Emily Ratajkowski’s right, you can obviously be sexy and intelligent at the same time

Picture any rom-com, any at all, and I will guarantee you that there will be a handsome, smart, well dressed male who has a good job as the lead role. He will be seen at the most perfect and desirable male. Nobody will ask whether he’s all about looks, or say “yeah he’s intelligent, but not that fit though eh”. So why is it different for girls?

Emily Ratajkowski, perhaps best known for her role in the Blurred Lines video, sees herself as one of the many women who can be – shocking I know – intelligent and sexy. But when she aired her political opinions on social media she was branded a “desperate attention whore”.

Brains and Beauty

In Emily’s essay for this month’s Glamour Magazine she discusses the amount of hate she got for having a political opinion after publicising her support for Bernie Sanders, sparking a wave of hateful comments like: “excess of beauty and a lack of brain” and “shut up and show us your tits”. Just because her job is a model and an actress it does not mean that she is not allowed an opinion. Your career should not affect how important your opinion is.

However Emily also points out how it’s not just men that do the degrading, it’s women too. “Think about how many times you’ve heard a woman say about another woman, ‘Oh, she’s just doing that for attention’. We’ve internalized this trope.” Internalising the trope is something we’re all guilty of – women make the same assumptions as men when it comes to intelligence and beauty, it’s programmed into people’s thought that sexualised women don’t have valid opinions, simply because of how they look.

It’s unfortunately just one of the conflicting standards placed on women today – be sexy, but don’t be a bimbo.

It sounds overtly simple, but it’s worth noting plainly: there is nothing biological stopping women from having both good looks and intelligence, so why can’t women who want to be sexy be taken seriously? Once a woman is seen in a sexual manner does it mean that she will no longer be seen as an intelligent women? Nobody tells Zac Efron to pipe down if he is discussing something that he cares about, just because he looks great with his top off.

Just because a women has a high level of intelligence doesn’t mean that they are not allowed to be interested in fashion or beauty.  A lot of the time people associate fashion and beauty with a way of impressing others, and this is why I think intelligent people aren’t allowed to display these traits because it is seen as shallow and not what intellectuals do.

I consider myself an intelligent person. But I also own nice clothes and designer handbags because they make me happy. Emily’s Instagrams, choice of job or topless pics don’t make her any less intelligence, just as my appearance doesn’t make my opinions less valid.

How are we still attacking people for thinking the two can co-exist?