one reason among many of why i don’t think i want children, especially daughters… i wouldn’t want my children to go through the crippling pressures of being beautiful because, let’s face it, looks are a huge deal and children (or even adults) who feel less attractive can become traumatized by those feelings.

it’s difficult enough getting by but being less attractive makes it significantly harder. the world ignores and despises the less beautiful, and there’s really little hope beyond that, regardless of what people try to say to make the world seem like a fairer place. in the exhibitionist social media muddle full of narcissistic, prettied up people, the standards for beauty soar and the pressure mounts. if you’re not pretty enough people will judge you to be less valuable than the prettier person. love interests will feel more inclined to choose you if you were better-looking. people will be nicer and more accommodating, because they find it easier to be cruel to women who are less attractive.

even as i’m typing this i feel some cognitive dissonance. surely beauty can’t be the end-all if normal people idolize each other. 

beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but there are universal standards for beauty that people share, regardless of how disconnected they may be from each other, and these universal standards are important because evolution trumps quirkiness in taste, because biology is concrete. not to say that personality and brains don’t matter at all, but studies show that people perceive beautiful people to have better personalities and brains anyway, regardless of whether or not they do. so the reality goes…