Fantastic article on judging by appearance from "Already Pretty"

Hi girls,

I really enjoyed reading this post by Sally McGraw over at Already Pretty.
http://www.alreadypretty.com/2.....rself.html

This is my favourite quote:

'When I see someone or meet an individual for the first time, I make every effort to assume nothing. I want each person to show me who she truly is, and I make room for that inside myself. I don’t look at a woman twice my size and think, “She should lose some weight.” I don’t look at a woman with a giant birthmark on her face and think, “She should cover that up.” I don’t look at a drop-dead gorgeous woman and think, “She must be an airhead.” I look at every woman and think, “She is herself. Let’s find out more." '

We're all guilty of judging based on appearance...I have done this myself. Women can be especially harsh to one another, as we work hard to tear each other down instead of building each other up. I am thankful I have a forum like this where people are kind, supportive and non judgemental.

How have you judged others in the past based on appearance? Are you guilty of any of the stereotyping mentioned in Sally's article? I know I am! How has your perspective changed over time?

15 years ago

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Yes on all the reasons on why its bad to judge people on their appearance.

Of course the flip side to that is that it can absolutely work in your favour to be judged by your appearance - especially in certain lines of work. Its not all bad :0)

Maya

Veteran

I know we're all supposed to feel guilty that we judge people by appearance, but that's life. It's just human instinct. Unless you take it to an extreme level, i.e. refusing to associate with people who don't live up to your standards, expressing disgust, or being disrespectful...it's really not the worst thing in the world. That's why we should always do our best to look our best. No one can expect more than that from us, but we shouldn't accept anything less from ourselves.

taylor

I can honestly say that I do not judge women by their looks. Weather they be tatted up, pierced within an inch of their life, Large, small or somewhere in between. Beautiful, unattractive , or average. I have friends of every shape and size, color and socioeconomic level. I don't really care what size dress they wear or how tall or short.. or are they physically pleasing to others.

I do however tend to judge people rather harshly on how they are on the inside, how they treat others and me. I must say in this case I am VERY OFTEN disappointed with people.

Some people are cruel, rude, jealous , unfriendly, and self absorbed....it truly is what's inside that counts. People can be quite ugly, no matter the outside, The most beautiful person I ever new was 78 years old when we met.

Jenava

I would be disappointed to NOT be judged by my appearance, since I spend so much effort to make it look a certain way.

Tara

I'm not saying judging/being judged on appearance is a bad thing necessarily...I'm just pointing out that where we make assumptions about a person without knowing them, we can get into dangerous territory...whether we judge them positively or negatively. We can overestimate a person's personality or talents based on their looks (where someone evaluated positively for a job, for example, based on looks, ends up underperforming), or we can make assumptions about someone negatively that leads us to exclude them from an activity or from interacting with us without realising their worth as a person and their ability to contribute.

Just sayin'!

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