:: I want to preface this post by saying it is not objectively written. The only truth that I am sure about is contained in the passage quoted at the bottom: that God looks beyond our appearance. The rest is just my silly, fallible opinion::
I came across a thought-provoking, albeit superficial news story on the Drudge Report today. The story, “We only date ugly men” is published by the British tabloid news journal, The Sun. Obviously this source is unscientific, but it raises an interesting question: Do women care less about looks than men?
The article claims that many women would prefer to date an ugly 
man over a handsome one for many reasons:
“Ugly men try harder”
“Most preferred a sense of humour or financial and career success”
“Good-looking guys are self-obsessed”
“Good-looking men are just boring”
As someone who works in retail, I find myself dealing in the superficial all day. While it does seem that women don’t care as much when it comes to beauty, I am convinced women do care as much about looks as men – not that it’s a bad thing. They simply may care about different traits than men care about, when it comes to appearance.
Here’s what I mean:
Women compare themselves with each other. In magazines, television, shopping malls, and schools they take in how the most “attractive” or “popular” women look and ask themselves how they measure up. They create standards in their own minds of what is ideal. Men do the same thing; but for men, it’s a matter of what to look for, not what to be.
As much as they embrace this method of determining their worth, I believe women get sick of such “ideals”. Furthermore, after being so consumed with observing and maintaining as close to the “ideal” as they can get, it is both unnerving and refreshing to be with a man whose appearance has nothing to do with these all-consuming ideals.
One time at work, a man came in to pick up a few pieces of clothing. He was in a dirty jump suit, slightly pudgy, and well beyond his twenties. As my co-worker “Megan” helped him at the register, I watched her body language. Megan herself is always dressed carefully and elegantly, so I was interested observe how she responded to a man who probably had been lying underneath automobile engines all day, caring nothing about his own appearance.
Afterwards, I told her, “You liked that guy.” Megan blushed a bit and admitted I was right.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Cause he was dirty! He looked different…unruly…and I saw how you smiled as you watched him.”
~
So is one sex less superficial than the other? Men and women have both idealized what it means “to be a man” and “to be a woman”, and they exert these idealizations in every aspect of judgment of the opposite sex. Just because a woman isn’t looking for a polished, symmetrical, chiseled man, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t care a great deal about how a man looks. It may simply mean she requires a different set of idealized gender associations to be met: she may require that he look rough, dirty, and strong instead.
~
When they entered, [Samuel] looked at Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’S anointed is before Him.” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” {emphasis mine}
1 Samuel 16:6-7
