Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have HER Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. HER Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside HER Collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone.

Erica: Welcome to the podcast from now to next a stepping stone, where I explore the sticky floors that we discuss in our longer podcast episodes. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, and I am excited for today's topic. Our first long episode was a gem of an episode where we talked about a bunch of different types of sticky floors. But the one that I want to focus on today is one that I cannot stop thinking about since I had the recording done and that is pretty privilege. So what the hell is pretty privilege?

Erica: So if you don't know, pretty privilege is also known as a beauty premium. Yes. I have air quotes around that. And it's the principle that people who are deemed more attractive based on accepted societal beauty standards have an upper hand in the world and are afforded many opportunities that others don't have. So long story short, it is appearance based discrimination.

Erica: Now what's interesting is because beauty is socially constructed, it can thrive off of existing standards that devalue individual individuals from marginalized groups. So typically, beauty premium and pretty privilege is going to be afforded to people who are white, the whole blonde hair, blue eyes thing, tall, thin, heterosexual. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Now what's wild is there is even a science that is named after this. It's called pulchronomics, and that is the study of the economics of physical attractiveness.

Erica: And when I heard that y'all, I was floored that that was even a thing, but there is so much information out there on pretty privilege and exactly how it impacts people across the board. Right? So here's the thing being beautiful can make getting a job easier. It can get you higher income. It can make you more popular, thus giving you more social capital and it can even earn you a lighter sentence.

Erica: If you are convicted of a crime. Now, I think it is no surprise to anyone out there that some people can easily talk their way out of a ticket, especially a beautiful woman who, you know, bats her eyes and flirts a little bit. But the fact that somebody could get a lighter sentence based on the way they look just totally shook me. So I have some stats here for you. Definitely wanna share these.

Erica: And I think you're gonna find really interesting, but, you know, as I said before, it has been found, employees who are deemed above average looking get above average pay. So in fact, research shows that physically attractive workers earn up to 15% more than those who are considered less attractive. Yes. Air quotes again. There's gonna be a lot of air quotes in these episodes, guys, because I think it's just all relative.

Erica: Now, in a 2011 book that was called Beauty Pays, which was written by Daniel Hamermesh, who was an economics professor, He used data from the nineteen seventies to estimate that over the course of a lifetime, the average worker with, air quote, above average looks would earn three to 4% more. Now it doesn't sound like a ton, but that would total over $230,000 over the course of a lifetime. And that's dollars that we're talking about from years ago. So I'm not a mathematician, but my guess is it's gonna be a lot more than the $230,000 Now in 2013, a study showed that CEOs with more attractive faces had a better stock market performance in their first days on the job and also after mergers and acquisitions. They also had increased stock after their days on television.

Erica: If they were deemed to be attractive, which is just wild to me. Now, several studies have shown that being skinny is more lucrative. So as your BMI goes down, your earnings go up. And then a study from the university of Florida, go Gators showed that people earned an additional $790 in annual pay for each additional inch of height that they had. Now, I just thought that was wild.

Erica: But this really goes all the way back to the classroom because even in the classroom, teachers have been shown to have a higher expectation for air quote, better looking children and attractive students get higher grades than those deemed less attractive. Now it does not show that they are any smarter. They did not read higher on test scores. They did not do better overall. They just earned higher grades.

Erica: So a lot of these studies have gone in to the what is pretty privilege and, you know, how does it affect, right? Some studies have gone into the why. So why are people making more money? Why are people getting jobs easier? And some studies have attributed that those with pretty privilege from a young age exude more confidence than those without pretty privilege.

Erica: So some people are saying that that's a reason, but it also shows that we have these unconscious biases that make us more inclined to act in a way that is more favorable for those that are deemed air quote, more attractive. So in these episodes, I always want to focus on what can we do about it. Right? Because these are things that exist that we have to deal with that are not necessarily going away, but it is a sticky floor nonetheless. So what can we do about pretty privilege?

Erica: First things first is it needs to start at home. Schools and workplaces need to do more to discourage discrimination based on appearance. Now I read in one of the articles that it stated it starts in daycare where preschool teachers pay more attention to the air quote, cuter kids. The media needs to offer more diverse and natural images of beauty and stop promoting these deceptive appearance related advertisements, really embracing all types. You know, we've seen a lot of changes here recently, so you can think about Dove.

Erica: They were one of the very first ones that we saw, gosh, several years ago. Nike is embracing this, Lululemon. They're one of my favorite. They have really started including all body types, for their clothing, which I think is awesome, but more companies need to get on this bandwagon. But ultimately we need widespread change in our thoughts, in our values, in our actions.

Erica: And while that is not an easy task and it is not going to happen overnight, it begins with acknowledging the idea and doing what we can in any small way to change it. So me personally at home, I talk to my kids about what does it need to be pretty on the inside and that how that is the most important thing and that all people are beautiful or handsome and that all people are different and different is cool. So my kids think that, you know, different means unique and unique is special. And that's kinda how I like to play it with my children at this age. They're young, so that's what makes sense for me at this time.

Erica: But I also buy books that showcase families that don't look like ours. And I try to expose them to as much diversity as I can, whether that's in the schools that I put them in, the places that we take them to eat, or the movies that we watch, but we try to talk about all of the different cultures and why people look different than us and what does that mean. But what we talked about in episode one that really has me thinking is what happens when you have worked your ass off? You have the degrees. You have the experience.

Erica: You have the knowledge. But you also have pretty privilege. So you land the job, you get the promotion, you're invited to sit at the table, and you're sitting there and you find out it's not because of your skills and abilities, but that you are literally invited to the table only because you're pretty. You're sitting there and you find your opinion is not valued. Your ideas are not respected.

Erica: Your voice is not heard and your thoughts are overlooked. You are literally only wanted around because you're nice to look at or you're fun to be around. That's what we talked about in episode one. So this means that you have to fight to show that you have the skills and abilities to do the job. You know, and it's a constant uphill battle because you were brought in for the wrong reasons.

Erica: When you have this type of pretty privilege, it can cost you further advancement as it relates to climbing the corporate ladder, which also directly correlates to your salary increases. You know, say, first of all, I just wanna state that that really sucks. Right? It's interesting because after recording the last podcast, it made me realize that I have totally played up the idea of pretty privilege without even realizing it. And I'll tell you about it.

Erica: So when I knew that I had a job interview with a male who is a high level executive, keep in mind, there were also rumors that this person was a womanizer of some kind, I wore a different outfit. Now don't get me wrong. It was professional in every way, and it was something that I would have learned to work too. But it was a hot red dress with hot red lips. And I wore this and I wore that makeup and I wore that red dress because I knew that it would get attention and I knew that I would stand out.

Erica: At the time, I just didn't correlate it to pretty privilege. And after I had that conversation, I totally had this just epiphany and this mind blown, like, wow, I really did that. Wow. So again, what do you do if you find yourself in this situation? You've landed the job at the table because you have pretty privilege.

Erica: You've gotta speak up for yourself, ladies. There's no way around it. It's going to be uncomfortable, but it is going to be critical for change. So I would recommend that if you were sitting at the table, you're being talked over, you're being ignored, whatever it is, have one on ones with those offenders in a private setting, but let them know like, hey, you may not have realized this, but you spoke over me at the meeting. Or you dismissed an idea that I had, but not when Steve presented the same idea in a slightly different way.

Erica: What gives? So I really believe that awareness is the first step here. And I also choose to believe that, you know, I believe the best in people until they show me otherwise. So that's what I would say you need to do as a first step. Now, if this keeps happening, that's a different conversation because you've already made them aware.

Erica: But once once they are aware, you should expect change. You should expect that respect. Another thing that I would do that really helps in these types of situation is find an advocate and find one that your offenders respect. So this advocate is someone who can speak up for you if you are not always invited to the table. Or if you're sitting there and you are being talked over or your skills, knowledge, and abilities are not being recognized or utilized, they can step up and say, hey.

Erica: You know, Erica has experience in x, y, and z. Why don't we listen to her idea? That advocate can shine the light on your experiences and what you really bring to the table and not your looks. So if you think that pretty privilege is an issue in a group at your organization or your organization in general, you can do different things like mask resumes for the recruiting stage where you remove the name, you, remove years that might identify when someone graduated, that way you can't tell how old they are, or you can do round table anonymous ideas. So if you are brainstorming for something, you can have individuals submit their ideas anonymously and go through the ideas.

Erica: You could rate them and then reveal whose idea it was once one has been selected. Now I am not one to judge about pretty privilege to get ahead. You do what you gotta do to get that job. You make that money, honey. But what I would say is that if you find yourself in the position, make sure that you use your pretty privilege powers for good.

Erica: Set. Help those up behind you. Educate those around you. Do all of that and showcase what a badass you really are. Do what you gotta do, get a seat at the table, and advocate for awareness and change.

Erica: Now I would love to hear all of my listeners stories about when you've seen pretty privilege at work, how do you use your pretty privilege, or just in general, any thoughts that you might have on pretty privilege. And you can either get in touch with me by DMing me on Instagram, or you can email me at eraadvisers@gmail.com. That's eraadvisers@gmail.com. Thanks for listening.