Women can be smart or pretty, never both. Is it truth or fallacy? A fallacy is an old-school way of saying fake news. It can be something that, on the surface, might sound like an irrefutable truth but, upon closer scrutiny, is fraudulent. But, just as fake news can plant enough doubt to be dangerous, the same is true with fallacies.
Human history is replete with tales of intelligent and beautiful women, but rarely both in one female. This narrative is perpetuated in literature, film, and television and normalized to the point where the stereotype seems real. Older generations recall some of these popular characters: the glamorous Ginger or her intellectual foil, the smart Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island; the blond bombshell Chrissie or the intelligent roommate Janet in Three's Company; the ravishing and witty Mary or the insecure about her appearance Rhoda in The Mary Tyler Moore Show; even teenage comic icons like the rich diva Veronica or the less intimidating Betty.
Men often tease each other with the question, 'Veronica or Betty; Ginger or Mary Ann?' That's code for beauty or brains. It also reinforces the fallacy that no single woman can be both.
On the VIRGINBEAUTY B!TCH Podcast, we've shared conversations with over 300 women from multiple countries, various cultures, and ethnic backgrounds, all women with unique skill sets, talents, and experiences. If any trend stands out, it's that brains and beauty are not mutually exclusive because their host happens to be a female body. So why does this fallacy exist and persist?
I'll share a theory.
Would it surprise you to learn that we perpetuate the fallacy based on how we raise boys to be real men?
From youth, boys are taught to see 'pretty' as a word unbecoming of manhood. Unless a boy is indifferent to ridicule, persecution, or disrespect, he learns to concede beauty to the fairer sex.
A real man can be ruthless and still be revered, but he can't be beautiful and still be respected. If he wants to make it in this world, then beauty is not a tool you'll find in his utility belt. One exception might be the entertainers, men who act out fictional fantasy characters like James Bond. Beyond that, being smart is the path for men seeking respect and power.
And why is that important to know?
The uncomfortable truth is that beauty is also a potent social force. Men are acutely sensitive to this power. Men have waged wars to win a beautiful woman, as did Menelaus, the King of Sparta, to recover his beloved Helen of Troy. Men have forsaken their kingdoms to wed a beautiful woman, as Britain's Prince Edward did for commoner Wallis Simpson. And men have risked their power and honor to fall into illicit affairs with beauty, as Bill Clinton did for Monika. Beauty is a force to be reckoned with, and men are intimately familiar with its powerful allure.
But since beauty is kryptonite to manliness and taboo for men who summarily dismiss prettiness as feminine or a female concern — one which women have successfully parlayed into a source of personal power — what happens when women also exhibit the one attribute that men once claimed as exclusive to their sex — intelligence?
Decades of research unequivocally prove that men and women are equal in general intelligence (IQ); however, graduation rates for women are six percentage points higher than men's. Women occupy and excel at roles once believed beyond their intellect or capability, including heading nations. So when women, already masters of beauty, also express brain power, how do the sons of the patriarch deal with being down two-to-one on the powerful social assets?
Here's an idea.
You pick a time in history when women were victims of forced illiteracy. A time when male-only education was rooted in a belief that women didn't need education to pursue socially acceptable roles like motherhood, homemaker, domestic servant, or prostitute. For centuries, gender norms effectively excluded women from attending school. Back then, women received only enough education to read their bible. Women without royal connections or families to invest in educating them as bait for wealthy men to marry, those women were the mean average — beautiful, maybe, but absolutely illiterate. Under these social conditions, opinions were formed, and from them, fallacies were born.
Still, why does this old-world fallacy persist in an age of women CEOs, Nobel prize winners, female astronauts, and Prime Ministers, some of whom rival supermodels in presentation? The answer is buried somewhere in a collective male ego that keeps beauty as dumb blonds and competent women as uppity bitches. Those are cultural stereotypes women live with, which, over time, convinces them they can only be a brainless beauty or the bright but homely girl next door. And so, the fallacy lives on. However, at no time have women had more access to education, real-world experience, knowledge to discern truth from fake news, or agency to embrace and embody beauty and brains together.
VBB: Christopher
