Vanity in Mexico

Recently I was talking to my fiancé's mother about culture in Mexico and how much vanity affects everything. Apparently, when she lived that when she was younger it was practically a requirement for women to be attractive if they wanted to survive. As we all know at the point to be an actress in Mexico if you're not attractive is simply not going to happen there's no such thing as the ugly actor/actress that still gets jobs because they're simply so good at acting. Though yes we discussed that on occasion a unattractive individual my sneak his way into a telenovela as a general rule, no. Well interestingly according to his mother it doesn't stop with the telenovelas in Mexico. Though I don't know if this is still the case, she mentioned that if a woman want to get almost any sort of job in Mexico if she isn't attractive she has a lesser chance of doing so. If they do get the job they would be a situation much like in the telenovela La Bella Más Fea and might be hidden in a closet. I tried to do some research on the topic but wasn't able to find any direct references to the extent to which vanity affects common mexican society. What seems even more interesting about this is when I compare it to the way society works in the United States, though in many areas being attractive as a woman does give you an advantage the business world is not one of them. Often women complain about not getting the same jobs BECAUSE they are attractive and not being taken seriously because they're a good-looking woman. Though the vanity still certainly plays a role it affects women a bit different in the job market. It just makes me wonder why that might be, because as we all know we as american are incredibly vain and shallow ourselves.