What are the masks, earphones, body weights, and headgear for?

The masks, earphones,
body weights, and headgear are designed to handicap individuals who are more attractive or
smarter or faster than others. As the narrator says in the first sentence, "everybody was
finally equal."

Equality in all thingsintelligence, speed,
attractiveness, and everything elsehas been achieved by Amendments 211-213 to the Constitution.
Hazel Bergeron, for example, has a "perfectly average intelligence," but her husband,
George, has a higher-than-normal level of smarts. In order to make him "equal" to
Hazel, he has to wear "a little mental handicap radio in his ear" that would emit
horrifyingly distracting and sharp noises every twenty seconds so that George could not take
"unfair advantage" of his above-average intelligence.

The
ballerinas on the television George and Hazel watch are "burdened with sashweights and bags
of birdshot, and their faces were masked" so that no one watching would feel bad about
themselves by seeing someone more graceful or more attractive than they. There's actually a
Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, who determines what handicaps people ought to have in
order to make them equal to everyone else.