June 26, 2005.

Lookism

by Dwаynе Bеll

Hatred of female beauty can take many forms, and those who hate it, visciously and utterly, can often pretend to be good people. For example, we recently offerred our visitors a chance to sign a petition to fight for the life of a beautiful Australian woman, Schаppеllе Cоrby, who had been wrongly accused of drug smuggling in fundamentalist Islam-dominated, beauty-hating Indonesia and was facing a firing squad. In response, one fellow sent us a VERY angry email telling us that there was no was no chance in hell he would try to help a woman just because she was beautiful. "I will fight for justice for ALL oppressed people whether beautiful or ugly!" he fumed full of righteous indignation.

We calmly and politely pointed out that since all he knew of this woman was that she was beautiful, and since he refused to help her, that he was willing to let her die for no other reason than because she was beautiful. Why not save her for the same reason? we asked. How dare we suggest that a woman deserves special treatment simply because she is beautiful? came the reply.

This is 'lookism' pure and simple. A 'lookist' is usually thought of as a person who favors a beautiful woman over an ugly one regardless of the talents or personal worth of either. But lookism works both ways. A lookist can also be someone who refuses proper treatment to a beautiful woman simply because she is beautiful.

This kind of lookism, we call it 'beauty-hating', is a prejudice based on the belief that female beauty is completely worthless or even immoral, and therefore, undeserving of consideration. It says that beautiful women do not deserve to be treated as, well, beautiful women, that they deserve no special treatment of any kind for it, not even simple justice, that they don't deserve to be treated as special in any way, even though they obviously are.

That's right. Beautiful women are special. They're beautiful. Duh. Beauty is a huge value and these women bring this value into the world for us to enjoy and be inspired by. We value those who bring music or intelligence into the world, but not beauty.

Today we fight for just about anyone who is unjustly oppressed, we fight for people because of their skin color as in Sоυth Afrіcа, we fight for people because of their sex as in Afghanstan and other fundementalist Islamic tyrranies. But it is not okay to fight for someone because she is beautiful? Skin color and sex are neither within our control nor a value in themselves - no one is good or bad only because of their skin or sex. But someone can be good simply because they are very beautiful, just as someone can be good for no other reason than that they are a great musician, or a scientific genius.

If you disagree, then you are a lookist. All of these are talents and gifts that can be used to create joy and art and discovery, and just as no skin color or sex is more valuable that the others, so no one human virtue is more valuable than the others. And certainly none deserves the kind of open hatred that beauty faces today.

In fact, many modern people would mistake the lookist who emailed us his hatred of a beautiful woman as a good and moral person. But he is actually someone who hates beauty purposely and passionately on principle. He is the worst kind of beauty hater there could ever be.

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