If television talk-show host Greta Van Susteren is any indication, they change their faces. Literally. Van Susteren is the latest high- profile example of a low-profile cultural truth: How women look is more important than how they think.

Her show, On the Record, debuted on Feb. 4. The lead-in had important words flashing across the screen and around the show's title: "determined," "experienced," "courageous." Presumably these were meant to describe Van Susteren. Then she appeared. Her eyes were tilted up at the corners and seemed bigger. Her famously crooked mouth had mostly lost its crook. Where her hair had often been an afterthought at CNN, it had the perfect sheen and placement of custom coiffure at Fox. She sat at a table, which fully revealed her short skirt and legs. Van Susteren had been physically transformed to approximate the idealized woman that Fox viewers expect. She looked anything but courageous.