Pretty Privilege vs. Pretty Punishment

There is a popular conversation around pretty privilege…the idea that attractive people are given advantages, kindness, and opportunities simply because of how they look. It’s a conversation I’ve had with friends, including one dear friend who experiences this privilege openly and comfortably. She’s treated gently. People assume good intent. Doors open easily for her.

For a long time, she assumed I shared the same experience.

I don’t.

What’s discussed far less is pretty punishment…the backlash, sabotage, cruelty, and resentment directed at women who are perceived as attractive, especially when they do not fit society’s preferred mold. And even less discussed is how this punishment intensifies when beauty intersects with race, skin tone, and gender.

This is not an article about vanity.

It’s about consequence.

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The Lie of First Impressions

Years ago, I interviewed at a small lending and financial company. I arrived stressed but hopeful, eager to learn, eager to contribute, and ready to work. The interview went well. The bosses were warm, engaging, and enthusiastic about the company’s culture.

During the interview, one of the bosses pointed out a young woman who worked there…another woman of color, close to my complexion and spoke glowingly about her. They praised her work ethic, spoke proudly of her accomplishments, and highlighted how valued she was.

I remember thinking ‘This could be a good place. A place where I won’t have to fight so hard to be respected or paid fairly.’

As I was leaving, I stood by the door and extended my hand to introduce myself to her properly. She looked me up and down with open hostility, gave me the nastiest look, slammed the door in my face, and walked away.

The bosses laughed.

“Oh, she’s just jealous.”

In that moment, I realized the first impression I had of that company was a lie.

Moving forward, that woman was consistently childish, dismissive, and hostile; especially toward other women. It became clear that her behavior shifted depending on whether she believed she was “better looking” than the person in front of her. She never tired of her own behavior but often complained nothing good happened to her; but not once took accountability for actions perhaps being the seeds to her own downfall.

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When Beauty Becomes a Target on Set

Another experience came while working as an extra on a small production set. There was supposed to be an explosion scene, and several of us were positioned nearby.

When it was my turn for makeup, an actress rushed to the makeup artist ahead of me. I watched her speak urgently and point directly at me.

When I sat down next, my face was covered…intentionally; with thick black charcoal makeup.

Picture that for a moment!

A woman of color, covered in black, as if my face needed to be erased. Yes pause to reimagine me in the above photo with that; and literally being the only one covered that way.

The director had no idea what had happened and was visibly upset. I heard the same actress say, dismissively, “She still looks cute.”

I washed my face.

I walked off set.

There are moments where the punishment isn’t subtle; it’s cheap attempts of humiliation, deliberate, and meant to remind you that you are not allowed to exist comfortably in your own skin. Do I value what people think of me? No, but I also don’t deserve to be treated that way and I am confident enough to be aware and speak up or walk out.

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“Why Does She Deserve Help?”

One of the most damaging myths attached to perceived beauty is that help is unearned.

I have needed help in my life like real help, like anyone navigating adulthood, hardship, and survival. But the response I’ve often encountered isn’t compassion. It’s resentment.

“Why does she deserve help?”

“She’s pretty…she gets everything handed to her.”

“She’s never worked hard.”

The irony is that I am often the hardest-working person in the room.

As a woman of color, I don’t have the luxury of mediocrity. I don’t have room to fail. I have to work harder just to be considered equal to a mediocre white man. I’ve had to be sharper, faster, more competent, more disciplined because anything less becomes justification for dismissal.

And still, people have gone out of their way to make my life harder simply because of how they perceive me.

Not because I harmed them.

Not because I provoked them.

But because they decided I needed to be taken down a notch.

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A Coat, a Kindness, and the Backlash

There was a moment, small but revealing that stays with me.

I was visiting a sick family member in the hospital with my grandmother. It was winter, bitter cold. I wanted tea; my grandmother wanted coffee. The café was closed, and a Dunkin’ Donuts was across the street. I left my coat upstairs, thinking I’d run quickly.

A much older security guard stopped me.

He asked where I was going.

I explained.

He looked at me the way elders look at young people for making bad decisions and said, “Take my coat.”

I tried to refuse. He insisted. I agreed.

I ran across the street, got the drinks, returned his coat, and thanked him.

When I got back upstairs, my grandmother was relieved but a cousin I had never met before made a passive-aggressive comment “Oh, I wish I could get men to do stuff for me.” Excuse me?

That kindness, instead of being received as a human moment, was reframed as manipulation. As entitlement. As something I supposedly used instead of something freely given.

That is how pretty punishment works that even generosity toward you becomes evidence against you.

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Relationships and the Need to Be “Humbled”

This punishment follows into romantic spaces too.

I’ve had boyfriends go out of their way to remind me that I’m not that attractive, that I’m replaceable, that I should be grateful they’re even interested; as if I hadn’t chosen them too.

As if I was desperate. Of course, I laughed in their faces hard enough to hurt their egos; but I digress. It was as if they needed to knock me down before I realized my own worth.

That behavior doesn’t come from love.

It comes from insecurity. But someone else’s insecurity is not my homework; it’s theirs.

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When Softness Is Reserved for Someone Else

A friend and I once discussed a man we both knew. He was gentle with her. Soft-spoken. Always careful, attentive, putting his best foot forward.

With me, he was different.

He tried to be “cool.” What he thought was smooth. He never softened. Never relaxed. Never allowed vulnerability.

Eventually, he approached me. I gave him a chance not because I was convinced but because my friend genuinely believed his interest leaned toward me. She thought my presence made him nervous; which is something I can understand.

But nervousness didn’t soften his approach.

It hardened it.

The connection was barely connecting and coldly brief. It wasn’t what I require in a relationship. And that, too, was telling.

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Friends Who Couldn’t Stand the Mirror

Pretty punishment doesn’t only come from strangers.

It comes from friends, co-workers, family and of course enemies.

In middle school, I was part of a trio. One girl, in particular, made passive-aggressive comments constantly. She resented another girl in the group for being well-developed; and resented me for being small, skinny, and, eventually, for being the first to get a boyfriend.

She believed that shouldn’t have happened.

I spoke back. I set boundaries. She never processed it.

Years later, in my twenties, the first thing she said to me was “You’re still f&#$ing skinny.” with such heartbreaking disbelief and jealousy coloring her spoken words. She had gained weight; not unhealthy, not unattractive but she hated that I hadn’t. She stopped speaking to me that day. However she does watch my instagram and I honestly think it’s just to check to see if I gained any weight.

Even now, decades later, the third girl in that group refuses to speak to me for the same reason; the other friend in the group was smarter and cooler anyway and we still chat to this day.

However, with the chronic complainer I was embraced by their families, their grandparents, their homes. And yet, all of that ended over my body.

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Sabotage, Stereotypes, and Survival

There have been times when my belongings were damaged or destroyed. Times when relationships were sabotaged. Times when I later learned it was because someone believed I “thought I was pretty.”

I’ve heard

“You’re pretty for a Black girl.”

“You think you’re better than people.”

“She’s jealous.”

“She’s aggressive.”

I am none of those things.

I don’t gossip.

I don’t tear people down.

I don’t go out of my way to disrupt anyone’s life.

I protect my peace. I set boundaries. I move forward.

But because I am a woman and because I am a woman of color; my neutrality is read as hostility. My silence is read as arrogance. My boundaries are read as aggression.

And when you are perceived as both pretty and non-white, society often decides you must be punished and severely reminded of your place.

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The Difference Between Privilege and Punishment

My friend and I speak openly about pretty privilege. She has never mistreated me. She’s kind, self-aware, and fair. But she assumed (she’s so sweet and I love her for that) reasonably…that I was treated the same way she was. I am treated that way now with my current boyfriend but that’s it.

I wasn’t.

She gets moments of punishment.

I get patterns.

The difference between us isn’t character.

It isn’t effort.

It isn’t kindness.

And sometimes it’s skin tone.

And when media, systemic racism, patriarchy, and white supremacy collide, darker-skinned women are often cast as aggressive, unworthy, or undeserving of softness; especially if we are also perceived as attractive.

So the message becomes “If she’s pretty, she must be punished.”

I have not also forgotten to add in the entitlement that men will feel to stare and encroach in my personal space because they feel entitled to do so and that there’s nothing I can do about it.

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Closing: Beauty Is Not a Crime

I have become prideful not because I think I’m better than anyone; but because I worked hard in a world that worked just as hard to break me.

What I look like has nothing to do with anyone else’s worth.

My life is not an insult to someone else’s insecurity.

My existence is not a provocation.

Pretty privilege exists.

But so does pretty punishment.

And for women like me, it has always been the louder conversation.