WHY DOES BEAUTY MATTER

WHY DOES BEAUTY MATTER ?

Beauty is only skin deep, we’re often told. Is it?

We may pretend that beauty is only skin deep, but Aristotle was right when he observed that, “Beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.” The sad truth is that attractive do better: in school, where they receive more help, better grades, and less punishment; at work, where they are rewarded with higher pay, more prestigious jobs, and faster promotions; in finding mates, where they tend to be in control of the relationship and make most of the decisions; and among strangers, who assume them to be more interesting, honest, virtuous, and successful.

After all, in fairy tales the heroes are handsome, the heroines are beautiful, and the bad people are ugly, and society restates that message in many subtle ways as we grow older. So perhaps it’s not surprising that handsome cadets at West Point achieve a higher rank by the time they graduate, or that a judge is more likely to give an attractive criminal a shorter sentence.

In a 1968 study conducted in the New York City prison system, men with scars, deformities, and other physical defects were divided into three groups. The first group received cosmetic surgery, the second intensive counseling and therapy, and the third no treatment at all. A year later, when researchers checked to see how the men were doing, they discovered that those who had received cosmetic surgery had adjusted the best and were less likely to return to prison.

In experiments in corporations, when different photographs were attached to the same resume, the more attractive person was hired. Pretty babies are treated better than homely ones, not just by strangers but by the babies’ parents as well. Mother snuggle, kiss, talk to, and play more with their babies if they are cute; and fathers of cute babies also are more involved with them.

Attractive children get higher grades on achievement tests, probably because their good looks fetch more praise and encouragement from adults. In a 1975 study, teachers were asked to evaluate the records of an 8-year-old had a low IQ and poor grades. Every teacher saw the same records, but to some a pretty child’s photo was attached, to others a homely child’s photo. The teachers were more likely to recommend that the homely child be sent to a class for retarded children.

Another study asked people to look at a photo of a man and a woman and to evaluate only the man. As it turned out, if the woman on the man’s arm was pretty, the man was thought to be more intelligent and successful than if the woman was unattractive.

Shocking as the results of these and similar experiments might be, they just confirm what we’ve known for ages: A woman’s face has always been to some extent a commodity. A beautiful women is often able to marry out of a lower class and poverty.

Handsome men do better as well, but for a man the real commodity is height.

One study followed the professional lives of 17,000 men. Those who were at least 6 feet tall did much better---- receive more money, were promoted faster, rose to more prestigious positions. I suppose that’s because tall men trigger childhood memories of looking up to authority. Only our parents and other adults were tall, and they had all the power to punish or protect, to give absolute love, to set our wishes in motion or block our hopes.

But the face has always attracted an admirer’s first glance---- especially the eyes, which can so smoldery and eloquent. In one fascinating study, when men were asked to look at photographs of pretty women, they greatly preferred pictures of women whose pupils are dilated, which in turn caused the men’s pupils to dilate as much as 30 percent.

Our pupils swell involuntarily when we are aroused or excited. Just seeing a dishy woman with swollen pupils signaled the men that she found them attractive, and that made their pupils begin a body-language tango in reply.

Of course, this is old news to women of the Italian Renaissance and Victorian England, who used to take belladonna (a poisonous plant in the nightshade family whose name means “beautiful woman”) to enlarge their pupils before they went out on a date.

Throughout the ages, people have emphasized their facial features with makeup. Archeologists have found evidence of Egyptian perfumeries and beauty parlors dating to B.C. and makeup paraphernalia that dates to 6000 B. C. The

ancient Egyptians preferred green eye shadow, which was topped with a glitter made from crushing the iridescent carapaces of certain beetles, kohl eyeliner and mascara, blue-black lipstick, red rouge, and fingers and feet stained red with henna. They shaved their eyebrows and drew in false ones.

Roman men adored cosmetics, and commanders had their hair coiffed and perfumed and their nails lacquered before they went into battle. A second-century Roman physician invented cold cream, whose formula has changed little since then.

We may remember from the Old Testament that it was Queen Jezebel who “painted her face” before embarking on her wicked ways, a fashion she learned from the high-toned Phoenicians around 850 B.C. In the 18th century, women were willing to eat Arsenic Complexion Wafers to make their skin whiter, which worked by poisoning the hemoglobin in the blood so that they developed a fragile, lunar whiteness. Rouges often contained such dangerous metals as lead and mercury.

Our ideal of a pretty face varies from culture to culture. A researcher at the University of Louisville recently surveyed U.S. college men and fed the results into a computer. What he discovered was that their ideal woman had wide cheekbones, eyes set high and wide apart, a smallish nose, high eyebrows, a small neat chin and a smile that occupied half of the face. On faces deemed “pretty,” each eye was one-fourteenth as high as the face and three-tenth the width of the face, the nose wasn’t more than 5 percent of the face, and the distance from the middle of the eye to the eyebrow was one-tenth the height of the face.

Superimpose the faces of many beautiful women onto those computer ratios, and you won’t find a matchup at all. What the geometry of beauty actually boils down to is a portrait of an ideal mother: a healthy young woman. A mother had to be fertile, healthy and energetic to protect her young and continue to bear lots of children---- many of whom might die in infancy. Men attracted to such women had a stronger chance of their genes surviving.

What do those of us who don’t fit the ideal do? Console ourselves with how relative beauty can be. Although it wins our first praise and the helpless gift of our attention, it can curdle before our eyes a matter of moments.

I remember seeing Omar Sharif in Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia and thinking him astoundingly handsome. But when I saw him being interviewed on television some months later, and heard him declare that his only interest in life was playing bridge, to my great amazement he was transformed before my eyes into an astoundingly unappealing man. Suddenly his eyes seemed rheumy, his chin stuck out too much, and none of the pieces of his anatomy fell together in the right proportions.

I’ve watched this alchemy work in reverse, too, when a not particularly attractive stranger opened his mouth to speak and became ravishing. Thank heavens for the arousing qualities of zest, intelligence, wit, curiosity, sweetness, passion, talent, and grace. Thank heavens that, although good looks may rally one’s attention, a lasting sense of a person’s beauty may reveal itself in stages. Thank heavens that, as Shakespeare put it in A Middle Summer Night’s Dream:

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”

Proverbs about beauty.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Beauty is as beauty does.”

“Fair face, foul heart.”

“Beauty opens locked doors.”

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

“The fairest rose at last is withered.”

“The joy of the heart makes the face fair.”

In small groups, make a list of jobs where being beautiful is necessary.

If you could choose for yourself, select the combination you would prefer.

A) an extraordinarily beautiful appearance and a very ordinary heart, OR

B) an extraordinarily kind and beautiful heart and a very ordinary appearance

Questions for discussion and writing:

1. Have you ever met someone who you initially thought was plain or

unattractive but who later became beautiful to you? What made this person attractive to you?

2. In your opinion, who is the most beautiful women or most handsome

man? What makes that person so attractive?

3. The author says that “our ideal of a pretty face varies from culture to

culture.” Can you think of any differences between the ideal of beauty in your culture and the ideal of another culture?

4. A number of movies have been made that deal with inner and outer

beauty. What is real beauty?

5. Describe your ideal boyfriend or girlfriend.

6. Do you think a beautiful woman is often able to marry out of a lower

class and poverty? Why or why not?

7. How many of you are in love?

8. Which is more important, inner beauty or outer beauty?

9. What is inner beauty made up of?

10. What unusual way have you noticed in your culture that people try to

make themselves beautiful?

11. Is beauty objective or subjective?