Pretty Girl

It used to irritate me during my mental health career that "people" (but keep reading), seemed more upset if death or a life ruined by mental illness happened to a pretty girl. Once I even said "Would it have been less tragic if she wasn't pretty?" Thinking it through over the years that this was part of a larger pattern of something valuable going to waste. If the person was smart, or a talented musician, or an athlete, similar comments might be made.  Youth was a powerful driver of this as well.  More was going to waste if fifty years were being lost than twenty. The time schedules worked in reverse directions depending on the quality being wasted.  Intelligence and music lost were regarded as tragic because of what could have been; beauty and athletic ability (or perhaps dance, charm) were something that was being lost today.

James Dobson in the late eighties or early nineties pointed out that beauty and intelligence were the gold coin of worth and silver coin of worth for boys and girls. Though first and second place were switched for the sexes, they were still the top two spots for each, and he saw the gap narrowing. I thought that was true at the time because I had children and heard what people said.  I don't have an update whether the gap has narrowed further or not, because I am no longer in a front row seat on that. 

There may have been some "babies lost for the tribe" aspect, because younger women are regarded as prettier, but I don't know how to measure that even approximately.

Yet because I have long been annoyed at others about this my shame was greater when the Minnesota representative was killed and I thought "Oh and she was a pretty woman, what a pity." We do not live up to our own values.