HSS: Beauty and Inequality: Beauty Standards and Social Divides in Five European Countries

How does physical beauty contribute to social inequality? This article analyzes social differences in the evaluation of the beauty of female and male faces and bodies in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK. Combining Q-methodology and open interviews (N = 150), it presents a quantifiable comparative measurement of ‘beauty tastes’, and a qualitative analysis of the underlying ‘repertoires of evaluation’. The analysis reveals three distinct mechanisms by which beauty standards support and reinforce social inequalities. First: beauty itself functions as a form of aesthetic capital: people who are considered more beautiful benefit from this in many other domains of life. This is especially clear in the case of bodily beauty, because here, standards are widely shared. Second: beauty tastes functions as form of cultural capital. Beauty standards vary across people, and these variations are linked to social background. Thus, the tastes of people with more social status become more valuable. Third: beauty standards resonate with existing social classifications of people, for instance across lines of race and gender. Through this ‘classificatory power’ beauty standards may work against some groups, even when these standards lead to positive evaluations.  In the conclusion of this talk, I will discuss how this research design, and the theoretical mechanisms described, may be transferred to a non-European setting, such as Singapore.