Ihe day when Gabrielle Christine gets into the car to take her driving test, the examiner immediately compliments this young American student nurse on her physical appearance. On the way, the man asks him to park in a parking lot. She misses the move. He offers her a new chance to succeed. Then she commits the capital sin of this exam: she runs a red light. Faced with this eliminatory fault, he casually lets go of him: “ Oops, I didn’t see anything. » In a TikTok video, since deleted (to be found on Youtubeat 2:27), the young woman tells how the fact that the examiner finds her attractive would have allowed her to win the Grail.
Does beauty give access to an existential move upmarket? While the idea is not new, awareness seems to be growing. After the white privilege (privilege of being white), after the nepo babies (privilege of being “a son of” or “a daughter of”), a new subject of debate, coming straight from the United States, is currently emerging in the form of a hashtag: on TikTok, the #prettyprivilege (privilege of beauty) already garners 364 million views.
If beauty is relative, and varies according to the times, the fact of possessing the attributes undoubtedly changes your life. When she was younger, the Korean @sunnythecaker, who demonstrates her #prettyprivilege on TikTok, felt completely invisible, as if her physique was not worth talking to her. As her features become more refined as she grows older, her classmates start to take an interest in her and the perks start to rain down. In a job interview, a recruiter compliments her on her appearance: ” You have a beautiful smile. Come work with us tomorrow! »
In another register, if reintegration is difficult for former detainees, in 2014, the criminal identity photo (mug shot) by Jeremy Meeks published on the Web by the American police earned him enamored comments and a form of immediate recognition. Many would like to be kidnapped by this charismatic blue-eyed Métis, former gang member, imprisoned for possession of a firearm. Once free, he became a model and enjoyed professional success.
According to a Harvard study dating from 2009, this discrimination even affects babies. Those who are considered ugly would receive less love and affection from their mother. A little later, at school, it is the teachers who develop a bias in grading students based on their physique, as brought to light a study of the School of Psychology and Neuroscience from St. Andrews. Another study, published in 2022 by the University of Lund (Sweden), confirmed this leniency for pleasant features: during the pandemic, because of the courses in video where the faces of the students only appeared randomly, the marks of the students considered attractive dropped. “The issue of initial endowments and initial inequalities are less and less supported “, thinks Hélène Garner, director of the Work, employment, skills department of France Strategy and specialist in discrimination. The individual, from now on, would like to be recognized for what he is and not for what he feels he has been assigned to (a story, a physique, possessions).
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