Ambrose Bierce (1958) once wrote: “For men a man is nothing more than a mind. Who cares what face he wears or what he wears? But the woman's body is the woman." Despite the social changes achieved since Bierce's time, his statement remains true. Since the height of the feminist movement in the early 1970s, women have spent more money than ever on products and treatments designed to make them beautiful. Cosmetics sales increased annually to $18 billion in 1987 (“Ignoring the economy…”, 1989), women's clothing sales averaged $103 billion per month in 1990 (personal communication , US Bureau of Economic Analysis, 1992), diets have become a $30 billion a year industry (Stoffel, 1989), and women spent $1.2 billion on cosmetic surgery in 1990 (communication staff, American Society of Plastic and Reconceptive Surgeons, 1992). The importance of beauty has seemingly increased even as women are achieving personal freedoms and economic rights never dreamed of by our grandmothers. The emphasis on beauty can be a way to maintain a feminine image by losing female roles. Attractiveness is a prerequisite for femininity but not for masculinity (Freedman, 1986). The word beauty always refers to the female body. Attractive male bodies are described as “handsome,” a word derived from “hand” that refers as much to action as appearance (Freedman, 1986). Qualities of achievement and strength accompany the term beautiful, such attributes are rarely employed in the description of attractive women and certainly do not accompany the term beauty, which refers only to a decorative quality. Men are instrumental, women are ornamental. Beauty is an elusive commodity. Ideas about what is beautiful vary from culture to culture and change… half of article… Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 10, 129-38.Stoffel, Jennifer. (1989, November 26). New in weight control: the market expands as motivations change. New York Times, p. C17.Thompson, J.Kevin. (1986, April). Larger than life. Psychology Today, pp. 41-44.Walker, Alice. (1990). Beauty: when the other dancer is himself. In Evelyn C. White (Ed.), The Black Women's Health Book: Speaking for Ourselves (pp. 280–87). Seattle: Seal Press. Walster, Elaine, Aronson, Vera, Abrahams, Darcy and Rottman, Leon. (1966). Importance of physical attractiveness in dating behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 508-16. Wernick, Mark, & Manaster, Guy J. (1984). Age and perception of age and attractiveness. Gerontologist, 24, 408-14.Williams, Juanita H. (1985). Psychology of women: Behavior in a biosocial context. New York: Norton.