Judging books by their pretty covers

Last year, a good friend of mine was sent to the principal’s office due to her “short shorts.” I found this odd, because other girls in the school were wearing shorter shorts than hers, but were not singled out.

This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened, and I’m not the only one who has noticed.

The reason the other girls got away with their short shorts? I think it was because they were “prettier” than my friend.

This is called “lookism:” the act of judging others based upon looks, which has left people unable to truly treasure people for their personalities.

Lookism is in the media, in the workplace, in our schools, and according to some professors, it’s hard-wired in our brains. Studies performed at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed that beauty and addiction trigger the same areas in the brain.

No one is quite sure why beauty and addiction trigger the same areas, but my theory is that the media is a big factor and probably the main thing to blame.

Images in the media have turned the definition of beautiful into an ugly thing. Now, men are not considered beautiful unless they are tall and have six-pack abs. Women are not beautiful unless they are skinny, curvy in the right places, and have flawless skin. Seeing pictures of men and women like that have hardwired our minds into think that this is the definition of beautiful.

For instance, consider female tennis player Anna Kournikova. According to journalist John Stossel, Kournikova gets paid millions from endorsements, even though she has never won a major singles championship. It wouldn’t matter if she was the worst player in tennis: companies would choose her to endorse their product because she is what people would call “beautiful.”

The media is even hard-wiring this thought into children’s minds. For example, an episode of the popular kids’ show ICarly showed the two main girls hiring a “hot,” unintelligent boy for their new intern for their web show instead of the boy who had experience and knew what he was doing.

Even though this may seem harmless, this is actually very wrong. The media is showing kids that it doesn’t matter how unintelligent you are, and you can just go through life living off your looks.

I believe that people have lost the ability to truly treasure people for their personalities instead of looks. Because of this, future generations may think that looks are all that matters.

Although a cure for this seems nearly impossible with our society nowadays, I still have hope. Maybe, instead of having beauty contests, we should step back and realize everyone is beautiful. Maybe, instead of choosing someone just because “it’s appealing to our eyes,” we should choose someone because their personality is appealing. We need to realize that true beauty isn’t what’s on the outside. What’s on the inside is all that matters.

Holly Brett is a junior at Houston High School. She is a three-year journalism student and this is her first year writing for the School’s Page.