Looks filter into everything. You may be a mathematics genius, and people will appreciate your genius just a little more, or on different level, if you're good looking. And that's not just for women. Good looking people tend to succeed better in life in almost every aspect.
In certain professions it means more. Like local and national media. Notice the last few years MUCH more hot women in local news and national news reporting. However, on the local level I see for example, many of the men, at least in my viewing market are no super chads. Most of the men are just typical, average looking men. Not ugly of course but are not chads, especially the meteologist.
Same in the national level if you watch Fox news or CNN, MSDNC. Those men, the biggest names are not Chads or anywhere near chad level. Sean Hannity, Carl Tuckerson, Glenn Beck, Greg Gutfeld look beta like and are not above average looking. However, they have substance behind them.
If you took those men and got women the equivalent of them looks wise they would not be on the national news. Looks matter MUCH more with women to be taken seriously. Like if you took a woman on the level looks wise of Glenn Beck with the same political views she wouldn't be able to become famous.
Looks filter in MUCH more than men for women.
At least with a guy as long as he's not super short or severely ugly they can improve their image by losing weight, cosmetic work, hairstyle, etc. It's much much easier for a man to improve their image versus a woman.
A ugly woman is basically screwed the way she is. That's why you see more average looking men around than women where much higher percentage of them are below average.