An old, but still interesting, look at why being beautiful is important:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/business/worldbusiness/06iht-beauty.html?_r=0

Beauty is rewarded in the job market.

Everyone looks great when they smile and are happy, it is an instant upgrade to your looks. I am always amazed at how much attention I get when I smile at people. I am not that good looking BTW.

The importance of beauty is due to evolution. People want healthy children.

So I don't think it's necessarily sad or bad that beauty is important. For most people - they can improve their appearances greatly by living a healthy lifestyle - i.e. eating right, going to the gym, and taking care of their skin.

For me personally - what's bad or sad is when people have only their beauty going for them (i.e. they are otherwise awful people) and/or the beauty is super fake.

Anonymous wrote:It's not important to me. But I was never pretty. I've even had homeless people call me ugly. So I guess I grew up with the mindset that the competition or game was for other girls/women, and not for me. I have never been qualified to compete.

Even when I do everything I know how to do to look pretty, I still look ugly.

I'm so sorry that happened to you. I had a homeless woman call me "ugly" the other day when she asked me for $$ and I didn't have any $$ to give her. Regardless of her circumstances, she was ugly in her heart.

People who call other people ugly are the ugliest people in the world.

(Sorry, Streisand!)

Anonymous wrote:

C'mon, because humans are social animals, and a woman's beauty is what society values most about her. Not hard to understand. However unfortunate, the preoccupation with beauty is completely rational.

Are you male or female? Either way, this is an awful statement to make.

How is the statement awful? Society's values are awful perhaps, but I am hardly endorsing them. But I think it far better to acknowledge the pressure women face than to pretend women's concern with beauty is irrational. Otherwise women get punished for caring (shallow, narcissistic, slutty!) or punished for not caring (ugly, sloppy, let herself go!)

True. See "my wife is getting really fat" thread. Or "why do women always wear yoga pants" thread. Or any thread that denigrates women for not conforming to societal beauty standards.

Men care about looking good, too.

Anonymous wrote:Why do we keep perpetuating this standard? Why can't we as a society place less importance on a woman's physical beauty and focus on her intelligence and accomplishments?

Because then the patriarchy would crumble.

Anonymous wrote:Because it's important to society.

huh?

Anonymous wrote:Why do we keep perpetuating this standard? Why can't we as a society place less importance on a woman's physical beauty and focus on her intelligence and accomplishments?

Can you imagine what women could accomplish if they used all the energy and brain power and effort they put into putting together outfits; obsessing over lathering their face with products and scrutinizing their faces in the mirror for wrinkles and focused instead on solving math problems, understanding geopolitics and curing cancer?

Anonymous wrote:

C'mon, because humans are social animals, and a woman's beauty is what society values most about her. Not hard to understand. However unfortunate, the preoccupation with beauty is completely rational.

Are you male or female? Either way, this is an awful statement to make.

How is the statement awful? Society's values are awful perhaps, but I am hardly endorsing them. But I think it far better to acknowledge the pressure women face than to pretend women's concern with beauty is irrational. Otherwise women get punished for caring (shallow, narcissistic, slutty!) or punished for not caring (ugly, sloppy, let herself go!)

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not important to me. But I was never pretty. I've even had homeless people call me ugly. So I guess I grew up with the mindset that the competition or game was for other girls/women, and not for me. I have never been qualified to compete.

Even when I do everything I know how to do to look pretty, I still look ugly.

I hear you, sister. I've never had a homeless person call me ugly, but I've seen other women get free things or a have a guy buy her drinks (or the bartender give her a drink) right in front of me.

Yep. I don't relate to other women a lot of times. No guy has ever bought me a drink. Nobody has ever stopped me on the street to say I'm beautiful. I had to adopt because I've never had a boyfriend. No girl/woman has ever been jealous of me.

My daughter takes selfies sometimes, while making really ugly faces. I recently realized she can do that because she knows in her core that she's beautiful and she doesn't look ugly. As an ugly person, I would NEVER make an ugly face purposely in a picture because that's how I look naturally. I look forward to getting old, when the pretty people will lose their looks and we'll be on an equal playing field looks-wise. I won't be the ugly one anymore.

It's important to me to keep my looks as long as I can by exercising and eating reasonably well. I never do my hair or make-up because I think I look good without it, so I might not be who you are talking about.

C'mon, because humans are social animals, and a woman's beauty is what society values most about her. Not hard to understand. However unfortunate, the preoccupation with beauty is completely rational.

Are you male or female? Either way, this is an awful statement to make.

How is the statement awful? Society's values are awful perhaps, but I am hardly endorsing them. But I think it far better to acknowledge the pressure women face than to pretend women's concern with beauty is irrational. Otherwise women get punished for caring (shallow, narcissistic, slutty!) or punished for not caring (ugly, sloppy, let herself go!)

Why do we keep perpetuating this standard? Why can't we as a society place less importance on a woman's physical beauty and focus on her intelligence and accomplishments?

I saw this on Pinterest a while ago, and it kind of stuck.