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When I was a kid, I was ugly. Not in the cute but wears glasses way. Actually, really ugly. I had a huge overbite, top teeth that stuck out, a scrawny and ungraceful body, and frizzy, thin hair.
People let it be known, too, and although I suppose it hurt sometimes, mostly it didn’t. Beauty wasn’t something I internalized as important until I was a teenager. I didn’t realize that beauty was special — that you can never compare people on beauty, that “everyone is beautiful,” and that there are a million sociopolitical aspects to the concept of looking good. You have to be taught that beauty matters and my parents didn’t teach me that.
While I knew that I wasn’t pretty, it didn’t affect anything. My sister was beautiful and good at art and bad at math. I was good at math and played the piano well and was ugly. Nothing about beauty was special. And god, I miss those days.
One summer, when I was thirteen, it all changed. I read an article like this one about how beautiful women are much more likely to get senior positions, be paid more, and make more friends. As a Silicon Valley overachiever, I panicked. What was this nonsense? Did I have to actually care about my looks to succeed? Apparently.
