During the internship in ophthalmology (stuff dealing with eyes), I was amazed that so many young ladies were willing to cut their eyelids to make “double eyelids”. For most people, the procedure (blepharoplasty) removes a tiny slice of muscle or skin from each upper eyelid or involves just the incision itself. After one week of recovery, voila, those eyes are beautiful, glaring wisdom in addition to alluring sex.

I was born in the southern China where people with single, heavy eyelids were few and considered ugly. It is no wonder that many young ladies are willing to endure the sufferance of the surgery and to take the risk of having skewed eyes. Nevertheless, I was so keen in identifying surgery-made “double eyelids” that when I went to the northern China, I found that about one third of young ladies in campus were blinking those God-forbidden eyelids.

Women, probably due to evolution pressure, are frantic in modifying and remodifying their already gorgeous bodies. Beauty, in the beholder’s eyes, is the only goal of female existence, despite that Emily Dickson claimed there was no definition of beauty.

Surprisingly, before Galton’s facial composition study, people believed that beauty stemmed from the deviance from common people. However, using Galton’s methods, Perett et al. in 1994 neatly demonstrated that beauty actually meant averaging. In his study, students rated higher on those faces averaged over hundreds of faces. It is the symmetry and average that make a woman’s face beautiful. It reminds me Audrey Hepburn whose western body blended with oriental mystery was once so attractive to me. (http://www.audreyhepburn.com/)

On the other hand, some studies showed that an average of beautiful faces was more attractive than the average of common faces. So there is indeed something inside a beauty. A little characteristics do make one more attractive, but not peculiarity, as most societies are not fond of extremes.

What is considered beautiful? In almost all societies, large eyes, small chin, and full lip are attractive. A waist of about 30% of hip, and a big breast are also sexually favorable.

By saying this, we should keep in mind that society, or culture plays a significant role in forming the standard of beauty. Judged from sculptures in Greek and Roman and paintings during the renaissance, a healthy and plump body was considered beautiful in those days, similar to the figures before Song dynasty in China. However, there was difference of beauty standard between western and eastern societies during that period. Most western pictures showed large eyes and full lips, while women in most Chinese pictures had small eyes and lips, which appeared on most Chinese faces.

During Song dynasty (probably even during the end of Tang), something weird happened. Men were favoring slim women, to such an extent that even small feet were considered attractive. The foot binding custom spread from upper class to lower class. The powerless women had to endure tremendous sufferance to bind their feet from the very beginning of their childhoods so that they could marry decent husbands. For God’s sake, it was abandoned 100 years ago.

There were also some weird things happened in Europe during that period. In France, women were hopelessly wrapping their waists so that they looked slim and attractive. In England, as suggested by female writers such as Jane Austin or George Elliot, showing a full blown breast was considered vulgar. Women had to hide their precious gifts. By the way, George Elliot was really an ugly lady (depicted as “hideous”); but her intelligence won her many fans.

Anyway, in modern society, after a blaze of plumpness (e.g., Marilyn Monroe), men are favoring skinny women more than ever. Furthermore, with abundant foods available, fatness is considered unhealthy, lazy, and sexually unattractive. In addition to eye surgeries, breast enlargement, and skin lifting, women (and also men) are enthusiastically engaging in liposuction for the sake of both beauty and health.

Does a beautiful face really matter? Sure, it does. Studies in 1960s already showed that among those randomly-matched students, men were more likely to ask for future dates if their female partners were physically attractive. Although many people claimed that they wouldn’t relate beauty to intelligence, studies repeatedly suggested that people indeed rated a higher intelligence to the beauties than to those with plain bodies. Other lines of research also confirmed that physical attractiveness meant more career opportunities for both men and women. People were even judged as more competent after cosmetic surgeries than before surgeries.

It is interesting that men perceive women’s attractiveness differently from women themselves. Men actually prefer a middle ground (say body mass index(BMI) at 20-25) while women tend to go extremes such as BMI below 20. Unfortunately, men and women don’t talk to each other about setting up beauty standards.

After more than 60 years of promoting feminism, women are still trying to impress men sexually. The power of nature is too strong.