" flirt with current bfs in front of my face. I've told "friends" I'm talking to someone and then they went and after the guy themselves. I definetly don't love myself. As I've said I'm shy and can be socially awkward.

I came on to say I thought Vinnie Jones looks threatening and then I realised I was on a "Aren't women bitches" thread.

OP I was also bullied at school by girls who I thought were my friends, but they turned on me. The “leader” stole 2 ex boyfriends, started copying me in terms of my fashion choices, copied all my GCSE choices despite previously hating languages (I chose both French and Spanish - was then very surprised & dismayed to see her in both my classes) and even pretended she had the same middle name as me?! That one was weird. But I got a lot of “stuck up bitch” “she thinks she’s better than us” etc. I did find a much nicer group of girls to finish Y10&11 with, but even now I’m wary of large groups of women. I prefer to spend time with my female friends 1 to 1.

@nabel yes I was picked on too. I remember sitting in one particular class that was all girls and they had gone into the other room to sit and talk about me because one of the other girls had got with my then boyfriend and he had just split up from me. Joining In that conversation was my "best friend" who I saw as family. Worse thing ever.
I also joined a much nicer group of girls and felt more accepted as they weren't all about the new fashion or new beauty stuff or how you looked.

This is most definitely a thing and something that I have experienced from the age of 18 onwards. However I think that very often it is much to do with a certain personality mixed with good looks. If you are good looking but have a quieter personality then people assume you're stuck up or they're suspicious of you.

Over the years I've had comments from people who had previously been very standoffish/rude to me like "oh you look like a bitch but you're actually really nice", or people warning others not to speak to me because I'm "a stuck up bitch who loves herself". I lived next door to a woman who would rush out to stop her husband from ever speaking to me. I only ever had brief polite conversation with him but she would always watch us from the window and then come out and ask what we were talking about whilst draping herself over her dh (funnily enough she had no qualms about talking to my dh for anything up to an hour at a time). She isn't the first woman to not want me to speak to their dh and I have overheard one woman's mother warning her daughter to watch out for me around her son-in-law because she can tell what kind of woman I am. In various workplaces I have been blocked from certain work friendship groups when some of the men have shown an interest in me (this was in a place which was made up mainly of twenty-somethings). I've repeatedly been told that I look like an airhead or Essex girl, and then people seem shocked when I say something mildly intelligent. I've had people joking about me only being interested in make up, clothes and hair styles and patronising me when they speak to me as if I'm too stupid to understand anything beyond that. I've been called a "stupid girl" (at age 32) by my old boss. 3 different girlfriends of men I've worked with in 3 different workplaces have all taken an instant dislike to me with one of them being very rude to my face at a work function. The other two both told their partners they didn't trust me (even though I was with my long term partner now husband).

The examples I have given are just the tip of the iceberg and it used to really upset me that people could be so harsh and judge me based on looks only, however, I don't care anymore. It says more about them than me. I have been lucky with friendships and never had any friend turn on me. I would also say that the people who have judged me are far fewer than the number of people who behave in a normal way with me. For the record, I'm not some stunning supermodel or major glamour puss. I'm more girl-next-door.

I've had "friends" go after my exes straight after we have split. I've had "friends" flirt with current bfs in front of my face. I've told "friends" I'm talking to someone and then they went and after the guy themselves.

But what does this have to do with the way you look? This sadly happens to women up and down the country of all different levels of attractiveness. I'm very plain, spent a lifetime of being the ugly friend and the pretty friends always getting the attention (from men AND women) yet I still had two prettier friends, on two separate occasions, get into a relationship with a guy I was dating who left me for them.

I think women are judged on their looks regardless, and women do shitty things to other women regardless. YABU to think it's just because you think you are pretty.

I don't think it is your looks necessarily. You used the example of 'megan Barton hanson' but she didn't come across as very nice in Love Island, though all the fellas fancied her at the beginning, her problem is far from what she looks like. I thought on first glance Tommy Fury was very handsome but Jesus after 2 episodes he was bottom of the pack for me, he was so dull. Looks are one thing, but you have to take into account the 'essence' of a person.

You say you lack confidence, self esteem and that is probably unbeknownst to you, putting a negative energy forward which then makes people wary of you. If your appearance doesn't match your confidence then people are at odds with how they feel, or uncomfortable with how to take you. Not necessarily that they don't like you, they just don't know where to place you and so write you off as not nice. You should own those looks OP and work on your self esteem. Too much of life can be wasted on self-doubt. You are as good, as deserving and as important as anyone else.

I'm glad it's not just me. I was expecting to be flamed more. May be because I am shy and socially awkward I'm giving a "vibe" because it doesn't match looks as a PP has said. However I still feel it's so unfair to be judged in this way.
This might sound stupid but I sometimes feel looks can be a curse.

@Halloweenmaz

My looks can be a curse.

My heart bleeds for ya Sam.

Go give your lovely French hubz a hug. Maybe that'll cheer you up.

@thisneverendingsummer aren't you a nice person trying to make someone else's feelings invalid.
I hope you're never been bullied or felt like I have.

However I still feel it's so unfair to be judged in this way.
This might sound stupid but I sometimes feel looks can be a curse.

Being judged on your looks is not exclusive to pretty people though. A lot of what you have said is not necessarily to do with being pretty (see my PP - what does being pretty have to do with 'friends' going out with your ex boyfriends?), but you are making it about your pretty looks which is not coming across very well. It makes it sound like you think everyone is jealous of you