When I first saw this ad for MAC's new "Strength" collection, it kind of stopped my in my browsing tracks. What an incredible figure that woman has — and what a striking image for a mainstream cosmetics brand to choose as an advertisement. » 1/04/13 5:30pm 1/04/13 5:30pm

A new book recommends that we prosecute appearance discrimination as strictly as we do racial or gender bias. But is that even possible? » 6/07/10 6:00pm 6/07/10 6:00pm

[Hay-On-We, U.K.; June 6. Image via Getty] » 6/07/10 9:10am 6/07/10 9:10am

Remember the Mayor of Jerktown » 8/20/08 9:30am 8/20/08 9:30am, er, Mount Isa, Australia, who tried to entice "beauty disadvantaged" women to his mostly-male town? Well, the women of Mount Isa (though Mayor John Molony probably wants them to - zing!). According to the local , angry citizens protested outside the City Council forecourt last…

We got a lot of tips this weekend about Australian mayor » 8/18/08 9:40am 8/18/08 9:40am John Molony, who suggested that "beauty-disadvantaged women should proceed to Mount Isa," the mining town he presides over in northwest Queensland, because there's "five blokes to every girl." In the first place, Molony just ganked the plot of the when he made…

In today's Times of London, fashion editor Lisa Armstrong dissects what she deems our egregiously-lookist society. "Increasingly, looks are used to define women who never set out to compete by those rules," Armstrong points out. "The entire female flank of the French Cabinet has recently had their wardrobes pored… » 4/09/08 12:30pm 4/09/08 12:30pm

Upon the release of this year's long-list for the Orange Broadband prize for women's fiction, a couple of English novelists are decrying the prize under the grounds that it's conceptually sexist (Zadie Smith, pictured, won the Orange in 2006 for On Beauty). Still Life scribe A.S. Byatt bitched about the prize to the … » 3/18/08 5:30pm 3/18/08 5:30pm