BEAUTY

Why do we celebrate good looks more than pleasing personality? Do we get the balance right? In this article we look more closely at the kind of things we celebrate.

We use the term 'inner beauty' because we know that beauty is not only 'skin deep'. This article aims to throw some more light on the notion of inner beauty. Although this applies to both men and women we focus here on women's beauty.

The complementarity of women and men is sometimes characterised as being between beauty and strength. Are these the relevant opposites? What is the counterpart to beauty?

In the first article in this series we looked at modesty from the perspective of the dynamics of sexual attraction. Here we leave aside the question of sexual attraction to look more generally at women's aspiration to be beautiful.

Nowadays many people think modesty is merely an outdated, moralistic idea. But why does the concept of modesty even arise in the first place?

These days there is a fair amount of ambivalence about beauty pageants. Some condemn the whole concept. Some accept them wholeheartedly. Others don't know what to feel about them.

I'm sure you've heard people speak of 'inner beauty' but what is it, and why is it so important? Are men really attracted to it, or are they only interested in good looks?