- Women’s faces rated more attractive than men’s across cultures, sexes, and ages
- Average female face found more attractive than nearly 60 percent of male faces
- Softer, rounder female facial features increase attractiveness regardless of rater’s sex
Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man, wrote that human beings differ from most animal species. In 1871, he noted that women are considered more ornamental and beautiful than men. However, in the animal kingdom, males often have more striking features.
But this was only a theory with no scientific proof or data to support these claims. However, a recent study, The Gender Attractiveness Gap, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a Royal Society journal, presents a large-scale cross-cultural meta-analysis of same- and opposite-sex ratings of facial attractiveness.
Guess what? Women's faces were rated more attractive than men's. This finding was common across rater cultures, sexes, age groups, and ethnicities. But this gender gap quickly disappeared when participants were asked to rate themselves.
Which Sex Is More Attractive
The study aimed to understand which of the two sexes is more attractive. The lead author, Eugen Wassiliwizky, and his team included 52 studies from 76 countries in the analysis. The final database had 17,000 faces, with 30,000 people - primarily heterosexual men and women - rating them.
The study analysed the attractiveness of faces. This included studying whether facial expressions or wearing masks had any impact on the parameters. This was studied across ethnicities, including Asian, African, Middle Eastern, Caucasian, Latino, and multi-ethnic groups.
The researchers also studied what made women appear more attractive across cultures and whether cultural biases, evolution, societal stereotypes, or physical factors played a role in this gender gap.
The study had neutral images with the least amount of background noise, but it acknowledged the effect of self-grooming over the years, before the pictures were taken. Grooming was not limited to makeup and hairstyles. Also, photo quality, cultural beauty standards, and lighting shaped every image.
The study also concluded that the gender attractiveness gap diminishes as individuals get older because facial features shrink and become less defined. Photo: Pexels
Women Are More Attractive Than Men
The researchers not only studied the biological and social forces that deem women the more attractive sex, but they also applied morphometry, a mathematical approach to study facial structures.
They took into account two interfering factors - first, people underrate older individuals, and second, people tend to overrate faces that are closer to the 'average' attractiveness score.
After taking all the factors and interfering patterns into account, the study found that an average female face is more attractive than nearly 60% of male faces. The researchers also altered the pictures. As soon as they reduced the feminine features, the attractiveness rate started dropping, proving that softer features and rounder faces of women make them appear more attractive, irrespective of the sexual preferences of the raters.
Wassiliwizky also suggested that years of evolution shaped present-day female faces, but there is no evidence to support it. This same study also concluded that the gender attractiveness gap diminishes as individuals get older because facial features shrink and become less defined.
Women Rated Women More Attractive
Women found women more attractive than men - it was a surprising finding. To all the girls raving about their girl crushes, this suggests that women may find other women more attractive.
The findings left the researchers perplexed because they thought it was a statistical error of including more societally 'attractive' female faces than male ones. However, they noted that the graph remained smooth, with no bias playing out.
This not only contradicted but also challenged Darwin's theory of natural selection, which notes attractiveness as a function of survival. It claims that a male finds a female attractive because of the natural tendency to procreate.
However, women finding other women attractive made scientists question whether the concept of attractiveness extends beyond evolutionary forces.
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