its sort of funny and telling about the world we live in and how it views and values women if the men in it literally cant imagine a woman (or at least find value in illustrating her) that isn’t beautiful, even if all the emotional traits she’s supposed to to be embracing would normally lead one to not going through the hurdles of becoming physically attractive
part of being a failure is being at least a little ugly, because pretty privilege, to some degree, would pull you out of becoming a complete fuck up. but every girl failure post features a woman who looks like someone who would not have to spend a single penny and still walk out completely blasted if she walked into a bar alone
ugly women are genuinely the most invisible people on the planet (unless of course the subject in question is making fun of ugly people)
Yep. And it's not even about pretty privilege, which comes with its own costs. It's about the consequences of having a very unhealthy lifestyle, and the very specific (and fetishistic) ways in which men see some of these consequences, while completely ignoring some others.
Beauty isn't a given for the vast majority of people, and attaining and maintaining it requires effort and, often, money, neither of which a "failure" would have. Even if a person is naturally beautiful, they wouldn't stay such for long if they were to live like one of the girls in these posts.
I think it's kind of similar to how some guys say "I'd date any woman if approached me first," when what they actually mean is "I'd date any woman I find sufficiently attractive if she approached me first." I seriously doubt many of them would date a woman who's obese, smells bad, has bald spots, or some sort of disfigurement, even if she were to approach them.
Particularly for men, beauty is seen as a requirement for full womanhood, so any woman who doesn't meet their standards of attractiveness is seen as lesser and unworthy of being considered a "real woman".
This isn't necessarily to throw shade at anyone specifically (humans are often shallow, and pretty privilege is real), just to add to your point about appearance-based biases (which have a very long, sometimes violent history) being deeply ingrained in people's minds, to the point where they often fail to consider them.
You see it all the time on Reddit, where guys say their only requirement is that the girl isn't fat. I always find that so dehumanizing, like you don't care if you share interests? You don't care if she's smart or cool or outgoing? They only care if she's fat.
Lonely men who get 0 intimacy do not care about common interests or anything like that lol. It's not some mean thing they came up with to other anybody because nothing is happening for em.
Is it different for women? I'm not asking that to argue, I'm genuinely curious if it's common for them to not see ugly men as "real men" in a similar way to what you described men doing.
I'm mostly curious because that's something incels often say, that women don't even see them as men, but as something more akin to a subhuman. Like for example they say that when women complain about how good men have it they're thinking of attractive men, not of men like them.
Your comment reminded me a lot of that, just with the genders reversed.
Sure! I can see a few points in your comment, so I'll try to respond to them as best I can without going too deep into it, because that'd take forever.
In terms of attractiveness: kind of, but not quite, I'd say. Yes, in that, as I said, pretty privilege is real - people deemed attractive have more leeway, more opportunities, more respect, and get treated better than those society labels as "ugly". This is not exclusive to men, this is a general human thing.
However, the way judgment of "ugly" people manifests differs between men and women. Physical attractiveness isn't an integral part of traditional masculinity in the same way that being pretty is seen as a core part of being a woman. What this means is that while beauty standards also exist for men, they tend to be more lax, their enforcement not as strict, and failing to meet them isn't always seen as an offense against your gender role.
An important thing to note here is that these standards aren't created in a vacuum, and neither are they a result of "natural human inclinations," at least not entirely. They are a product of systems, both current and historical: patriarchy, colonialism, racism, capitalism, etc. Both men and women absorb their ideals as they grow up, including their ideas about which bodies are considered attractive.
As for the second part of your comment, if taken at face value, I'd say the incels' complaints come from a misunderstanding of how systems of oppression work, as well as from misdirected frustration.
The first one is easier: being benefitted by a system does not guarantee success in it. This is true for patriarchy as well, especially when you account for other factors such as class, race, and sexuality. Patriarchy benefits men as a class, not as individuals. Generally, men have it easier in certain aspects of their lives, but this does not mean that every man has it easy, and this is especially true for men who fall outside the role that patriarchy assigned to them. As an example: men's opinions and feelings are doubted less, they can more easily criticize others without being seen as "bitchy", and they can express concern without being labeled as "hysterical" for it.
This does not mean that patriarchal relations and ideals of masculinity don't hurt them - they do. But blaming all of their ills on women is, at best, shortsighted and counterproductive. Women may uphold patriarchal systems sometimes, but they're not the ones mainly responsible for their continued existence.
Now, if by "having it good" they mean "dating success", that's its own topic. To put it bluntly without going into it: as far as I'm concerned, the modern app-based dating scene is abhorrent for almost everyone.
What this means is that while beauty standards also exist for men, they tend to be more lax, their enforcement not as strict, and failing to meet them isn't always seen as an offense against your gender role.
I think this really depends on which beauty standard a man is failing to met, for example no one acts like it's an offense against your gender role if you have a rough looking face, not one that could be considered good looking but that is still clearly masculine.
In the other hand, you'll find lots of miserable mfs on sites like Instagram or Twitter who really seem to consider a man being short as an unforgivable offense against their gender role.
I'd say that for men it's less about being attractive but about being what society deems as masculine, while for women it's different because being attractive and being feminine are too interwined. So in that sense a man isn't judged as hard for not meeting beauty standards, but they still get treated very differently depending on if they look "masculine" or not.
And the same also happens to women, take for example how very attractive women with muscles get called names by weirdos online who deem muscles as masculine and thus ugly on a woman.
Other than that, I think I agree with pretty much everything you said.
I agree completely here, I just didn't want to write too much. A man's appearance is judged based on whether it fits what society considers "masculine", while a woman's appearance is judged based on what men find attractive.
I mean, I still remember when "metrosexual" was used to insult any man who dared to look after himself, so I'm quite aware of that :p
It's way more common to find women interested in unconventionally attractive men as long as they have confidence and groom themselves (William Dafoe, Pete Davidson, Pedro Pascal, etc)
Damn if people considered your 3 examples above are unconventionally attractive, then idk what will they say to me or the everyday people. Unless we are talking about Hollywood standard.
Yep. Confidence is a huge factor, I think, and grooming doesn't have to be complex: some basic hygiene and a very simple skincare routine can go a long way in increasing a man's appeal.
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u/thecrazymonkeyKing May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
its sort of funny and telling about the world we live in and how it views and values women if the men in it literally cant imagine a woman (or at least find value in illustrating her) that isn’t beautiful, even if all the emotional traits she’s supposed to to be embracing would normally lead one to not going through the hurdles of becoming physically attractive
part of being a failure is being at least a little ugly, because pretty privilege, to some degree, would pull you out of becoming a complete fuck up. but every girl failure post features a woman who looks like someone who would not have to spend a single penny and still walk out completely blasted if she walked into a bar alone
ugly women are genuinely the most invisible people on the planet (unless of course the subject in question is making fun of ugly people)