Loyalty especially directly makes you less successful and basically a sucker. And it has nothing to do with gender or women, it is business no valuing. Hard work is only loosely related. Hard work and dedication on itself are not what makes your salary go up or makes you promoted. Understanding office politics does a lot more.
My point is, this is not the case of young men not valuing career and wealth. People who value career and wealth cant afford to be loyal.
> we are seeing a lot of young men optimising purely for physical attractiveness at the cost of success in fields we might traditionally identify with male success
This doesn't align with observable trends: Consider the sustained growth in MMA’s popularity or the emergence of figures like Andrew Tate as clear counterexamples.
> we are seeing a lot of young men optimising purely for physical attractiveness at the cost of success in fields we might traditionally identify with male success (career, wealth, sporting excellence, etc)
That doesn’t reflect reality. Those fields (wealth, competitive sport) aren’t in decline among young men. Interest in them has grown considerably compared to previous generations, as evidenced by those counterexamples.
> we are seeing a lot of young men optimising purely for physical attractiveness at the cost of success in fields we might traditionally identify with male success (career, wealth, sporting excellence, etc)
That assertion doesn’t hold up. Even if it described a previous generation, it doesn’t reflect what’s happening now.
Trump is exactly the type of figure that the GP is saying would succeed in a matriarchy. He is pretty, charismatic, and says all the right things despite being inadequate in the fields of male-dominated competition. The "grab em by the pussy" comment is just a demonstration of his ability to woo women, hence "they let you do it".
In contrast, I would say that iran is patriarchal because men don't woo women directly, but control women through their relations with other men. The institution of marriage is regulated through the state.
Ick.
Seriously?
Charismatic I will give you. The actual content of what he says, though, is at best a very mixed bag.
You could read the study to determine answers to questions like this. Instead you want somebody else to read the study and explain it to you. You should expect questions like this to be downvoted.
> Our findings confirm the existence of a robust “Gender Attractiveness Gap” (GAP), with female faces rated significantly more attractive than male faces across rater genders, cultural backgrounds, and portrayed ethnicities.
> What explains the GAP? While evolutionary frameworks have traditionally been the dominant lens through which the GAP has been viewed— assuming its existence without direct empirical evidence—these theories focus exclusively on opposite-sex attraction, mate selection, and reproductive success. Within these theoretical boundaries, explaining the variation in same-sex ratings and the cultural differences in the GAP becomes challenging, suggesting that factors beyond biological predispositions also play a role. Given these limitations, sociocultural factors and norms merit further consideration. As noted earlier, female beauty is idealized in many cultures and reinforced by media, advertising, and societal expectations. Internalized beauty standards may foster unconscious biases, leading to, or amplifying, the observed difference.
But the study is mainly concerned with verifying the existence of the gap.
Btw, a lot of animal hierarchies are also male-dominated.
Why did the authors select the face as the determinant of attractiveness? AFAIK the human female focuses on the upper body in general, with nothing in particular. Cultural variations exist, obviously.
This (upper body strength, generally) would make sense for evolutionary reasons. It makes more sense than the (male) peacock's tail, for example.
That's not to say they don't care about the face or other features, but those don't get nearly as much attention.
I've never knowingly even met a trans person and have no basis to judge. Does this ring true or false?
I guess also most cis folks would enjoy being attractive, whereas when it becomes more external (attention from others) then it’s more of a mixed bag, since some of it can be very much unwanted.
I doubt many people want to be the object of desire of some random creeps on the street or have some relationships be ruined because that’s all the other people consider.
the idea is similar to viewing one-self's identity as having clear skin but having tons of pimples which people constantly comment on (via pronouns). transitions clear the skin
So for example, someone assigned male at birth wanting to be attractive/desired is not necessarily different than them wanting to live the female role in our society.
What even is this idea? If we take the target audience of men who are loudest about wanting to be 'real men', the Andrew Tate (and the like) followers. These people spend hours at the gym to be desired. They wear tight shirts to show off their muscles to be desired. They wear designer shoes and shirts to be desired. They have weekly barber visits to be desired.
Does that mean all these men want to live the female role in society? I don't think so, since that's the exact thing they claim to oppose.
They spend hours at the gym to impress other men and compete with them. It has squat zero with what women desire.
No idea on the men, though. There's certainly trans men writing gender theory but I don't think I've seen a take on male attractiveness come up in it much.
> Sissy porn did make me trans.
Also:
> At the centre of sissy porn lies the asshole, a kind of universal vagina through which femaleness can always be accessed. Getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is.
And, according to Chu, the "barest essentials" of "femaleness" are:
> an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes
All of which I think says a lot about attitudes towards women from this particular subset of males.
I feel like that frames the transgender identity as something performative, rather than something felt. I think transitions are experienced much more personally than just as a statement to society, or an attempt to gain privileges within it.
Just two data points, but I have zero reason to believe what sounds like transphobic rationalization.
I personally can't comprehend why anyone would want to change their gender, but my dogs can't comprehend why I like salads. Nonetheless, they let me enjoy my dinner. I try to be like them.
For women, in constrast, the most important thing to signal is their capability of carrying a baby to term, and the primary way they do that is through physical traits. Though with plastic surgery and cosmetics subverting the signal on the one hand, and with better medical science capable of saving mother and child from many issues on the other, it is becoming less relevant.
Edit: Though keep in mind that this is my speculation, and furthermore a broad strokes picture and there is huge individual variation.
So, women will take into account a man's physical appearance, but also his social standing is also very important, plus perceived intelligence and dependability and so on.
When men look at women, physical beauty is paramount. Intelligence and so on is a plus, but not nearly to the extent that it is for women looking at men.
The other part of the explanation is menopause. Humans live long past the age of sexual fertility, which is somewhat unusual in the animal kingdom. Presumably, ancient human social structures made it beneficial to have grandparents around, in a way that does not exist for most other animals. Relative to other species, this puts more evolutionary pressure on human males to seek out females that are of reproductive age, and ignore older women.
The combination of these factors means that female physical appearance comes out as a prime selector in humans, in a way that it doesn't for other animal species. Male physical appearance is also significant, but relatively less important because of other factors, especially a male's status in the social hierarchy.
Anyway, that's my explanation, but I wouldn't hold any of this as a firm belief. Coming up with evolutionary psychological explanations for sex differences is easy. Actually testing them is much harder.
Interesting take. Do you reckon this happened for long enough in human history that it's had an impact on the evolution on the male psyche?
I'm under the impression that it's only in the last 1000 years or so where life beyond 30-40 years started to become the norm.
You have a common misconception about human longevity. The "average" lifespan of humans was only 30 -40 years because very young humans would frequently die from disease or accidents. Humans have been capable of living to 70+ years for many millenia, it was just rare. 50 yearold humans were not rare though. The average is low because of infant and childhood mortality.
> We propose that these biases stem from cultural norms linking femininity with beauty
This is probably it. The "beauty" industry, which almost entirely targets women and girls with its predatory messaging, is a multi-billion dollar market and they do everything they can to promote this as an ideology. To the point where it's become embedded in culture.
_Algernon_•4h ago
I disagree with their premise that this impact is "likely minimal". I also would want to know what percentage "most studies" refers to.