Pretty Privilege, a term I hear more and more by the day. It has recently started circulating the internet to describe how easily individuals have it solely because of their appearance. It is commonly used when talking about women in particular and is a disgusting disguise for misogyny. The term serves as a way to undermine and depreciate the value of women in all fields but is especially disrespectful when used in the professional world. 

As a sixteen-year-old girl taking advanced classes in school, this problem has already made itself apparent. One scenario was in a math group full of boys; The teacher was passing back our tests, and when handed mine, I looked down at a nearly perfect score. After discussing our grades, we realized I had the best grade, so I was proud of myself. On the other hand, one of the boys did not share my excitement. To rephrase what was said more politely, I only got a good grade because of how I looked and for “mingling” with the male teacher. The truth is that I earned that grade by studying, and the joke was a funny way to deny the fact that a girl was more intelligent than him. School is where these prejudices blossom, but only one of the thousands where they exist.

According to Pew Research Center, “About four-in-ten working women (42%) in the United States say they have faced discrimination on the job because of their gender.”(work cited), proving women do not receive the same respect in professional roles as men. In the New York Times article “Picture a Leader. Is She a Woman?” Tina Kiefer, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, described her study of how people perceive leaders. The subjects were asked to draw what they viewed as a leader, and most of the drawings were men, and when talking about the drawings, they primarily used “he” over “she.”(work cited) Both are prime examples of the societal problem; women suffer from superficial bias’. If I asked my mom, a very astute and robust woman, if she felt she was rewarded her job because of her beauty, not only would she be immensely offended but revolted as well. She has been working her way up her company for over twenty years and has put in boundless amounts of hard work, only for people to possibly think she found guileful ways of getting promotions.

If our community targeted the issue’s root and started promoting ideas of women in power at younger ages, we would see less animosity towards deserving women. It would also become a normality, hopefully even expected, to see powerful women with powerful jobs.