A number that says it all, the great pulchritude plot, the hammering of Carl Icahn, and other matters. THE SEXIST PLOT THICKENS, OR IS IT THINS?
By DANIEL SELIGMAN REPORTER ASSOCIATE Patty de Llosa

(FORTUNE Magazine) – In which Kindly Dr. Keeping Up gamely tries to explain both the headline above and the antipulchritude perspective of Naomi Wolf, authoress of The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (''persuasive'' -- the Washington Post). Dear Kindly: Before deconstructing the headline, could we not glide furtively toward the politically incorrect question on every reader's mind, viz., how good-looking is Naomi herself? On logical and empirical grounds, we find her to be a looker. The logical argument, elaborated in the American Spectator review, is that ''only a woman who is herself very pretty . . . could write a book like this one, expressing scorn for the efforts of plain women to improve their looks.'' Our empirical database features a Christian Science Monitor article wherein it relates how a radio talk-show host told his audience that Naomi was a beautiful woman, thereby triggering her ideologically required riposte: that he himself was tall, dark, and cute. Dear Doc: Pithily specify the grievances underlying the aforesaid persiflage. Grievance gravamen and key kvetch: The reason women never get anyplace is that the ''power structure,'' sometimes identified as the ''power elite'' but occasionally also spelled m-e-n, goes around forcing women to think of physical attractiveness as very, very, very important. Dear Upkeep: And why are the powerpersons so eager to talk up sex appeal? Because it divides and weakens women. It causes them to strive for the gaunt look of Vogue models when they should be thinking instead about joining the union. ''The beauty myth generates low self-esteem for women and high profits for corporations as a result.'' The myth naturally causes those who feel unattractive to lack self-esteem. It also induces those feeling attractive to lack self-esteem, because how can you esteem yourself when you are rated on appearances only? Fiendish, eh? Dear Dr. Up: Naomi says that beauty is unimportant? Yes, The Beauty Myth (''provocative -- the New York Times) cites anthropological data indicating that among certain higher primates, regrettably not including Homo sapiens in your average jungle-free suburb, the girls in the group get to take turns at being the most desirable. Dear Up: It sounds as though the tome at hand offers arguments aplenty (''thorough'' -- the Los Angeles Times) to feminists eager to counter the power structure and latch onto a little guilt-free Haagen-Dazs. Arguments abound, most of them based on dubious data of doubtful significance. For example, women in America have a 60% chance of being poor in old age. Every single year, a million women become victims of anorexia or bulimia. Precise figures are repeatedly coupled with undefined terms, as in ''the $33 billion thinness industry.'' Complaints that nobody could possibly verify are cited confidently: Women do two-thirds of the work in the world. Also, date rape is more common than left-handedness. Wait, there is a source for that one: a Ms. magazine poll indicating that 6% of women surveyed had been raped on dates. Unfortunately for the story line here, lefties are generally considered to be at least 10% of the population. Dear Doc: Somehow one senses that you are not about to jump on the Beauty Myth bandwagon. Yes, one shrinks from concordance with the media consensus.