In a continuation of her railing about the uneven deal women appear to be getting, the NYT's Maureen Dowd takes on the topic of "road beef."

Some excerpts:

With steroid-infused sensitivity, the former Oakland A's slugger (Jose Canseco) also explained a couple of other words in the baseball argot: Any girl you met on the road and went to bed with was referred to as "road beef," and any "road beef" you flew in was known as an "import."

Even some men I know felt awful for the unwitting slump busters who would now read "Juiced" and realize that the best night of their lives was actually the worst. That really cute baseball player they thought liked them just the way they are, as Bridget Jones likes to say, was really holding his nose to break a curse. Way harsh.

At the dawn of feminism, there was an assumption that women would not be as severely judged on their looks in ensuing years. Phooey. It's just the opposite. Looks matter more than ever, with more and more women spending fortunes turning themselves into generic, plastic versions of what they think men want, reaching for eerily similar plumped-up faces and body shapes.

Pretty soon, we'll be back to the era when flight attendants - or should I say stewardesses? - are canned if they gain a few pounds. The New York Post reported that the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City would start weighing all its waitresses, and "Borgata Babes" "who gain more than 7 percent will lose their jobs unless they lose the weight."

Consider this gender differentiation: A gorgeous, fit guy who sleeps with an overweight, unattractive woman is "throwing himself on a grenade" for the team. A gorgeous, fit girl who sleeps with an overweight, unattractive man is lucky to have found romance in "Sideways" and "Hitch."

Once again, Ms. Dowd makes the error of substituting media constructs with reality when she makes these critiques.

The "Bridget Jones" scenario, where a plain-Jane girl makes a desirable alpha male fall in love with her just the way she is, is media fantasy.

A scenario where a Bridget Jones type gets sexually used and callously dumped by the type of knob played in the film by Hugh Grant or by some jock asshole like Canseco is more typical of reality (that's not behaviour I'm endorsing, by the way).

OTOH, check out Ms. Dowd's picture. She exudes urban sophistication, wouldn't you say?

Now, I wonder how many of her female friends are chubby, plain-looking and have a complete inability to accessorize tastefully? Do you think Dowd dates bus drivers?

Our celebrity-worshipping culture fetishizes appearance -- although now that I've written that, I think it's stupid. To put it another way, how many societies have there been in history where looks weren't that valued for either gender?

If you move out of the sexual arena into something more prosaic, like work, I've actually heard bosses say relievedly in the wake of a downsizing that at least their remaining staff was good-looking.

I heard a story about one high-profile Canadian media woman who was told she wouldn't go anywhere because she didn't have great looks. She shamed her bosses into promoting her by being a great journalist.

In general in this culture, however, benefits tend to disproportionately accrue to people on the basis of looks, assuming reasonably equal talent.

As the inimitable Jade Jagger once said: "Why would anyone ever hire an ugly person?"