Despite having a 3.85 GPA and three majors, I received several rejection letters last week from various grad schools. As I watched my academic career flounder, however, I found that physically I have potential.
I went to meet a potential employer about a part-time job, and whatever my personality or professionalism might have been, I’m fairly sure I was hired because I’m pretty. The job was listed as “sales model,” after all.
As I’ve worked pretty damn hard my entire college career, I found being hired to this extremely lucrative part-time job pretty ironic. The gold standard for a woman’s integrity is to earn money or have a fabulous career or whatever based solely on her intelligence, hard work and determination. Except that’s not working out so well for me, so what kind of person does it make me if I instead use my looks to earn cash, or anything else for that matter?
While the advantage of good looks is really no different than men being stronger or having connections, it is somehow looked down upon more. Consider a friend of mine in the fraternity Tau Alpha Upsilon who recently used the alumni connections in his society to gain an investment banking job for which he otherwise would have been passed over. Some might call this strategy morally dubious, others might just call it smart. Using physical appearance or sexuality is equatable. Not everybody has connections, and not everybody has beauty, but if these are the characteristics that best help you to succeed in life, then who is anybody else to say you should not use them?
Our conservative society places scrutiny and suspicion on women who attempt to use their physical attributes to accomplish something. I argue that sexuality is to women what money and power is to men: simply something many have. If men can use their money and power to influence and control (and this is absolutely the norm, for the naive out there), why is there such a stigma attached to women using the assets men seem to value most?
The answer must be lodged in the staunchly conservative outlook of a patriarchal society. This sexism has flourished to the point that even in our Civil Rights-age society, men and women still are not treated the same in terms of salary, job advancement or simple respect.
Of course women have always had it in for other women as well. You know, the ones that argue women who use their natural attributes for advancement are really setting women back by promoting objectification. Although they undoubtedly will call themselves feminists, the women who have accepted the inherent value of their physical form are the truly liberal. Using the very concepts that keep women “in their place” to instead level the playing field is not adherent to the requirement of a male oriented society; it’s beating them at their own game.
All things considered, it is a relief to have something to fall back on, job or not. Should women be proud of achieving something with their looks instead of their brains? Maybe not, but certainly smug.