It's a lesson we've been learning since we were old enough to observe the world around us and notice that there was a difference between people who are considered attractive and people who do not fit the conventional definition of what society deems to be outwardly beautiful. Most likely everyone has heard it at least once, from a teacher, a parent, someone who they saw as a mentor, etc, that it's what's on the inside that matters more than what's on the outside. And of course, this is true. Looks inevitably fade over time, though I'm sure there are some exceptions. In the end all of us are just bags of bone and flesh on the inside anyway. Not only that, but being attractive means different things to different people based on their cultural differences or personal preferences, though there are some traits of attractiveness that seem to be agreed upon across cultural and geographic barriers.
But I've always wondered, despite this being objectively true for the most part, are people truly treated the same or are they ever discriminated against based on their looks? Not even necessarily in the dating sense, but just in general with how they are treated by others?
Studies show that this might indeed be the case. The more attractive a person is, the more likely they are to be viewed as social, intelligent, and healthy. Not only that, but people are likely to be paid up to 12 percent more based on how they are viewed in the looks department. It seems to be the ugly truth of humanity that looks matter more to people than we'd like to let in. There are a good amount of people who attest to feeling ignored at best, and bullied/mocked at worst for being less than attractive by other people's standards. Such as being talked about behind their back, or provoked simply for existing.
This crosses over into politics as well, in which candidates who were more attractive received 2.5 times as many votes.
And of course there are the stereotypes against attractive people as well, the idea that they're not as intelligent, or are vain/cruel. There are plenty of times where negative assumptions are also unfairly made about their character.
People may not even be aware that they are subconsciously treating others differently based on their looks. But I've always believed, perhaps naively, that we as a society can do better. A subconscious bias may not entirely be an easy thing to get rid of, but part of solving a problem is being aware of it, which is why I personally make an effort not to treat people differently in my day-to-day life based on whether or not I think they're hot/pretty/good looking.
By no means am I perfect myself. I break out sometimes, I have pretty bad skin, and there are lots of days when my hair simply chooses not to behave. But I've learned a long time ago that even though this kind of stuff bothered me when I was younger, when I would compare myself to other people, or that it matters to other people, it doesn't matter to me. It just means I'm human like everyone else and it's more important to see the good than the bad, with looks and everything else. How a person behaves, what their hobbies and ideals are, what they desire in life, those things can tell you a lot more about a person than whether or not their face is symmetrical.
