The Difference Between Girl Pretty And Hot—And Why Women Care About The Difference

Much of this discussion boils down to what we have naturally and what we don’t, which means, genetically, some are luckier than others. But unsurprisingly, much of it also comes down to science. Science tells us that we naturally prefer more symmetrical face shapes to others, and certain beauty standards will always be popular and remain appealing – despite the best efforts of the body positivity movement.

Scientific and anthropological norms continue to influence what we find beautiful, but instinctually, there’s also a reason why we both fear and envy hot women. This is often approached from a male standpoint, but let’s explore it from a purely female perspective. If you’ve ever wondered about the difference between being pretty and being hot, read on.

Girl Pretty Defined

Let’s take labels like beautiful and hot off the table for a moment. What makes someone pretty? Most women feel flattered to have their friends call them pretty, but might feel disappointed if their boyfriend were to call them pretty, instead of beautiful or gorgeous. Perhaps that’s because “pretty” as a concept is an inherently feminine creation.

Months ago, those of us who are chronically online were shocked to learn about the existence of four different pretty archetypes: cat, bunny, deer, and fox. This breakdown was originally posited by an X user who illustrated her logic with corresponding photos, and looking at the evidence, it’s hard to disagree with the hypothesis. Women who are cat pretty often have smaller facial features and sharp, piercing eyes. Those with deer features usually have large, round eyes and longer faces. Bunny pretty possesses features like round cheeks and slimmer noses, and fox pretty includes sharper lines, defined jawbones, and higher cheekbones.

Many of us would agree that being pretty is to be conventionally attractive. Perhaps there’s nothing model-worthy about your features, but you’re pleasant to look at and you wear your features very well. We tend to associate basic archetypes with prettiness, like the girl next door or the protagonist in a teen rom-com. She may not be as sexy as the female antagonist opposite her, but both her personality and her looks combined make her the total package. These are the Taylor Swifts, Alix Earles, Hilary Duffs, Zendayas, and Amanda Bynes of the world. Not only do we think they’re attractive, but we’d like to be friends with them.

What’s also important is that most of us would describe our girlfriends and female family members as pretty, and for good reason. Science says that familiarity is appealing to us, meaning that features we see continuously are attractive to us. This makes sense from a logical standpoint because, even in the pre-civilization age, the first humans knew that familiar faces were safe and trustworthy to them. Due to that natural proclivity, it’s practically coded into our genes to feel pulled toward women who are both conventionally attractive and familiar looking.

When it comes to how we pick and choose our friends, this kind of physical standard is something we take into account whether we realize it or not. While it’s not impossible to be friends with a woman who is way out of your league appearance-wise, our friend groups tend to be organized based on attractiveness or similarity. Women want pretty friends because we also want nice friends, and the two qualities are often associated.

In today’s parlance, this is also what’s known as being a “girl’s girl.” This term was used explicitly during the recent Ariana Grande scandal. Grande is rumored to have broken up the marriage of her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater and his wife and high school sweetheart, Lilly Jay. In a statement released to the press, Jay explained how her family has been caught up in a whirlwind of speculation and turmoil, and specifically lobbed the blame at Grande, claiming she was “not a girl’s girl.” While the men around us probably weren't all that impressed by this, most women recognized this immediately as the worst insult you could throw at another woman. But why? We'll get into that, but first, we need to talk about hotness.

What Makes a Woman Hot?

Maybe we can’t define what it means to be hot outright, but we definitely know it when we see it. Hot women generally possess a smoldering sensuality, which they heighten with their confident attitude and manner of dress. They’re effortlessly sexy, appealing to the men around them, and intimidating to other women.

We know by now that there’s a set of features that separates being hot from being pretty. Hotness is often characterized by proportionalism and desirable traits, like high brow bones, high cheekbones, and what are called balanced thirds, which means, viewing your face horizontally cut into thirds, that your forehead, nose, and chin would all ideally be equally proportional to one another.

The golden ratio, which originated in ancient Greece as a mathematical formulation, includes different proportions that formulaically produce the most aesthetically pleasing result. This ratio is often referenced in conversations about beauty, and according to both mathematicians and cosmetic surgeons, the face that most accurately represents this formula is celebrity Amber Heard.

Heard isn’t the only actor who embodies mathematically correct beauty, though. A facial mapping technician, who uses technology to reconstruct the faces of criminals, conducted an experiment in which he encouraged participants to design the face they would call “the epitome of beauty.” The technician found that the female face most closely aligned with what the participants designed was Natalie Portman.

Hot women may be naturally gifted, but their attractiveness is more associated with selfish behavior than their pretty counterparts. One study discovered that because of their physical advantages, people more attractive than their mainstream counterparts believe they’re entitled to behave more selfishly. Because of the social value they attribute to their looks, they believe that what they contribute physically correlates to bargaining power in their relationships, along with the idea that their selfishness is warranted because they’re healthier, stronger, and better looking.

These are the Megan Foxs, Scarlett Johanssons, and Sydney Sweeneys of the world.

So, back to the concept of the “girl’s girl.” Hot women are the envy of females everywhere. Men want to seduce them and women want to be them, but would we ever describe the hottest woman we know as a girl’s girl?

We Befriend Our Equals, but Not Our Rivals

All of us have a girl’s girl in our lives, and we’d hope that they’d say the same for us. The girl’s girl is the ride-or-die person who has your back, no matter what. She isn’t affected by interests potentially coming between the two of you, like a guy or a promotion at work. She’s truly selfless. She’d get the cat hair off your dress and wipe the lipstick from your teeth if necessary. She’s honest but loyal.

We befriend pretty women partly because they’re familiar and partly because we don’t see them as competition. But when it comes to hot women – like Ariana Grande, for example – we often can’t depend on them to be a girl’s girl. And if the rumors are to be believed, we shouldn’t.

Perhaps disappointingly, it all comes down to men. This dilemma is less of a problem when you’re married, but if you’re single and in the dating scene, you need a girl’s girl by your side to help you tackle the challenge. If our friend is pretty, we wouldn’t expect her to backstab us or text the ex we’re hung up about. But when it comes to a friend who’s hotter than us, that’s another story.

Women compete for men, and we need to. Female rivalry dates back to evolution and fighting over shelter, food, and who we get to procreate with. If dating is purely a numbers game, then good men are being snatched up by the Amber Heards of the world left and right. We befriend the women we don’t see as our competition – i.e., the pretty women. But deep down, we know we’re competing with the hot women, our rivals.

But economists, psychologists, and dating experts are quick to debunk this tactic. In reality, it adds up to nothing more than a prisoner’s dilemma, or a situation wherein a pretty girl and a hot girl both compete against one another to find a man – only to realize that neither of them will back down, and they both end up losing out on the potential mate they could’ve snagged. They’re so busy fighting against one another that they’re ill-equipped to actually pay attention to the man in front of them, and in the clash of pretty versus hot, it winds up being a draw.

The solution to this is to be self-aware, yes, but self-aware enough to know that another woman’s attractiveness – no matter how hot she may be – doesn’t impact or change anything about our level of attractiveness or our dating success. And more than that, especially in the dating scene as a woman, it’s always preferable to have more friends than enemies.

Closing Thoughts

You can be pretty, hot, or the most stunning creature on earth. But if you’re not a girl’s girl, you might find yourself with few friends. There’s only so much we can do about our attractiveness from an appearance standpoint. But when it comes to growing our beauty on the inside, that’s definitely something we can work on. 

Support our cause and help women reclaim their femininity by subscribing today.