[W]hen you are a woman, and you want to get ahead, it really helps if you are pretty. Ever since feminism reared its Hydra head, feminists have been making being pretty complicated. Nowadays, you can read a million different articles, blog posts, and chunks of advice about what to do about your looks at work. Play it down. Don’t be too sexy. Or they say it doesn’t matter what you look like. Or they say attractive people do better, but don’t be too attractive. Or don’t play that card, or play that card but don’t play the sexy card. It goes on and on until young women don’t know what to do anymore.I think it is almost remarkably courageous for Susannah Breslin to dare to point out the completely obvious. I mean, does anyone seriously believe that the pretty 23 year-old woman discussing the significance of the spike in Italian bonds on Fox or CNN or CNBC actually knows the first thing about the words coming out of her mouth?
When I started out as a journalist, I was younger, and I was attractive. Attractive enough that it made a difference in meetings, that it gave me a kind of confidence that fueled my drive, that it got me on TV over 100 times. That’s the way it is.
If you’re a twentysomething woman who is looking for a job, it really helps if you’re attractive. If you’re not, or you pretend it doesn’t matter what you look like, or you attempt to hide the fact that you’re pretty in some weird way out of feminist-induced anxiety over your sexuality, it’s going to make things that much harder for you. This is just a fact.
And would they put newswomen out to pasture at the age of 40 if intelligence or experience had anything to do with working in the media?
11 comments:
That'd be akin to NPR hiring girls who don't have a reasonably stoned-out pseudointellectual sexy voice.
Erin Burnett ftw
...and for a hilarious bit of misplaced analysis of young women in the workplace, thank you Forbes!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2011/11/11/why-millennial-women-are-burning-out-at-work-by-30/
God bless 'em for preferring the pretty ones, too. Does us all a favor, sans when she is so attractive that I have forgotten the quasi-important information she was supposed to be conveying to me.
I don't seriously believe any of the political pundits they call on to comment have any idea either.
I wish they would reintroduce this concept for stewardesses.
Then again, there is a way to mostly avoid having to endure graying, overweight matriarchs who apparently believe their job entitles them to scowl and tell you what you can and cannot do before hiding and gossiping with the other hags in the galley instead of actually serving you and trying to make a 10+ hour overseas flight semi-bearable instead of an ordeal.
Fly non-US carriers.
FOX News without blondes. Couldn't imagine it anymore than PLAYBOY without the centerfold.
Probably depends on who's doing the hiring, doesn't it? Man or pretty woman: dress up and look lovely. Ugly girl or dried up old feminist: dress down and wipe off the lipstick. But I don't know much about this stuff. I'm just a housewife.
Pretty women are the awesome.
@GAHCindy
"Just a housewife?"
That's like saying "What do I know... I'm just in charge of perpetuating the species and keeping the barbarians from completely overwhelming the ship of state."
Hopefully, you meant it with sarcasm. But either way, I think you're awesome for doing the very best and most important thing a gal can do.
Vidad, thanks for showing appreciation for an undervalued job. This post actually proves that fact, that women are valued more for being pretty than for that most amazing and important of jobs, being a housewife. So pay attention women, be pretty!!! And better yet, be pretty housewives!!!!
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