BBC 100 Women Debate

The following programme was recorded live, earlier today.

Are beautiful women more likely to succeed?

Hello and welcome to the BBC's 100 Women debates.

We are live on BBC World News and BBC.com.

The event we're holding is one of many debates.

We have more than 150 groups in more than 50 countries, spanning the

From Armenia to Chile to Uganda, they are discussing the same

Women are gathering here in the capital.

And here, the women of Kingston, Jamaica, who are staging

All their thoughts and comments are coming to our hub

The team are collecting the messages and photos and we would

Send your thoughts and photos to pages on Facebook,

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Are beautiful women more likely to succeed?

Let's turn to our guest, Dr Catherine Hakim.

It is not what I think, it is what research evidence shows.

They are more likely to be remembered.

People remember them in a positive way.

In my book I show they earn between 10% and 20% more on average.

But, unfortunately, evidence shows men earn more from being attractive.

They earn on average 17% more, whereas women earn only 12% more.

In my book I explore the reasons why women aren't exploiting their

attractiveness in the same way men are exploiting their attractiveness.

I also explore the reasons why it is more important in the 21st century

I also show attractiveness, which is a combination of physical and social

attractiveness leads people to be successful in life to

So far we have always emphasised qualifications.

Not only do you say scientific evidence supports it, you are saying

we are not using it enough as women as a resource for our benefit.

I would like to get the rest of the room to respond.

Beautiful women, beautiful people are more successful.

Scientific evidence says they earn more.

Far from me to dispute any academic references.

I work in the real world, with thousands of women through what

And I would say our wit and wisdom should prevail.

I think we are seeing more and more radiant, clever,

--brilliant, intelligent women across platforms in politics, public

I'd like to think whether there is evidence that proves this we are

In the comedy world, it is not always the pretty boys who

There is a well-known phrase that an ugly man can laugh a woman into bed.

Why would it always matter about what you look like?

Anita Corbin, you are a photographer.

Beauty, as we look at it, is seen through the lens of the camera.

I have been a photographer for over 35 years.

I have been involved in photographing women and men.

Towards my 50th birthday I thought I wanted to leave a legacy of images

that would be an alternative to the mainstream image of women.

I started to photograph my 100 women firsts.

Women who have been first in their field in the last 50 years

mainly, but over the last decade, I have been photographing and this

She is a first woman to be world champion beatboxer. To me

as a photographer I want to create a legacy of images of real women

that young women and men can look at and say, how about this?

When you say real women, are these two opposing concepts, real women,

I think what we failed to define is what beauty is.

If you look at how beauty is defined around the world,

We would need more than half an hour.

That tells me if beauty definitions differ geographically, it tells me

It is my observation that women who feel beautiful regardless of

their attractiveness or my judgment, women who feel beautiful feel more

entitled to things, whether that is promotion, a pay rise, to be loved

the right way in a relationship, it is all

Is it entitlement or is it confidence?

I have been a celebrity stylist and I wanted to touch

on the real women thing, because I find it a difficult term.

I have been involved in creating the fantasy woman, the woman in images,

which I think we refer to as the not real woman versus us in real life.

The women in images, while they are human, they are not real.

There is a team to create this fantasy around them.

Does that mean you were involved in distorting the image of beauty?

I stopped because retouching got to a point where it was no longer

creating a fantasy image, it was about creating a distorted view

A narrow and blinkered view of what a woman should look like and I got

There is a definite idea of what they should looked like

Dr Linda Papadopoulos, interesting about the image

You have a long experience in plastic surgery and that is what

a lot of people go to to maintain that image or even to achieve

It is interesting because if you look at the research around

what is beautiful you are right, almost everything is socially

constructed except for facial symmetry, which is something innate

Everything else, the colour of my skin...

We've spent billions of pounds tanning here, they spend

billions in Asia making their skin whiter.

How big your bottom how small your bottom is, how tall.

The rest is socially constructed and it is across time, countries,

What I do find interesting is your comment earlier about people

While there is a lot of research that attests to that

what is interesting is what that means

One of the most telling surveys came at Pennsylvania.

Where a study has shown tall men make

What actually matters is not your height at 30, it is your height at

16 that is most indicative of what you will make later because at 16,

if I'm that tall kid at school I am doing better sport, probably going

Suddenly I feel more competent and confident.

While there are separate factors there is an interactional effect

and for people I think this is one of the most significant things.

Let me get Charli Howard into the conversation.

Myself included, we all think we can be a model at some point.

The reason I wanted to do this and many others I know is because I grew

up with magazines, teenage fashion magazines, women fashion magazines

and they told me that people like you in those magazines are the women

I should want to aspire to look like. How did that affect your life?

Did you find you were more successful in your career because

I grew up also wishing I looked like the girls in magazines, the models.

It was the size zero trend that was the highlight when I was younger.

I have friends that are proof that because you are

beautiful does not necessarily mean you are successful.

There are billions, not billions, maybe hundreds of thousands

Actresses, models, singers, but they do not do that well.

I think it boils down to the line of work you go into.

In terms of women not exploiting their beauty enough to get further

ahead, I think it boils down to confidence and there are tons of

women I know who are plain, average looking women, who are so confident

Those are the women I aspire to be, certainly with age.

Is it more about confidence than beauty?

I would definitely say it is down to confidence.

What is beautiful to you might not be beautiful to me.

I have seen women that other women have said is beautiful and then she

reacts in a certain way and she becomes ugly to me. Interesting you

should make that point we have a tweet who says beautiful women are

asked to show extra evidence of competence and intelligence and it

means if you are beautiful, you are almost instantly seen as not very

intelligent. You are a photographer? I am, and I have seen

a lot of beautiful women. I would say people who stand in front of the

camera, after they open their heart and soul and become natural, they

started to be beautiful. It is more important than being confident, or

probably even the same. Is it how the camera sees them? We hear the

story the camera loves you, which means what? There is a proverb,

beauty is in the eyes of the 1 who sees. Beauty is in the eye of the

beholder. I was trying to translate from Ukrainian. Probably that is the

answer. As an image maker, women's faces, we turn something from

three-dimensional, and none of us see ourselves as 3D because we look

at the mirror and 20 photograph someone you take something that is

3D into two-dimensional. There are faces better looking in a camera. We

do not get to see beauty and faces in magazines in 3D. You deal with a

different... Not a different, aimed other kind of beauty. You are in the

Muslim fashion industry. Modest fashion is what we promote. I am

listening and unfortunately, in today's world, the media takes this

make up, imagery. A lot of young women are on Instagram, social

media, they say I want to be like that, false eyelashes, and you are

right, a lot of it is orchestrated. For us, we are in the clothing

industry. We try... Our aim is to give women confidence. It does not

matter how skinny you are, how big, what you look like. If you dress

well you look good. I have noticed in research, you will be happy to

know I have done a lot of research on beauty blogging and fashion

blogging and it is a whole world for young people. For example, in the

modest fashion industry there are women who are extremely glamorous.

As an average Muslim woman, you cannot possibly have your head down

like that your headscarf in a certain way. It is also not

attainable. Not at all. Just because you are Muslim does not mean you

cannot dress up and look good. The younger generation today, they are

happy within themselves to where the hijab. Just because you are covered

does not mean you cannot look good. You have people blogging, they are

all over Instagram. They are giving that confidence. How far you wish to

go is an individual choice. Really, it is to give young girls

confidence. Unfortunately, the media betrays that you are suppressed, you

cannot wear what you want. It is not like that. It does not matter how

you look, what religion you are, you can dress in a modest way and look

good. You wanted to add something? I am not sure who said about make up.

As a make-up artist, I think at this point things are changing. In my

industry anyway, I do mostly brides and I'd tell them to send an image

they do not like and they say I do not want to look photo shopped

walking down the aisle. I want my husband to see, that is my wife. I

am not sure what is going on but there has been a turnaround with the

sort of women I have been meeting lately. I am keen to hear what the

younger ones have to say. We are keen to hear from the students at

the back. We heard about the fashion industry and image and also about

image online. Who is on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook? Tell me

how important it is for you to keep a certain image not just in real

life but online? I am 15. I think it is important but also creating an

image online can be extremely dangerous, you make yourself feel

worse because you are not the person you are presenting, it is a false

persona you cannot live up to. Do you feel under pressure to have that

online persona? I do because anyone can see what you put online and see

what you look like. I feel the pressure but I feel more myself,

presenting myself. We have people from the fashion industry,

photographers, stylists, do you take your cue from fashion magazines,

from what you see on TV? I personally take my inspiration from

social media, the way I dress, how other people dress in real life.

People blogging. I think that is why they are so big at the minute,

because they are not dressed up by other people, they are real and that

is how they starve themselves. Many bloggers, they aren't given staff

and work with stylists and make-up artist, so it is another layer of

fakery, per -- perhaps not girls your rage but other beauty bloggers

do. Before you go out do you feel you have to to wear make up, get

your hair a certain way? Why is that? I think if you go out, and you

have not done make up or how, sometimes people perceive that as

you have not made an effort and you will be seen as lazy and people

think you do not want to be there or something. Do you feel people react

to you differently when you do not wear make up? If you go out and you

have done your make up, you may get comments, oh, that looks nice,

things like that. If you were to go at natural you would not receive

comments. No attention? Nobody notices that, they only notice when

you have done something. Then you think, if people are going to notice

me... It is good to wear make up because that shows you up and you

should be noticed for who you are as a real person. We can get somebody

from Elle magazine and I am interested to hear what you say

about the fashion industry and fashion magazines and what they have

is to contribute. We have young girls who feel they have to look a

certain way, to be a certain way to get attention, is that what you

said? To get attention, to get a certain message? Is that what the

beauty industry is telling us? I am sorry, she is not there. Anita

Corbin, you have done both things. You have photographed beautiful,

glamorous women and real women. I am a portrait photographer, but what

you said is the beauty industry is a business and has two cell and image

that we are supposed to aspire to. The girls over there look fantastic

in their natural state, to me, but the pressures of society and anger

seems and imagery around us all the time... There is an amazing

statistic that more photographs have been taken in the past year than in

the history of photography. Photographs or selfies? OK, images.

We have two step outside of what is presented to us and create our own

identity and be ourselves and as a photographer, what you say is

right, when women are themselves and show their heart and soul, that is

beautiful. I am keen to hear from everyone. Is it because we are

taking so many pictures of ourselves we have this obsession with

appearance? I started my career 30 years ago, longer actually, in

women's magazines and we did not have these pressures. Now it has

become crazy. I think we should concentrate more on what we have

inside, how we can communicate. Try talking to each other. On that

point, this has been a debate of what is on the inside and outside.

What is on the outside has proven time and again that it works and

gets you somewhere. I have done research where data has been

collected on large national surveys where all they had available on

and females was basically a photograph taken at the age of 18

and we basically tracked how this rating... Six people, three men and

women, who randomly rated these people for attractiveness and there

was a high correspondence between the ratings, a correlation of 90%,

say pretty much every rating was hitting the right spot. I think they

had 11 rating points tracked the women and men's careers,

you could see at every stage of their career, they would achieve on

average higher occupational prestige. Holly. As with many

things, it is a double edged sword. Society is obsessed with women's

appearance and youth and beauty and perfection and then condemns us for

being excessive and narcissistic for taking pictures of ourselves and

making an effort. You cannot win. You have caught me on a resentful

day. In August I was given a role advising the government and prior to

that everybody was like, you are a maverick, you do not look like

authority figures, that is great. As soon as I was given a position of

authority, people found it hard to accept because I do not wear a suit

and have a Margaret Thatcher haircut. It is also the image of

authority. It is about things that contribute to success.

Confidence is important, how you dress and present yourself is

important, but in addition, attractiveness matters and the

interesting thing, the point made more photographs have been taken in

the past year than throughout history, throughout history most

people were invisible, they were names at best, even the sons and

daughters of kings were names. We did not see them. We see people on

TV, Facebook in photographs, so we are more visible than before. And

attractiveness matters more. It is not something we can argue about, it

is a fact of life in the 21st century. I want to go back to the

students. I am curious, now that everybody is on social media, how

much time and money do you spend perfecting your image? Oh, God. I

think before you go for a night out, if you want a good photo to put on

there and show everyone how you look before you go out instead of as if

you are going to school, when you would not care so much about your

appearance because you are with people you know but on Instagram,

other people can see it, it can come up on Instagrams of people you do

not know. I spend some amount. I tried to make sure the person I am

presenting on social media is who I am in real life because you have to

be careful. Like you said, people will not know you in real life. You

need to make sure what they are seeing is who you are. I will give

the last word to you. You would rather want a positive feedback and

positive image rather than a -1. I think that is why a lot of people

are obsessed, we are not really obsessed, that is how we want to see

other people and ourselves. Doctor Linda Papadopoulos, go ahead. The

online world has a lot to answer for. We have an amplified

self-awareness, we are like mini celebrities without a great wardrobe

and limousine. The second thing is that because everyone can give their

opinion, suddenly everyone's opinion matters. When I grew up it was not

the case and because of that... And important, we are not just taking

more photographs, we are editing them. That is an exercise in body

image. You can see more on the website.

Good evening the first day is the day if the meteorological