Important beauty

“You don’t have to be pretty.  . you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’”—Diana Vreeland

Right . . sort of.  Nobody should feel guilty for not having the face of a model.  On the other hand, there's another way of looking at it.  See if you like something about this other view from Lou Markos, "Advice to My Daughter:"

"[A] woman who spends time on her make-up and clothes, not solely for the sake of vanity, but so that she can look good for others performs an important social function. I do not speak in jest!  A well-appareled, well-coiffured woman is as much a challenge (and antidote) to the ugliness and brokenness around us as a Renaissance painting . . .

"Even more, when a woman sings or dances or plays music beautifully, she casts her feminine gauntlet down before the forces of decay, corruption, and fragmentation. Such beauty will not allow itself to be swallowed up by the horrors of war, the cruelties of disease, the machinations of governments, or the injustices of the marketplace. By offering up such beauty freely and without regard for what the world considers a practical end, women draw our attentions away from that which is ephemeral to that which is lasting. In fact, precisely by being impractical, feminine beauty shows itself to be as practical as the food we eat and the air we breathe."