perhaps we’re thinking of different types of people here (I can’t think of any working writer I’ve read who would earnestly refer to themselves a “hot girl writer”, so I could just be out of the loop) but whenever people make this criticism i feel a bit like it’s wishful thinking! I do know many writers who care about their looks or abt curating their public/online image, some of whom have been called “hot girls”/”it girls”/ etc by the press. no matter how you feel about that (HERE ARE SOME HONEST FEELINGS I’VE HAD ABOUT IT: jealousy, annoyance, insecurity, self-righteousness, neutrality, earnest positivity), many of them produce phenomenal work that is valued by many. they just do! some of them even use the pursuit of beauty, a practice almost all of us are complicit in, as fuel for interesting and incisive work… obviously I have always agreed with the central critique here the many times its been raised — the beauty standard is oppressive, and its tragic and disgusting that women especially feel the pressure to conform to it in order to produce intellectual work — so its frustrating that sometimes it seems to devolve into this weird morality play where we hope girl writers dumb enough to fall to the sin of vanity are secretly overcompensating for being less talented or are losing talent in the process. sorry but its just not true