Why Do Smart Women Care About Beauty?

We are a looks obsessed group of people, let's face it. In an effort to come to a better understanding as to why "smart" women still care about their looks, I, together with a near sell-out audience of predominantly female and, for the most part, well-dressed New Yorkers, attended a meeting of the minds last month at NYC's 92nd Street Y.

The talented, multi-faceted panel was moderated by Dr. Gail Saltz an associate professor of psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University who appears regularly on NBC's Today Show, and included uber-beauty Alex Kuczynski, who writes the Critical Shopper column for The New York Times and the author of Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession with Plastic Surgery about our craving and obsession for beauty at any cost, Caroline Weberan associate professor of French at Barnard College and Columbia and author of Queen of Fashion: What Marie-Antoinette Wore to the Revolution and Jami Bernard, an author, film critic and breast cancer survivor who's seven books include The Incredible Shrinking Critic which chronicles her effort to lose 75 pounds and Toni Bentley, a former dancer with the New York City Ballet, whose five books include The Surrender, An Erotic Memoir

Dr. Saltz kicked off the discussion by informing us that studies show that beautiful people move ahead (presumably in their careers) faster and that attractive individuals who keep a picture in their wallet are more likely than unattractive people to have their wallets returned when lost. Funny Jami suggested everyone put someone else's picture, an attractive someone else, in their wallet, thereby ensuring they'd have their wallet returned if lost. And as for preferential treatment, I recently overheard a man who admitted that he only hires "pretty" babysitters because he believes that his children will be treated favorably when/if they are out with the good-looking care-giver. In the babysitter case, the good looker got the job over the not good-looking one and he or she gets better service. Never mind a parent having someone attractive to ogle over.

And whether, as the panel subsequently discussed, looks matter for biological reasons in order to attract a mate and procreate (Jami and Toni), or historically as evidenced via Marie Antoinette's "unqueenly" glamorous attire which had an impact on France as a nation (Caroline), or driven, (Alex), by the plastic surgery industry where, for a fee, our skin's surface and body's shape can be tweaked and made to resemble the look of the day, there was consensus. The media, the fashion and the beauty industries fuel our hunger to look and therefore, "feel" good.

It's no secret that the way an individual presents him or herself speaks oodles about their lot in life. A Madison Avenue fur clad maven, a downtown hipster's tattoo and the mid-western farmer dressed in Lee jeans might be frowned upon in different settings. Fortunately, times have changed since Marie Antoinette's reign and we are not beheaded for power dressing. To that end, I hadn't lived in New York for more than a week before I made an appointment with a personal shopper in an effort to ditch my yoga clothes and transform myself into the new New Yorker I'd become. We are what we wear and as consumers, we have everything to do with our outer layers. In addition, and for better or for worse, with thanks to the beauty industry and Alex's detailed account of the lengths to which people go, we also have a lot to do with our surface. Our interiors, however, are tough to cloak for no designer label or tartan plaid can mask our inner psyche, no matter how hard we try. And try we do. As to why, "it's because we aren't stupid," quipped Toni Bentley and so concluded the evening. Meanwhile, for the most part, I returned the personal shopper's picks and once again, I'm dressed in my lululemon yoga pants and a black turtleneck. You can take the girl out of the country but you can't take the country out of the girl. Don't be stupid!