It’s tough being beautiful. Other women, women who are not so genetically blessed, despise you, you see. They worry you will steal their husband. They get together with their average-looking friends and say nasty things behind your inordinately elegant back. They think that, just because you have flawless skin, you don’t have feelings. But you do have feelings: tragically, the world can’t look past your cut-glass cheekbones and understand that.

If you have ever wondered What It’s Like to Go Through Life As a Really Beautiful Woman, this is about the sum of it, apparently. At least, according to an article published last week on New York magazine’s lifestyle website, the Cut. In it, an anonymous woman in her late 50s explains that being attractive opened a lot of doors for her in life, but also made women hate her. I’m fairly sure the beautiful-but-damned subject of the article wasn’t Samantha Brick, but it is very much reminiscent of her infamous 2012 magnum opus in the Daily Mail, There are Downsides to Looking This Pretty: Why Women Hate Me for Being Beautiful. And, like Brick’s much-laughed-at lament, it was immediately and mercilessly mocked on social media.

Rightly so. The article reads like a parody, parroting tiresome tropes about jealous, catty women. Yet it’s a shame the response to the piece descended so swiftly into jeers. There is an interesting and important conversation to be had about what it’s like to go through life as a really beautiful woman – or a very handsome man. Looks aren’t everything, but count for a lot. We might not like to admit it, but we are all prone to treating people differently according to their appearance. Studies show that even babies prefer looking at more attractive faces. But while we are all affected by beauty biases, I’m not sure we are often prompted to examine and curb them – and they have real repercussions.

Mostly, those repercussions are stacked in favour of attractive people. “Pretty privilege” kicks in at a young age: research has found that teachers, both at school and university, consider better-looking students to be more intelligent, giving them better grades and more attention. The same is true in the workplace, where, numerous studies say, it pays to be good looking. According to one economist, attractive people are likely to earn 3% to 4% more than someone with below-average looks; the equivalent of $230,000 (£163,000) over a lifetime.

Men can be threatened by other men’s looks, but are rarely accused of same-sex jealousy in the way women are.

But while beauty mainly seems to be a blessing, it can also be a curse. Being considered attractive works against you if you are a woman applying for a traditionally “masculine” job, for example. In 2015, a study from University College London’s School of Management found that while handsome men are seen as more competent, this makes them less likely to be hired in competitive workplaces because they are perceived as a threat. Funny, isn’t it? Despite there being clear evidence that men can be threatened by other men’s looks, they are rarely accused of same-sex jealousy in the way women are. It is almost as if society goes out of its way to pit women against each other.

Ultimately, it seems that the main problem with being attractive is that people are not allowed to complain about it. As articles like the one in the Cut make clear, nothing brings out the sarcastic tiny violins faster than someone moaning about the pitfalls of aesthetic perfection. While that may be understandable, I think it is also worth understanding that society sometimes penalises prettiness. Let’s not be so quick to hate on people just because they write op-eds about being beautiful.

Socially networked … Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in Washington DC this week to testify before congressional committees. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Zuck goes to charm school



It’s a big week for Mark Zuckerberg, who is appearing in front of Congress to apologise for inadvertently undermining democracy. Facebook reportedly prepared for this personal responsibility (PR) exercise by bringing in an army of experts to give its CEO a “crash course” in charm – a quality the ZuckBot is not known for.

What does this charm curriculum comprise? If I happened to control a complex system of mass surveillance or was as good at hacking as certain Tory MPs, I would be able to tell you in detail. Sadly, this is not the case. So, I can only speculate that preparations kicked off with careful scrutiny of the personal data of all the politicians Zuck will be meeting. People like it when you ask them about themselves, Mark! Why not try asking that congressman – you know, the one who has been having a secret affair for the past three months – how he liked the new carbonara recipe he tried the other day?

Facebook being Facebook, I imagine some fancy tech was involved in updating MZ’s interpersonal operating system. An empathy algorithm, perhaps, devised to recommend meaningful semantic structures that build a sense of genuine community. Or maybe there is proprietary communication code that prompts Zuckerberg to nod and say “yes” at regular intervals to make it seem as if he is actually listening and not just counting the minutes until he can escape from having to interact with mere mortals.

Or maybe charm training was a little more analogue than that. Perhaps Zuckerberg was just advised to take off that unflattering T-shirt and wear a suit. Perhaps he was told to say the word “sorry” a statistically significant number of times. After all, if you repeat any old nonsense long enough, people will believe it. Facebook knows that better than just about anyone.

Fart free … sloths don’t break wind. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Everything you’ve never wanted to know about animal emissions



One day you tweet a question about whether snakes fart, the next you’ve landed a book deal about animal flatulence. Well, Dani Rabaiotti knows how it is, anyway. Last year, the environmental scientist sent a tweet that turned into a viral hashtag (#doesitfart) that turned into a book called Does It Fart: the Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence. This includes must-know information such as the fact that sloths don’t break wind. Meanwhile, seal farts smell like fish, while herrings use their liberated gas to communicate with each other, much like small children. The book only came out in the US last week, but it was released in Britain last year. I guess the UK is inordinately receptive to hot air.