Actually I think that so far the whole process has been largely free of judgements about the womens' looks and has focused almost entirely upon their climbs. This is good - they have both pushed hard to achieve great success, not that my judgement on that means much.
On the other hand, Edurne in particular, has clearly made a conscious effort to present herself in a way that panders to conventional ideas of female attractiveness. The earlier photos in this thread are not spontaneous family snaps, or climber shots - they are professionally styled industry images clearly designed to show sex appeal. Edurne is a professional climber, she needs big sponsors for these trips, and this is just one string in a bow that she needs to bring all this together. Good on her.
Before 2008 she did not take this path. This is pretty obvious from the photos that appeared in early 2008. I saw Edurne in person, up close, in Islamabad in mid-2007, then saw the pics of her on ExWeb in 2008 and thought, 'Whoa! WTF!". Clearly she'd been to a stylist! And why not? She's doing what she needs to do, and it's working. Though I must add, having seen them both up close, in my personal chauvinitst-pig opinion, Gerlinde certainly doesn't need any stylist to look hot ..
Yes, it woud be unfair to judge the women ONLY on their physical appearance, but as I said at the start, they have pretty much been only judged on their climbing performanc up to now, and that's great. But also clearly, on Edurne's part she has brought in the 'good looks' angle herself, so it's not like SPers or someone else made it up and forced it on her. Gerlinde may be hot, but there are lots of hot girls around. Girls who can break trail at 8200m on K2 like she did? Not so many. Lead the men through thigh-deep snow on G2 at 7900m? No. Gerlinde is a machine and puts most men on the mountain to shame - and she doesn't climb with the entourage of paid helpers like Oh or Edurne.
To think that people ignore physical appearance is naive to the point of ridiculous. People notice it and take it on board. It happens everywhere all the time, in real life and in climbing. It's biological, not political. David Breashears made People magazine's list as "Hottest Explorer" several years ago, and I know of at least one fight between female clients over who would get the hottest guide, on one expedition (both were famous, one not so hot:). It goes both ways, always has.
D