I wholeheartedly agree with you and I think the other two comments are inaccurate.

First off, confidence is not appreciated on ugly women whatsoever and if having some confidence was all it took to get people to start treating you like an actual human being you're probably not legitimately ugly and just frumpy/plain looking. Confidence will always be seen as obnoxious on ugly.

It's quite sad that there doesn't seem to be a grey area that exists for us when it comes to confidence; too little and your treatment from others will simply become unbearable, too much and people will hate you anyway. I personally don't think a golden ratio exists when it comes to confidence for us. Quite simply people find it ridiculous when ugly people have confidence in themselves, like when fat women wear sexy clothing or deformed people put on makeup and stuff. It's extremely sad and disgusting but it goes to show that it has literally nothing to do with how you present yourself as you said, and confidence is a large remit of that.

The fact of the matter is that it's hard to have confidence in yourself when you're constantly being picked at and criticised.

Confidence is like a tree; the taller your tree grows the more confidence you have. But with ugly people or anyone that fails to conform with the majority, your tree is constantly being cut down by others. There simply is no opportunity for you to form any semblance of self esteem.

Also I felt you on the job thing. Every job I had in the past was completely fucking awful irrespective of how hard I worked and how kind I was. People would still treat me like shit because I was an ugly black woman. Work is hardly ever about the actual work these days and more about fitting the aesthetics of the group and being able to be their personal jester.

I'd write more but I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it. I'd be happen to expand on or explain anything if you like.