Giselinde Kuipers: What is Aesthetic Capital?

Doortje Smithuijsen: My name is Doortje Smithuijsen and in this podcast I will be investigating aesthetic capital because next the more known forms of capital like social capital and cultural capital there's also something that is called aesthetic capital. It captures the way we look and the way these looks sort of define our class and our chances in society. And well, due to the rise of social media and the increased visibility of our physical appearance, this aesthetic capital is becoming increasingly determinant for our social opportunities. Therefore I would really like to investigate this form of capital with all kinds of researchers, some are from the VU (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), some are from different areas of this society, and together in this podcast we will investigate what this aesthetic capital is and how it shapes our society today. Alright, so welcome to you Giselinde, in this first episode of the connected world podcast Giselinde Kuipers: Hello Doortje: I'm super honoured to have you here. As I already told you, but I will also tell the listener, this is a podcast that is made for the connected world division of the VU and it will be covering aesthetic capital: all sort of subjects around this one big theme. And well there was one person that I said “if we if we do a podcast on this subject, we have to have her” and that's you, Giselinde Kuipers. I've been reading your work, well the last few years, I think probably everything you've been writing on this subject I have been reading, so it's very nice to finally meet you. You teach in Belgium, you teach in Leuven, but you but you live in Utrecht, so you're sort of an international Benelux citizen. Just a very broad question to begin with: when we when we talk about this subject, aesthetic capital, you've been doing so much research on this theme, but when did you stumble upon this subject, or maybe sometimes the subject can also find you? Giselinde: I'm a sociologist and I always say I study the social shaping of cultural standards, so what we learn as members of a group and of a society, what we learn is good or bad, or nice or wrong and also how this is very much socially shaped. And I'm specifically fascinated by these topics because they feel very very close to the self. So for instance when you think something is beautiful or someone is beautiful, it's a very strong immediate response, Doortje: And it's a very individual response Giselinde: And it feels like it's about yourself, it feels like it's you that is feeling this, so it's really connected to our identity and our sense of who we are. And at the same time it's very, very clear that it's very socially shaped. And my PT a long, long time ago was on humor, and it actually works in the same way, Doortje: Such a nice subject I thought Giselinde: You feel so immediately that you know something is funny or not, and in the same way you see someone or something and you can have a very strong visceral response. Doortje: Yeah, so it's like the response when you want to start laughing, but you also want to look at your social surroundings, like is this funny? This is funny right? Giselinde: Well that's later, but I think the interesting thing about both funny and beautiful is that the feeling comes first. And so it feels like it's about you, so you see someone and you think “this is a very good looking person”, or “this person looks weird”. And it's a very, very strong immediate response. And at the same time as a sociologist, it's really interesting to me that it's very socially shaped. So it's very, very dependent on who you hang out with and where you grow up and how you have shaped and where you have worked. So all of these things, it's really something that you learn, and at the same time it feels like it's the deepest, deep feeling, individual experience that you have, and I am really intrigued by these things. And I think I came to beauty, because it's so clear that it has become so much more important to be beautiful, to look good in contemporary society. So I call this the “expanding beauty regime” so it's become more and more important to look good across the lifespan for more and more domains of life. So for work and for leisure, and also not only for women, but also for men, not only for younger people, but also for older people, it's really become important. For a woman it's very hard to not know that appearance is important, I think as an individual experience. But I think it's clear that it's become increasingly so. For instance it's really interesting working in the university when I was a student, professors were, you know, they didn't look particularly good and then, even so, and it wasn't really important so nobody cared and then it's like this cliche of the professor of the professors - Doortje: Nobody cared and then it's like this cliche of the professor with messy hair- Giselinde: Nobody cared. So it was like this and this really changed even in my lifetime when it was really, really important that even professors you know they were wearing fashionable clothes and they went to the hairdressers and they had to do their nails and all this so it's really nails, the women professors do their nails. So it's really clear that even in my lifetime it became much more important and that it also means that it has real consequences. So very often I sort of summarize my research as “frivolous things with serious consequences”. Beauty I think really is a very good example of this. It really has so such a visceral response, it really affects how we treat people and how we assess people and how we behave towards them and that has very real consequences. Doortje: It's also a very important thing for the division of class I feel Giselinde: So it has has strong connections with lots of different aspects of social background, so gender is the obvious one, so it's really different, but it's also really, really connected to social class, so socio-economic background, because so we know that this is signalled by taste, but also ethnicity. So all the big divides in society are connected with beauty standards and that's what my research is about. It’s not only that rich people have more opportunities to look good or that good looking people are more likely to become successful, which is something that has been fairly well established. But it's also that not everybody has the same idea of what it means to look good or what good looks or how you should groom to look the best possible way. And that's why aesthetic capital is not only sort of a given, like you know “you have on a scale of one to 10, you have eights and you have three” so it's not like this, it also really depends on who it is that is judging. Doortje: Yeah, exactly, also probably it's different in different nations, for example. But I do feel like there are some sort of standards that are sort of universal, maybe even just for the Netherlands. Because the Dutch Social Cultural Planbureau, they've been also looking at a aesthetic capital, that's also for me kind of the reason to do this podcast on this theme, I think from 2014 they have been including this. So they have cultural capital, social capital, “capital capital” money-wise, but also aesthetic capital and they quote you a lot also by the way, but they also have distinctions like for example, what is it called, the body mass index that should be like below 30. Giselinde: 30 is the cut-off point I think for clinical obesity Doortje: But also straight teeth and stuff like that, maybe not too much wrinkles or something like that. Giselinde: I have issues with that so yeah it's a big debate. I'm actually now working with a team of people to edit a handbook on beauty and inequality and so there is a big debate also among scholars to what extent you can say that people actually have objective standards. To some extent yes, so there's some things that people agree upon mostly, which is that you know, I think related to overweight for instance is one of the things that tends to be disliked aesthetically. But even there, so it really matters if you have different people- pictures of the same person Doortje: Yeah, I do feel like when it comes to weight and especially for women, there's always this person that said “yeah, but you had that period of that painter Rubens, and then they used to love big women” but then I feel like alright, yeah, there's been one painter… Giselinde: The notion that it's better to be thin is 150 years old, so it's historically quite a young. Now it’s very widespread, but it’s young. Now we're in a consumer society where you know, you can eat a lot, it's easy to get enough food, so what the middle classes and the upper middle classes distinguish themselves by control, it's a show that you're in control of your body. And 200 years ago actually the richer people were fatter and it was a sign of status. But I think right now there is a widely shared understanding that thinner people tend to be better looking than really big people. But then if you look at what it means to be just rights in terms of very thin or a little less, there are actually are quite a bit of differences, and this is what we find in the research. So yes, there are objective standards in the sense that within a given society people tend to agree on something, but there also a lot of differences, and much of these objective things can be sort of mediated by how you style and groom yourself. Doortje: Yeah, when you say that there are not many objective standards, but can there be objective standards like nationwide? Because of course the Social Cultural Planbureau tends to think this way. So would you like to defer on that? so yeah, yeah, so actually they're not here Giselinde: Actually, I did, I did a study 10 years ago where we showed people images of of men and women, bodies and faces. We asked them to sort these images, so then what happens is that I ask people to sort this and then you see that people agree more about men than about women, that's one of the things. So people agree more about men than about women. And then if you give people images of people that are sort of “okay looking”, then that so if you have the cutoff point. Doortje: How do you decide on people that are sort of okay looking? Giselinde: Oh with the team of people… there is quite a lot of taste variation in the Netherlands, like in Europe actually, the difference is mostly class. Doortje: So what can you tell me about these classes. Because, let me give you a small example. Just for my own line of work as a journalist, I do a lot of things, and I also make podcast. I make a podcast now for a big like European-wide producer and it's so funny always to look at the productions from other European countries. For example when I tend to record, I look like this or I don't know, when I take a picture I wear a shirt or whatever but not too showy you know because I feel like I’m a journalist or i want to look a little bit serious. But then when you look at the girls who host podcasts in Spain for example they have like shirts down to here, a lot of makeup, a lot of plastic surgery as well, showing it off. I feel like if I would do a podcast looking like this no one would- or maybe a different crowd…. This is so interesting because they are my colleagues actually in Spain, they do pretty much the same work, so it's so interesting to me that their appearance is so different from what we see here as professional looks. Giselinde: So there are differences between countries, so that's clear. But also here in the Netherlands, I would say there are differences not only between classes, but also you would say different sections of the same class. So for instance we're very close to the Zuidoost, which is where all the bankers and the finance people go, and you can so you can tell in the way that people groom themselves and style themselves, also the young men and women, you can see so they look really different from people that go to the VU. Which is like you know, five minutes’ walk, and it's the styling, so it's different. So it's really important to look good, people work really really hard to look good. But people will make very different decisions, which not only means that you select, so you have you know the advantage of having a specific look sort of biologically, physically by being in one place or the other, but also that some things are enhanced or downplayed. I think for sort of educated social science people, it's important you know, to look interesting and authentic and not like you care too much, and not overly feminine… So there is a very complicated code that we have to live by so that we have to show that we care but not too much and it has to be authentic. And that's one of the big differences in that there is like an understanding of beauty as looking, you know, better than normal so like everyday standards but better. And then you get the sort of sexy. But also, you know, people in the social science and the cultural sector, it has to be interesting and authentic and unique. Doortje: And this is also something you wrote, that people also tend to show their class by what they like and dislike when it comes to the way they look. So for example, I mean this is a very cliche example, but in the Netherlands we for example have places like Volendam for example and people, maybe you know Jan Smith the singer. And then people, women, who live there tend to do a lot of plastic surgery but they really are super proud of what they did to their face because they paid money for it. They put in the work and they want to show the world like “hey, I’ve done new fillers, you can see them right here”. But then exactly, for right here, maybe when you are a teacher at the VU, maybe people will take fillers, but they don't want people to see it. Giselinde: No, but so that's why cultural capital in a way is mean. So it's a nasty form of distinction, so in a way you could say if it's like real aesthetic capital and everybody agrees, it's also clear what you have to do, right? So if there is like a clear standard and everybody explains that, you know, you then have guidance if you want to be more beautiful. You know if anything, go to the cosmetic surgeon: you can all attain it because it's clear. And the interesting thing if you think about aesthetic capital not in the “Social Cultural Planbureau” way where it's like this clear code, that maybe it will cost you but if you fix your teeth, if you go to the right hairdresser then you're okay- but it's actually more complicated than that. And that's why social status is so complicated. Because you can work really hard if you're from lower social classes or if you're from Volendam and you're from a place that's away from this high status places, and you can work really hard and you will still not get it right. And I think that's why actually thinking about aesthetic capital, if you want to do it, you have to think it not only of this yard stick in a measurement and people are up and down, but it's a more complicated set of codes. Doortje: Well that's interesting, these codes, how do we come up with these codes, how are they invented if you could say like that? Or how are they manifested in society, and in different layers of society? Giselinde: It's a very complicated question, so partly these codes are of a very old European system that links to the European status system where there's always been sort of like an economic way of gaining status by becoming rich. And there have been cultural elites, cultural elites is the word that we use today. So cultural elites sort of say that beauty, anything that's aesthetically pleasing, should be more than just nice. So that's why you know, the standards that we have for beauty can be other than looking good. But then “better than average” which is for instance in women's magazines, it's also what you see in mainstream women's magazines, it's people that are good looking and better than you would see in real life on average, but not really different, larger than life. But then you would have the more highbrow places like Vogue, and there the models that are selected there are different, they're edgy, they're interesting, they’re a bit strange. It's the same code, where real beauty is about being a slightly different from normal, it's something that you have to learn to appreciate, it's like an acquired taste. This aesthetic logic actually pervades European societies. It's really interesting, I now work with people from other continents in my project and there this logic makes no sense. I have a PhD from China and I keep telling her, “no, no, it's really important that it has to be interesting and different and not everybody is supposed to like it” and in China the whole logic doesn’t make sense. But the European thing is that if you have good tastes, it has to be somehow an acquired taste that not everybody sees. Doortje: Is this European-wide? Giselnde: Yes, yeah. This is in Europe and you also see it to slightly smaller extent in North America and South America. So I also have someone working in Argentina and there it still works. But I now have people working on beauty also in Iran and in Ghana and in Hong Kong, and there this whole interesting, special thing is not accessible to everybody, it's just off. Doortje: And can you say something about a society, from what they say is the most beautiful face or person? Giselinde: Probably yes, but I think what it tells you most about the society is not the sort of national character thing. But it tells you more what people like. You have these instagram accounts, sort of viral things, this is the most beautiful in Iran and this is the most beautiful in… so I don't think there is much you can say about that. I think what beauty standards tell us most of all is the divides in a given society, so what people disagree about. I think if there is an index, that is interesting. So in the Netherlands, if you see that there is sort of class thing. And if you see that people agree more about men than about women, then it tells us something about how Dutch society sees gender and how that society is divided along class lines on the basis of tastes. Doortje: And what does it tell us? Giselinde: Well, first of all, it tells us that that the Netherlands is very much a class society, I think. And it's something that is not always visible because people like to believe that we're egalitarian. But you can see in appearance, I think everybody in the Netherlands can tell by appearance very very quickly, and in Belgium it's the same. So I think people are people are pretty good at decoding class backgrounds from appearance. And one of the ways is through the styling and grooming and the things that people do to look good. So I think looking back again at the example of Volendam, the Zuidoost and the VU, so there’s this threefold division of different ways that's cliché-wise or stereotypically people would have understand. Doortje: But do you feel like everyone can say of everyone to what class they belong? Giselinde: Yeah, people are pretty good at that yeah. Doortje: Because I would say like maybe if I would go to Volendam looking like this maybe people would be like “couldn't you have done a little bit of work on yourself, come on” Giselinde: That too, but it's double edged. There actually have been quite a few studies; people tend to be pretty good at decoding class even from images. Doortje: Do you know what they look at mostly? Giselinde: One of the very clear things which is not facial, is voice, I think voice is really important and accent. But I think people tend to understand physical cues and beauty styles quite well yeah. So they might recognize it as sloppy or grungy, or not very well cared for. Doortje: That's interesting, so you were saying the Netherlands is a class society, that is with the way we look at appearances. Is there anything more you can say of our society from the way we look at other people? Giselinde: Many things, so I think the gender thing but I think that's something you see everywhere in Europe. Doortje: The gender thing is interesting, with the gender thing, you mean for example the way we look at pictures from men and from women and then we tend to, yeah… Because this is something from your research that I found very interesting, that we have so much more words that we tend to use when describing the looks of a woman than for a man. For a man we can say “yeah he's handsome or he's ugly” or like something like that. Giselinde: People are very uncomfortable when they have to talk about the appearance of men. And so I think in Dutch and in most European languages actually, you can use the word beautiful for men and women. But in English even the word beauty or beautiful you can't really use for men so you're supposed to be handsome or good looking. So it's embedded in the language that men are not supposed to be beautiful in the same way. But interestingly so men, actually women, do see male appearance and they're pretty good at judging it, they just don't have the words, and they're uncomfortable. But so I told you about the project that I have now with all the people that look at the social inequality consequences. And interestingly most studies, so there are studies, when people look at CVs for instance or how people make more money or have a better chance of being hired or have more friends or all these things. So they benefit from their appearance in many different ways and overall it seems that actually good looking men benefit more from their appearance than good looking women. Doortje: Wow that's really interesting because women seem to be so much more accounted for their looks. For example there has been this study, you probably read it, it was published by The Economist that the thinner the woman, the higher the salary, and this does not correlate the same way for men. So a man can be obese and make the same. It's no difference, so this is very interesting. Giselinde: But overall this is a meta-analysis: so what happens is they look at all the studies and they look at the patterns and mostly, men benefit more. So one of one of the things is actually that women can be punished for looking too good, so it can work against them. There's something called the “bimbo effect” which is so “she is way too good looking; she must be stupid”. Because beauty is so gendered, it cues people to think of gender, so what happens when a woman is more good looking, people think like woman, woman, woman, and then they only see “woman”. And that cues a whole series of stereotypes and expectations that people have. So we know that men and women are judged very differently. Doortje: When a woman is beautiful, it's a beautiful woman, and when a man is beautiful he is still a doctor. Giselinde: Yeah exactly so that's what happens. It really alerts people to the gender. On average, so overall men have slightly more advantage from their looks, which is really unfair right. Doortje: Which is so unfair yeah because we are so much more judged on this. Giselinde: Yeah and women work so much harder, women spend more money, more time. Doortje: Well this is why I’m so interested in this area actually, the Zuidoost. A friend of mine also works here and she actually introduced me to a sport that I’m now very addicted to, it’s Rocycle, you have Rocycle here at Zuidoost. I must admit that I did pop into a Rocycle class before interviewing you out here just to sort of make the whole aesthetic capital thing very much alive in myself. But I think there's not a place where you can see the impact of aesthetic capital more than around here. Because this is what fascinates me when I used to go Rocycle a lot with my friend up here. If you like this subject you can also linger around this time around 6 o'clock in the evening, these offices, it's like looking at the nature film. Women tend to not walk fast, but run out of the office with a bag over their shoulder towards Rocycle, whatever you have here, Vondel gym, pop into this class work up a sweat like crazy and then go back to the office and work. And I always feel like I looked at this and felt like the men are just, they're still there working! So you just have to schedule out an hour probably because you feel like you have to sort of match a certain standard, but the men they are still billable, right? So who is winning here? They are they are sort of competing with this ideal aside from their actual work, so they have to do two things, they have to do both jobs, yeah Giselinde: So they have to be good at both to be taken seriously. Doortje: Exactly, and then they also get punished when they look too good. But this is what I wanted to ask you also when you talk about these codes. In the more elite brains of our class society, I feel like this is very true when you say you cannot look like you care too much, why is this you think? Giselinde: So partly it is because beauty is difficult right. It's also vein and it's superficial, so it's double-edged. So looking good is good, but spending too much time… So there was a much bigger taboo on working on your appearance, so there are lots of older sayings about vanity, that it's bad and that you're supposed to be punished for it, so vanity had a really bad name. There are also lots of old paintings of vein, mostly women, as one the capital, not the capital, just a sin. I think that taboo has really gone. It's really important to work on your appearance, but if you work too hard then you show that you care too much for something that is actually superficial. So it's a very complicated balance. And I think you see also in the interviews that we did, but also in everyday life, people tend to downplay what they do on their appearance. So you're not supposed to say or you go to the gym, but you don't go to the gym to look good, but you go to the gym because you want to stay shape or to feel good. So there are all sorts of ways in which you have to suggest that that it's not only about looking good because that is not authentic, not real, not good anyway. There is a whole lot of complicated moral judgments around it. So it's important to make it look effortless. So for instance also with food it's important to be thin or to not be too fat, but then the best possible way to be thin is to not do anything about it, so it just happens to you. Doortje: But this is puzzling to me, because I feel like we live in a society where we love hard work, we always tell each other how burned out we are, we have no time for fun, if you're not busy, you're a loser, right? So why is this not with the way we treat our looks? Giselinde: I think for a specific group of people this effortlessness is sort of the best way to make it look good. Even the hard work, so you have to complain, but it just happens and have this other job. So I think effortlessness in general is a signal of mastery, of being in control, it just happens to you, so you're not working too hard. So it's a way of being in control, and being in control, I think is a very important status signal. But I think it's also the other thing you said, what do we learn about Dutch society from our beauty standards, or about society in general. I think it's the importance of thinness signals the importance of a specific middle-class ethos where you want to show that you're in control. So your body signals that you are in control of your emotions and yourself and your impulses. But then it should be good to signal generally that effortlessness means that you don't have to work, so it's really you. So it's not something that you practiced or you trained, but it's entirely you. And I think that's also in the sort of neoliberal, post-modern, late modern culture. I think it has to be so the notion that it is authentic Doortje: You would call that neoliberal? Because I mean the core of neoliberalism is the idea that we can all be winners as long as we work hard, and I feel like the truth hidden in this is that you cannot be. Giselinde: No, no, of course, no, it's a lie, of course it's a lie. But I think in a way the aura of effortlessness also is part of the lie. Doortje: Maybe it's something to do with the idea of being deserving of your beauty? Giselinde: Yeah of course, if you try to hard, it's not real, so it should just happen to you. So like the Dutch saying: “it comes, so it just comes your way automatically” and that's like the ideal. So your appearance is the first thing that people see right, so what you communicate by how you look gives a very strong impression. That's why it has such strong effects on social inequality for instance. The ideal appearance is thin and white and young looking, even when you're older, but it should also be authentic and interesting and distinguishable from everybody else. It's like an impossible package of things Doortje: And this probably has become more because of social media, the way we are being visible all the time, is this something that you look at as well? Giselinde: So it's not only social media, it's not only the visible, it's also that the knowledge that we have about appearance has increased. So it depends on how many steps you want to go back, but if you think of 200 years ago, people had never seen pictures of themselves, people had no idea what they looked like most people didn't have mirrors. So until 200 years ago people had no idea what they looked like and especially no idea what they used to look like. So there were hardly any images of other people, so paintings were you know rare and very, very expensive. So if you were in a catholic country at least you could go to church but here with VU, no images at all so people had no idea. So apart from being seen all the time, I think what's really important is the knowledge we have of what other people look like, so what appearance can be, and the expanding of our understanding of beauty. So people like to point to social media, which is you know 10 years, maybe 15 years, but I think there is a much longer history of people getting to understand appearance and having an expanded knowledge. But also being trained to have a sort of critical eye to go to the cinema, to illustrated magazines and to looking at people, and having the role of consumers, of spectators of looking at someone else, being able to sit back, look and judge. I think that really predates social media. Doortje: I totally agree with you, we tend to look at social media like it’s the source of evil for everything but I do feel like it did enhance the things that were already happening. Giselinde: Yeah sure so there is a piling up of different developments including visual culture, media culture but also service society. So the fact that most of us now work in jobs, so if people work on a farm or in a factory, it doesn't really matter, but now in a service economy most people work with other people. So they work in a place where they are seen and where they see others, but also where part of the work they do is how they appear to others. Doortje: Do you know the company, I’m not sure if it still exists, but you used to have it 10 year ago. I wanted to work there so badly, but I I’m way too small, it's called Models at Work. I do feel like we have developed from that time, but it's so funny. For people that don't know it, it was a company where you could just hire, but all the people you could hire there for a day or so were super good looking. I feel like this is such an early 2000s kind of way of looking at aesthetic capital. Very honest, actually, more honest than I feel we are now, because you still have to look super good. Giselinde: Yeah, so you have to think about your appearance, but also not care too much, and that also means that we're very uncomfortable with talking about the consequences of this. And I think that's interesting, and that's one of the reasons that I like doing this research. The problem is because you're supposed to not care, and we also realize it's really unfair and also the fact that it probably amplifies existing inequalities rather than dampens, makes it even worse. Doortje: Of course we are thinking so much more, nationwide- in the whole world actually- about inclusivity, how can we maybe lessen these inequalities, is there a way to do this when it comes to aesthetic capital? Giselinde: So there are some philosophical discussions about the ethics, but more practically there are a number of things. So the economist who has actually started the study of aesthetic capital, his name is Daniel Hammermesh and he did a lot of studies, very pioneering in the 1990s, already showing that people on average seen as more good looking you know make more money, have better jobs have more friends. So because he's an American his solution was that less good looking people should be compensated financially, so that's one option. So another interesting thing is Brazil is the case that's often mentioned where plastic surgery was very early on part of the public health system. So basically was free for everybody, and the slogan was you have your right to be beautiful. So that's another way of thinking about this. So I use these examples a lot and everybody, people laugh and think it's ridiculous. Doortje: I mean you have to do something right, and if you look at the stats and you see the big influence. I do feel like it's a bit dystopian to think about it, but yeah if this would solve the problem then… Giselinde: So I'm not sure if it would. So there’s another slightly more realistic for instance which happens in some countries, to forbid the use of images in CVs. So I think the workplace is actually one of the places where you could think of actual measures because there very often it's really irrelevant and you could see that people benefit from it or are punished by something for that is maybe not relevant. But then there is the discussion so maybe sometimes it is relevant. So Abercrombie and Fitch I think is a really good example so the American clothing store where they selected people on good looks, so was very widely debated but you can make an argument that it helps to be good looking if you work in a clothing store. Doortje: This is also the point I made about Models At Work and the same goes with Abercrombie also a very good example. They actually did the selection quite the same as it is going on right now but at least they were super honest about it. And I do feel like a lot of hip clothing stores still select their people on their looks right. Giselinde: Yeah sure and in many places I would say the only real solution, so if you want to sort of start compensating people for their bad looks or punishing them for their good looks… So everything about this is sort, if you start thinking it through… And then only in the workplace or do you also want it to do in in everyday relations, so you know don't we want to stop dating apps. Doortje: Good looking person should have a relationship with a bad looking Giselinde: So that's the incel [Involuntary Celibate] solution right, so the good looking women should be sort of evenly divided across. So the only real solution I would say that makes any sense is to collectively understand that appearance is just not as important. So I think you cannot make an individual decision because it's so clear that collectively beauty is important so you can't as an individual you can't really distance yourself from it. Doortje: And it's maybe also important to stop seeing beauty as something that is individual or just a taste thing. If you see the numbers then it shows that certain standards just decide the way a person life is going. Giselinde: Exactly so you have to understand that people are unfairly punished or rewarded for something and we haven't even talked for instance about how this intersects with race which also is differently experienced as more or less beautiful. So it's a form of bias, it's a form of discrimination, and the solution for discrimination, apart from punishment is to collectively become aware of this and try to not naturalize it, see it as something that is just there and something that we should accept or something that's you know normal or the standard. But instead to sort of you know step back and try to not find beauty so important anymore. Doortje: Well and to actually acknowledge that it is a form of discrimination also, and to work on it from there. Thank you so much for this talk, I could go on talking to you for hours but I don't know if you all have the time for that, so thank you so much for now. Thank you guys for coming and well we'll be on with the next talk in half an hour thank you.