Really beautiful women also face a gantlet of social slings and arrows. They are lusted after, envied, resented. They struggle to connect with peers, and sense that they are being secretly ridiculed. Around the office, at least, they seem to be right. Other women give their attractive female colleagues points for popularity. But they also rate them less competent, less talented, less loyal, and (weirdly) less motherly than women from homelier stock. This leads to another depressing conclusion for the beautiful: people doubt them, assuming that their success is a function of schmoozing—or worse. (It certainly doesn’t help that pretty people in general are more likely to be genuine narcissists, according to a study published last year in the Journal of Research in Personality.)
Even when attractive women are performing at the top of their game, studies show that beauty can be its own glass ceiling. Pretty women tend to be seen as too feminine, and thus unsuited, for most leadership positions that are associated with masculine traits—one reason, perhaps, why so few women CEOs control Fortune 500 companies or Wall Street firms. Attractive professionals face more subtle snares as well, like unwelcome sexual come-ons, and assumptions about their lifestyle and sexuality. (News flash: sexy people aren’t always sexual people.)
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