‘True Beauty Is Inside’ Only Applies to Men

“As a woman, I’d like you to tell me why women are so shallow and like a guy only if he is handsome. There are more to us than looks, you know.”

“Meh. She is too fat. Sorry, but I am only attracted to healthy girls.”

I was as confused as you were when I heard these two statements from the same guy. I have this annoying neighbour whom I initially befriended because he happened to go to the same university as me. The more I hung out with him, the more I realized that this guy lacked any form of self-awareness whatsoever despite majoring in psychology.

He frequently seeks my dating advice, asking me how to approach women in the gym so they will go on a date with him, and constantly complaining about how unbalanced dating apps are against men. I tell him the problem is less with the apps than with how unpalatable men are in general. He (derogatorily) called me a radical feminist.

After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, there was an increase in interest in the 4B movement in the West. This feminist movement, originating from South Korea, dictates that women should avoid dating, befriending, conversing, having sex with, or supporting men in any form. Upon Donald Trump’s victory for a second term, this movement went viral again on social media.

While men may claim that this unfairly affects men who are not malicious towards women, they fail to understand that the risk is too significant for women compared to the benefits. In our eyes, the generalization is a necessary safety mechanism, much like how we say “ticks carry Lyme disease,” even though technically speaking, not all ticks carry Lyme disease. It is simply safer for us that way, and the benefits of this safety mechanism are much more significant than the downsides.

Indeed, my neighbour is merely one of the majority of men who are uncritical of their privileged biases. Woltin et al. (2011) found that when people are primed to imagine themselves in positions of power, they are less likely to be empathetic than when they are primed to imagine themselves in a low-power position. The study found that after recalling instances of participants being in a low-power position, they exhibited more willingness to look at things from another person’s perspective.

This study alone explains men’s broad inability and unwillingness to view women as equal humans deserving of respect. My neighbour, like many men, unconsciously does not view women as equal to men. He values men through their competency and personality, whereas he primarily rates women based on their physical attractiveness.

While I do not have an issue with people who want their prospective partner to be physically attractive, I do find it interesting that men often expect women to go through tremendous efforts to beautify themselves, such as through dieting and makeup. In contrast, they do not take care of themselves well. My neighbour brags about not caring about clothes, always pointing out that I am shallow for liking clothes from designer brands, whereas he only wears cheap clothes. However, I notice that all the women he swipes right on dating apps wear nice clothes. He swipes left on the female equivalent of him.

He also judges me whenever I wear fake lashes or too much makeup. He says I look like I’m trying too hard. What is interesting, though, is that all the women he swipes right on visibly wear makeup (I can tell; he probably can’t) in the “no makeup makeup look.” It bugs me that men expect women to have unrealistically baby-doll skin while judging us for putting effort into beauty. Makeup is not okay, but “no makeup” makeup is expected.

Again, having physical preferences insofar as you execute the same standards for yourself is okay. You cannot expect your girlfriend to be a supermodel while you are overweight. You cannot expect her to wear “no makeup” makeup every day while if you don’t care a rat’s ass for skin care. You cannot expect her to have influencer-worthy Instagram pictures while you wear clothes off K-mart.

Many men fall in love at first sight with beautiful women but don’t even take care of basic hygiene and expect us to fall in love with their wet-sock “personality”. Oh, please. We are tired of this hypocrisy.

4B all the way.

. . .

References

Woltin, K. A., Corneille, O., Yzerbyt, V. Y., & Förster, J. (2011). Narrowing down to open up for other people’s concerns: Empathic concern can be enhanced by inducing detailed processing. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(2), 418–424.

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This post was previously published on Celine Hosea’s blog.

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