“Women are more likely to be attracted to personality and men are more likely to be attracted to physical appearance.”
Woah maybe that’s because we teach women to see men as people and we teach men to see women as objects.
Ding ding ding ding ding.
Wrong again, feminists! The types of attraction experienced by the different sexes has an evolutionary purpose! Allow me to explain.
We are all familiar with Darwin’s survival of the fittest, yes? Fitness is defined as an individual’s reproductive success (i.e. how many copies of their genes they passed on). So basically, in terms of nature, your fitness level boils down to if you can make healthy babies. Which makes sense, because healthy babies mean species survival, and that’s all nature cares about. I, and other gays, have extremely low reproductive fitness, sadly, because we typically do not reproduce (it doesn’t mean we’re pointless though!).
Because of the pressure that species survival puts on individual organisms, they develop certain traits to become as fit as possible. The reason for this is a drive to out-compete other members of the species and pass on as many copies of their genes as possible. If one wants to beat out competition, it must develop characteristics that prove desirable. Thus, fitness and desirability are often found together in the same individual.
The actual term for this concept of fitness and desirability is called the population mating structure. This refers to “all those factors—physical, temporal, anatomical/physiological, and behavioral—that result in nonrandom mating among members of a species.” (x)
Let’s talk about early humans now.
For females, the desirability of males is not only about physical attributes, but about behavioral ones as well. A fit male is both physically strong and, in a female’s opinion, willing to protect their young. Females looking to mate and reproduce want the best possible male to copulate with, to ensure the health and survival chance of both mother and baby. They will seek men that are physically healthy and strong, with symmetrical facial features, because these are a sign of good genes. Women also have a strong preference for men who will provide food and protection to themselves and the child. A huge attracting trait is whether or not the male will “settle down” and commit to protecting his mate and his offspring. This is only fair, considering the context. Humanity is in its infancy. The world is a wilderness and a pregnant woman cannot possibly fend for herself, nor can a woman nurturing a young child. She will find a man who will look after her while she is vulnerable.
A male, on the other hand, is not so concerned with a woman’s behavioral traits. All he really cares about is that she is healthy and fertile, to improve the chances of progeny survival. The health, both physiological and genetic, of a woman is easy to determine by physical qualities. She will have good bone structure, a symmetrical face, and wide hips (to better birth a child), among other things. The male worries less about her behavioral characteristics because he is capable of impregnating many females at a time, resulting in a greater chance of leaving many gene copies (which is what makes him fit).
To put it more simply, a female has one egg at a time and a long gestation period. She will want to choose the best mate possible because she has to carry this child for a long-ass time goddamn it, and if she’s gonna commit to that, the child better be healthy and the father better protect her.
A male, on the other hand, has an unlimited supply of sperm. He doesn’t have to bear any physical burden of reproducing. Thus, he has two options when it comes to making babies. He may focus on one female at a time and protect her and his child, or he may run rampant and knock up as many females as he can. In the former, he is greatly increasing the chance of the survival of one child. In the latter, he is improving the probability that he will have offspring by making as many fetuses as possible, and hopefully some will survive.
Now, we are not cavemen, I know. But that does not mean that these basic principles of nonrandom mating have disappeared. Some of them have morphed over the centuries and adapted to the changing cultures and societies. For example, nowadays, a woman may be subtly more attracted to males who are financially stable, because this is a sign of being able to provide for both herself and her child. More importantly, though, she will pay greater attention to his personality (in addition to fatherly behaviors, or lack thereof), because in our current day and age, living together is generally the norm for parents raising children, and if you’re gonna have his kids and live together, you might as well like him.
That being said, contemporary men actually also have a preference for partners with a desirable personality. Despite what you say, surveys actually show that people of both sexes search for intelligence, kindness, and other good personality traits. These preferences are relatively stable across cultures and genders. Cultural preferences differ on smaller things, like religious beliefs, political beliefs, etc. (same source)
Although men do place greater importance on personality, evolutionary influences are still present. Men still care a great deal about physical attractiveness, especially men who lack fatherly traits (i.e. men who prefer that “impregnate as many females as possible” method) or are not currently seeking to be a father. Even though the goal is no longer to produce children, the pull of sexual attraction to physically attractive females remains. This also explains in part why older men are still highly attracted to young women; they represent the most fertile females, and even though our culture condemns this type of attraction, it exists as evolutionary residue.
tl;dr there are evolutionary reasons explaining why men pay more attention to physical appearance than women do and it has very little to do with “the patriarchy.”
Also the shape of the head of a man’s penis evolved to scrape the sperm of competing males off the walls of the vagina.
The more you know.
holy christ when will i be free
#SEXISM /, #CISSEXISM /, #HETEROSEXISM /, #CSA ??,
Yes it is ever-so-sexist to explain in plain terms the evolution of human mating. I’m being so extreeeeemely cissexist because I am explaining a scientific theory as it applies to humans. I could replace every single mention of the word “human” with a multitude of different animals and it would still be true. BIRD CISSEXISM! BIRD HETERONORMATIVITY! DOWN WITH THE BIRD PATRIARCHY.
Also, nice on whoever it was who commented to you that it was “BS” and I hope they learn how to read at some point in their life.
And I’m so so sorry that those two words offend you so. May you never have to take a biology or ecology class.
Special snowflake alert.yeah i mean ur sarcasm is noted but you are being all those things. also please leave me alone forever
Explain to me how the evolution of mating structures is cissexist and I will leave you alone. Give me sources and details, not just some flappy emotional appeal bullshit.
…….amazing.
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