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<p>It doesn’t help. I can tell you that from personal experience, both having done it and having seen other folks doing it. :)</p>
<p>I think, though, that part of it is that geek subculture has different standards of beauty than mainstream culture.</p>
<p>I also think that part of it is that a lot of geeks just don’t care about certain things that the mainstream considers essential. A lot of mainstream folks are horrified that I never wear makeup, for example. They can’t imagine a woman going out in public without her “face” (a phrasing that I always find comical). They also can’t believe that I don’t want to use all sorts of products and styles on my hair each day to control and de-frizz the curl. Now, some geeks <em>do</em> care about these things, but in my experience, they are a smaller percentage than in the general population.</p>
<p>(I do not consider myself particularly attractive, by the way, but I still get irritated with the “women in technical fields are ugly” thing, because like aibarr said, it reinforces the idea that women have to choose between being good at sci/eng and being attractive.)</p>