in contemporary societies shaped by visual media, consumer culture, and globalized beauty standards. Lookism, as a subtle form of appearance-based discrimination, remains largely overlooked in Iranian scholarship despite its broad social implications. This study critically reviews global research and assesses its relevance for Iran through a systematic review of English-language studies published between 1970 and 2023. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 146 studies were included.
Findings show that lookism is a multi-layered phenomenon appearing across labor markets, education, health, media, and social relations through unequal opportunities, halo effects, bodily self-surveillance, and the reproduction of gendered stereotypes. The beauty premium and social stereotype frameworks were most frequently used, and quantitative and experimental designs dominated the literature. Yet many studies relied on narrow measures of attractiveness, with limited attention to cultural and gendered variations in beauty norms.
Given the cultural and gender-specific dynamics of Iran, this review highlights the need for context-sensitive measurements, engagement with women’s lived experiences, and analysis of institutional and media mechanisms that reproduce appearance-based inequality. It recommends interdisciplinary approaches to develop a theoretical framework suitable for studying lookism in Ira