Maybe you're getting it backwards. It's not so cool for either men or women to get completely blown off at first glance because they are somewhat less than gorgeous, that's what dd is whinging about. I think. (Notice that English English "whinging," that's a tip of the hat to y'all Brits. I have no idea how one pronounces "whinging" either, is that a variant spelling of "whining" or what?)
But it happens anyway. So I've been told, women get rejected on account of sub-glamorous physical appearance considerably more than men do. The pettiest non-conformance to the current local canon of personal beauty will sometimes do it. "James Tiptree," that's a psuedonym used by a woman writer, once wrote an science-fiction fantasy about this entitled "The Women Men Don't See." On the other hand a lot of women disdain to associate with a man who obviously doesn't have a lot of money. Oh well!
Concerning Ms. Furuhashi, I get the impression from her emails that she may be especially photogenic or she may be not, but none of her r.l. friends (i.e., not us on mailing lists but people who meet her in person) give a damn either way, being too dazzled by the force of her personality and intellect to care all that much what she looks like.
Yours WD "fanboy" K - WKiernan at concentric.net