I'm not familiar with the rad-fem thoughts on that, but looks and personality are too subjective to become a basis of analysis. In terms of evaluating gender relations in transnational arranged marriages, where women come from poorer countries to marry men in rural farming areas of richer countries, it would be interesting to collect data about the average age difference between women and men in such marriages and and that in the intra-national marriages. I don't know if anyone has collected such data. My hypothesis is that the age difference is greater in such marriages than in intra- national marriages -- presumably, men try their luck locally first and then go overseas when they fail at home and the luck doesn't seem to improve, which would mean that such men are older than men who marry local women -- but that may not be true. In the days of "picture brides" -- Japanese emigrant men located in the US and elsewhere sending their photos to their parents and matchmakers at home to solicit would-be brides to come to them in their adopted countries -- it is said that many a picture bride got disappointed upon their arrival: men in person were a lot older than in their photos! But nowadays men who seek such marriage have enough money to travel overseas and probably they all do before marriage contracts are finalized, so women (as well as men) at least have a chance of making up their minds having seen what their prospective spouses look like (if not having fully evaluated their personalities).
I don't believe that the Japanese and South Korean governments care about what rural men want to see in their wives in terms of looks. What they do care about is the fertility rate (on the steep decline in both countries: I've already discussed Japan in this respect, so I won't repeat it here; in South Korea, "Under the plan [announced this year], the government will invest 19 trillion won ($19.2 billion) for five years starting from 2006 to tackle low birth-rate problems so that Asia's fourth-largest economy can overcome the problem of its rapidly greying population, Roh said in a televised New Year speech" [Oh Jung-hwa, "S.Korea to Tackle Low Birth Rate, Help Small Firms," 18 January 2006, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/ 2006/1/19/worldupdates/ 2006-01-18T205514Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-232575-1&sec=Worldupdates>]) and probably also the relative rural-urban voting strengths, at least in the case of Japan, where rural votes are perceived to lean more to the right than urban votes: "Farmers’ interests as petty property owners in the aftermath of the Occupation-led land reform, combined with their ‘innate conservatism’ and the over-representation of rural districts in elections, is frequently cited as an obstacle to the development of a vigorous and healthy democracy in postwar Japan" (Nishida Yoshiaki and Ann Waswo, "Re-thinking Rural Japan," <http://japanfocus.org/129.html> -- it should be noted that, as the title indicates, the author contests this interpretation of Japanese farmers' politics).
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>