I would swap with her in an instant

[Cookiecrumblane]

I am a sort of clever woman, financially secure, good at what I do. I have lots of friends and family around me, despite being single.
Today I met a woman through a friend, ten years younger than me. She was upset at losing her job last month, she had tried but made a serious of errors and was eventually sacked.
Even as she cried, she looked beautiful. She told me about her various problems, not being able to pay rent, her debt, her self esteem.
And I thought how much I would love to be that pretty. She was distraught, but even with all that was going on, she was served first and efficiently in the bar. Men held doors and beamed at her. They crossed the street to walk closer to her.
I have never had that. And so what good is education, my job, my success. Because ultimately she'll end up ok. She is more likely to get a job and when she does people will praise what she does much more than they praise people who look like me.
Is that mad? That I would swap with her in an instant, even to be jobless and at risk of losing my flat, just to feel visible?
I'm sure men don't feel this way.

Why don't you ask them if they meant they are ugly?

Attractive and unattractive are on a spectrum. Beautiful is on one end and ugly is on the other. Some people are pretty, but not beautiful. That doesn't make them "less beautiful" because they are not beautiful at all. The same applies to ugliness. Most people are not ugly at all, they are merely average in looks.
It's like calling a very short person "less tall" or a very tall person "less short". The short person isn't tall at all and the tall person isn't short at all. A person in between those extremes would be average height.

@XChrome Why don't you ask them if they meant they are ugly?

Why don't you get a dictionary and look up the word "obtuse"?

My point was that people who are attractive or beautiful are immensely priveleged over those of us who are unattractive. Some people in this thread tried to put together some very bizarre and backwards arguments to try to argue that being attractive is not a good thing. However, the data and statistics show that this is not the case, and that people who are attractive have more career success, are more likely to have friends, and more likely to have relationships than other people.

That's it. Being obtuse or presenting "whatabout" arguments about BAME people doesn't change any of that.

I didn't read past your first childish line.
Done with you.

Both of those examples you've given are people saying that now they aren't getting attention, they like it better. They are sharing their lived experiences not saying that it's better to be ugly.

Which contradicts your blanket statements.

And what statistics? Please show evidence. I know that personally, I wouldn't be happier if I wasn't being taken seriously at work, because that's an important part of my life/who I am. And I have seen it in action that the "beautiful women" are treated like airheads in all industries I've worked in.

Share your sources please.

That's one woman in her early twenties and you've decided all pretty girls who like to wear make up aren't worth your time?

Ok.

You're assuming you speak for the average man and that you are the authority in what constitutes a pretty girl.

OP, how did you pick up on the fact that 'men crossed the road to be near her'? It's astonishing if they did really, and so obviously so for that reason. How could you be certain?
I consider myself pretty observant person but if I walked down a busy street I would struggle to draw a mental line between a man crossing the road with a pretty woman on the other side.
Who honestly does such thing? Happy if you want to call me out on this or call me 'naive'.

Both of those examples you've given are people saying that now they aren't getting attention, they like it better. They are sharing their lived experiences not saying that it's better to be ugly

Exactly this and many examples given on this thread were not merely polite respectful compliments from polite men- they were being harassed and assaulted- groped, bum pinched, cat called, leered at, followed, stared at etc. Which for a woman is incredibly intimidating and scary. They never said they wanted to be "ugly" they said they enjoyed feeling "invisible" because the harassment stopped. They wanted not to feel like a piece of meat.

If people are really interpreting "I dont want to be harassed any more and I am glad its stopped now as people leave me alone" as "I want to be physically ugly, its the best!" then I really dont know what to say 🙄

Those awful examples of male behaviour don't happen because a woman is beautiful. They happen because the men concerned are mysogynists. Women of all levels of attractiveness experience this type of thing, dependent on the places they have to go and the type of men in those places, and sheer bad luck of encountering them. Any aspect of a woman's appearance makes her fair game for the wrong man's attentions, overweight, ugly, large or small breasts, all can bring this sort of offensive attention. Its far too simplistic to say the groping and cat calling stops because 'I'm old and invisible'. As getting older brings other changes that effect this too. Less likelihood of getting groped if you go less to clubs and bars. Less likely to be cat called on the street when you're less reliant on walking and public transport to get from A to B. Less likely to be seen as a safe easy target if you look like an older woman who might report you rather than an intimidated teen.
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.

Oh I totally agree!- all the men's fault entirely. I'm merely pointing out that noone on this thread actually said they want to be "ugly" or that ugly is something to aspire to as a way of gaslighting those who are feeling that way is all or minimising other people's feelings which is something that was said upthread.

It's not about wanting to be "ugly" it's about wanting the harassment to stop. Referring to this comment here: People trying to flip that around to argue that actually, it's better to be ugly, are completely disconnected from the real world

Noone has said that being "ugly" is better and as you stated, anyone can be harassed!

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.

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.

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.

@swayingpalmtree thank you! That's what I'm trying to say. No one likes to be harassed but no one wants to be ugly. And in the particular predicament of online dating or trying to meet someone, unfortunately attractiveness is important! It's all very well saying 'oh it's terrible, so glad I'm invisible now' when you have a long term partner who you met when you were young and beautiful!

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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 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.

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'

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.

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 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.