Women Have Always Paid the High Cost of Being Attractive and It’s Not Fair

You’d think that having a magazine-worthy body, perfect teeth, and all the right features would make life fantastic for women. But the reality is that it isn’t always true.

Yes, there is such a thing as the curse of beauty.

Many attractive women would prefer to slip into a box of invisibility because they would feel safer there.

No. They don’t ask to be unattractive; they only say the attention they receive comes at a high cost.

It affects how they move about in the world, how they feel about themselves, and how people view and subsequently judge them.

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Attractive women are likely to get raped more.

It’s a known fact that women are vulnerable. In so many parts of the women are beaten up, robbed, and raped. None of these acts should be excused.

However, any woman will tell you that the worst kind of criminal victimization is rape. And guess who suffers this fate more? The attractive woman.

Research shows that between being beaten up, robbed, or raped, the attractive woman has a significantly higher chance of getting raped. Let’s chew on that for a second.

To think that a woman would be a bigger target simply because of how she looks is a lot to take.

But even before the hostility towards attractive women escalates to rape, it slips and finds a spot in the fabric of everyday life.

I’ve read about women getting heckled and called sluts in the streets as they mind their business, and sadly, it mostly happens when they turn down men.

One of my attractive friends gets stalked in the mall a fair bit. And she’s not alone. Women get followed on their way home. Others are pulled into cars or accidentally” touched in public.

All sorts of abuse happen to attractive women who then begin feeling unsafe everywhere they go.
But this risk is not only physical.

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Attractive women often find themselves becoming victims of emotional abuse.

Many women assume that if you’re an attractive woman, you’re a nasty and proud person. They judge you even before knowing you or what you’re about.

And here comes the funny part, some attractive women are oblivious of their appearance. It isn’t something they think about because they found themselves that way.

Yet they get sidelined, hated, and gossiped about by folks with misconceptions.

Only to be liked later when they realize that most attractive women are normal and down to earth.
They aren’t safe in the relationship scene either.

I’m yet to find anyone who doesn’t want to have an attractive woman strapped on their arm. I mean, in the dating scene, this is the goal.

But this also makes this woman a target/prey. Everyone eyes her, and for the wrong reasons.

Men want to steal them from the men they’re with. Others want sex. I’ve heard many women say what they thought was genuine love was only a chance for a dude to hit it and bounce.

I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that certain men keep a scorecard of the number of attractive women they’ve slept with.

Then you’ve got women who see their attractive counterparts as a threat to their own relationships.
At social events, single attractive women have to constantly deal with hostility from their female counterparts who think they are after their men.

A gesture as innocent as small talk can be misconstrued as provocative or sexual. Eventually, they give up attending these gatherings altogether because it’s not worth the humiliation.

Photo by Hanna Postova on Unsplash

Then there’s the constant trail of sexualization that follows an attractive woman.

Honestly, to some extent, we have brought upon this ourselves as the female race.

At times we’re so busy blaming men for objectifying us that we lose sight of the fact that we’re partly to blame for this. Let’s call a spade a spade.

Look at how we follow trends without questioning how it impacts the dignity of the female body.

Just because Rihanna wears a see-through maternity outfit doesn’t mean we should.

When social media influencers and celebrities wear provocative outfits, it sort of becomes acceptable to society. And while it doesn’t necessarily influence mature women, the same can’t be said of the younger girls.

We know how it goes.

Suddenly younger women opt for tight outfits and post revealing pictures to be more sexually attractive to the opposite sex.

Then we wonder why men are sexualizing and objectifying us. To be clear, this is not to excuse them for the behavior.

But how can we expect them to take us seriously when we’ve capitalized on our sexiness rather than our smarts and intelligence?

It comes to bite us in the backside.

Attractive women now have to fight hard against marginalization in the corporate scene. When a man doesn’t see past your looks, it can be very difficult to sell your ideas, much less garner support to implement them.

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Eventually, the pressure transforms into self-loathing.

My friend is a gorgeous creature. But Anna is also the most positively insecure person whose self-esteem is also deeply shattered.

It’s hard to believe that a woman who could have doors automatically open up for her dwells in an encasement of self-loathing.

All this stems from having other women always looking, hunting for, and highlighting her slightest flaws.

Anna and many attractive women feel they have to work hard to remain flawless. Others constantly feel the mounting pressure to maintain their appearance.

You would, too, if you felt that your self-worth was attached to your looks.

In the case of Anna, she continues to sink into the dark hole of financial constraints, spending money she doesn’t have, to buy expensive makeup to smooth out any rough edges.

When attractiveness symbolizes your worth, you become hyper-aware of your looks. It’s tough not to obsess or over-criticize yourself when you gain a few kilos.

And when your looks change, your significance wanes because suddenly you have nothing else to offer.

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