Human beauty and ugliness and their importance
There are plenty of beauty tips and tricks out there on the internet world. Beautification is increasingly becoming more and more important each day; industries and people are always on the look to make their appearance better and better. . . and better . . .

Ever wondered why? What is beauty basically? Why is it so important? Why are people so keenly looking forward to enhance their appearance? What is the fate and fortune of ugly people in this world? How ugliness and beauty is linked to society? . . . etc?

Well, the answers can be recovered if you dig deeper and think scientifically. In this article I have thrown light on the answers to these questions by digging deeper into the true meaning of appearance and its link with different things. Read on to get enlightened . . .

Whats beauty in itself?
“ Beauty is skin deep ”
When a person is regarded as 'beautiful' in a society, it can have many possible reasons behind it. In most cases you are called beautiful because of combination of your inner attributes and, of course, your outer attractiveness and appeal. Inner beauty is linked with many positive qualities that may be a part of a person's personality, such as, politeness, kindness, mercy, etc. So, human beauty can take many forms : )
Moving on.. Beauty standards have pretty much changed over the time, according to the varying trends in cultures and values. Historical paintings and artifacts have served as a strong examples of ranging standards for beauty. However, the facts reveal that humans who are younger, with enhanced radiance, fit body figures, appealing attributes, have usually been believed to be the most beautiful.
Koinophilia, and its link with beauty
One of the strongest indication of outer beauty is 'koinophilia'. Don't know what koinophilia means? Well, I'll just explain that.. Koinophilia is a biological term that is associated with sexual attractiveness of a creature; the word has stem from the theory that a sexually active creature always looks for an average (with no deviant features) partner to mate with. Hence, the theory helps explaining that the most beautiful in terms of attractiveness are the ones with minimal abnormal features.
Evidence, Hypothesis and Research Findings
It has been revealed that whenever pictures of average human faces are combined together to create a composite picture, the final outcome becomes increasingly closer to the ''ideal' (or perfect) visualization of a beautiful demeanor. Crazy, isn't it?
The roots of this theory date back to the seventeenth century, when Francis Galton (a renowned psychologist and anthropologist) covered photos of the faces of vegetarian people on with the photos of criminals to see the outcome. While doing this, he detected that the combinations were more captivating as compared to individual photos!
Outcomes
Research workers carried on with Francis's findings under even more controlled environment and revealed that the computer created, mathematical mean of a series of photos is mostly rated higher than individual photos of faces.
Okay.. so what we get from this is that sexual beings tend to get super attracted to the ones who possess preponderantly 'averaged-out' looks instead of something out of the world... and that is how the concept of beauty and attraction has emerged in this world!
Researchers who have tried to figure out an ideal picture of a beautiful woman, have laid down characteristics such as 0.7 waist–hip ratio. Scientific findings have discovered that females with the hourglass figures (or you may say, 8 figure) are much more fertile than other females, particularly because of possessing higher quantity of some feminine hormones – a fact that's indeed related to the choice of men when choosing a mate.
Media and idealization of beauty
People are effected by the pictures they watch in media to find out what's beautiful and what's not. Some doctors and even feminists have assessed that the skinny models shown in publications and media promote malnutrition (as the skinny figure is idealized) and others have debated that the dominance of white females starring in movies and ads leads to a very racist concept of beauty, and hence inferiority complex due to color differences.
The cultural movement in the past called ”black is beautiful” was pretty instrumental in wiping out these kind of notions from the minds of the people. It helped in washing the pictured and idealized version of a beautiful girl fed into people's minds by media majorly. This version consisted mainly of a white and sharp featured girl.
Beauty and its link with Men. . !
So far, I have thrown light on the general perspective and outlook of the word beauty. When we talk about beauty, it is naturally more associated with women than men. So, let me talk particularly about men in terms of beauty and attractiveness.
Beauty is not just confined to women . . .Yes! It is for men too in some cultures. 'Bishonen' – a concept in Japan is concerned with the beauty of men. Bishonen means men with clearly female features, looks, and taste setting up the standard of beauty in the country and has been adopted by many pop stars. A massive industry of ' Japanese Aesthetic Salons ' are present in the nation for this particular reason.


Beauty and Society
Beauty has a pretty strong relation with society and surrounding environment in which a person is spending his days and nights (in short, time). Let me tell you, your appearance has a major influence on how people approach you and their overall way of behaving with you. Not just in the contemporary world, appearance has always been crucial in the society – and in some cultures pretty too crucial!
Beauty has delivered a fixed standard of comparability, and it can really result in prolonged sadness and discontentment if not achieved... It is true! People who don't fit into the idealized frame of people's minds may be degraded and ignored within their respective societies.
Well, let's just take example of the famous show 'Ugly Betty' – the sitcom has portrayed the life of a young woman facing numerous misfortunes at workplace and outside because of the surrounding’s unwelcoming behavior towards her unattractive looks. This really helps us explain the extent to which society has standardized beauty!
On the other hand, beauty can have disadvantages too, in many cases beautiful people have become the target of harassment and rape. Good looking people are always approached by other people; the approachers can be good and bad, both. The movie 'Malena' shows a impressively beautiful Italian girl who is degraded and pushed into destitution by the females of the society who refuse to lend her a job in a fear that she will 'woo' (romance with) their partners.
Similarly, 'Beauty in the Eyes of the Beheld' – a famous documentary is associated with the pros and cons of being beautiful. This documentary has consists mainly of the interviews of female population with pleasant and attractive looks.
Research and Outcomes
You know what? Research has revealed that good looking students are given higher grades by teachers than the unattractive ones! How weird is that . .?
There's even more. . . Some research has also shown that attractive criminals are less likely to get convicted – and even if convicted, tend to get milder punishments than unattractive. Studies among youngsters, ( like those of Eva Ritvo ) have shown that skin color and textures have a deep effect on the social opportunities and behavior of individuals.
Moreover, even beauty plays a huge part in the earnings of a person! Yes! One study revealed that individuals who are not good looking earn 5%-10% less than unattractive individuals, who in turn, earn 3%-8% less than the people with attractive looks. Discrimination arising from looks from the people is called 'Lookism'.
About beatuty, Saint Augustine has said, "Beauty is so a good giving of God; but that the good might not think it a huge good, God even distributes to the wicked."
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Ugliness and its importance
You must be wondering why I mentioned ' importance ' in the title next to ugliness. I understand that in a society where beauty is so freaking standardized, it must be highly difficult to think about importance of ugliness. . .
But, let me tell you – ugliness has its importance too, and you have to read on to discover it and all the aspects associated with it too.
So . . . What is being ugly?
To be ugly is to be esthetically unattractive, offensive or repulsive (unwelcoming). Ugliness is actually a quality of an individual or a thing that is not pleasant to look at and leads to a highly unfavorable judgment about it.
Ugly people in the society go through pretty much of discrimination, earning 10% - 15% less every year than his or her colleagues, and get are comparatively less likely to get any work, and are moreover deprived of legal resources to combat the discrimination they are facing.
Moving on.. Some people even consider ugliness as an important factor of their personality. For example, Jean Paul Sartre had many ugly features and he accused several of his philosophical ideas to have stemmed from his life struggle to deal with his self-proclaimed ugliness.
Socrates has also linked ugliness to personality and psych of a person; he emphasized on his opinion that thinking and philosophy can help a person get over his external looks – that is, if they are unattractive in terms of their appearance. One of the contemporaries has described the famous Abraham Lincoln and his self-proclaimed ugliness in the following words :
"to say that he is ugly is nothing; to add that his figure is grotesque, is to convey no adequate impression."
Nevertheless, his looks really turned out to be an advantage for him in his political and personal development, as his colleague William Herndon said :
" He wasn't a good looking male by any means, nor an ugly one; basically he was a homely male, not bothered about looks, plain acting and plain looking. He hadn't pomp, dignity, or display, so called. He looked simple in bearing and carriage. He looked sad; his gloom dripped from his body when he passed. The sad-looking appearance that he had impressed people around him, who developed sympathy for Abraham . . . ”
William went on to say that the sympathy Abraham got from people played a great role in his overall success, emphasizing on the importance of appearance in different situations.
So, we now that ugliness has also been advantageous in some cases where beauty must not have worked!